Just watched this pbs video with my dad: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/
This was NOT a lesson in how kids will treat each other differently based on eye color, or based on being separated. There may be things to be learned from that simple idea, but this was much different. This was an example of how kids will react when they are told they are inferior/superior by a trustworthy authority figure, someone they are asked to trust the judgement of every day, someone whom they must obey or be spanked at home. She, not the kids, equated the eye color to behaviors. They just reflected what she said. "Boy X is forgetful, what does that tell us about others with his eye color?" Girl X is stupid, etc. That was an experiment in propaganda and mind manipulation, not in being different. The kids were already different, and made no bones about it, had friends with different hair color, eye color, etc. This was an experiment similar to Nazi techniques. Very creepy. She told them they were stupid, and they performed more poorly, it didn't matter if she did it by groups or not. The kids didn't 'infer' any negative attributes, she overtly stated them as fact. Would it be considered acceptable teaching technique to tell kids they were stupid regardless of the eye color setup, and then make a video about how that affected them? That's what she did. The kids would have been happy to be friends across groups, but she forbade it. It's a lesson about the danger of media and public schools, both of which can promote a single approved agenda to every corner. Little else is more powerful than those two organizations in shaping culture.
This was NOT a lesson in how kids will treat each other differently based on eye color, or based on being separated. There may be things to be learned from that simple idea, but this was much different. This was an example of how kids will react when they are told they are inferior/superior by a trustworthy authority figure, someone they are asked to trust the judgement of every day, someone whom they must obey or be spanked at home. She, not the kids, equated the eye color to behaviors. They just reflected what she said. "Boy X is forgetful, what does that tell us about others with his eye color?" Girl X is stupid, etc. That was an experiment in propaganda and mind manipulation, not in being different. The kids were already different, and made no bones about it, had friends with different hair color, eye color, etc. This was an experiment similar to Nazi techniques. Very creepy. She told them they were stupid, and they performed more poorly, it didn't matter if she did it by groups or not. The kids didn't 'infer' any negative attributes, she overtly stated them as fact. Would it be considered acceptable teaching technique to tell kids they were stupid regardless of the eye color setup, and then make a video about how that affected them? That's what she did. The kids would have been happy to be friends across groups, but she forbade it. It's a lesson about the danger of media and public schools, both of which can promote a single approved agenda to every corner. Little else is more powerful than those two organizations in shaping culture.
KidReviewer