Discrimination blue eyes and brown eyes

 In 1968, a time when racism and discrimination was spread around the United States and right after the death of a great man Martin Luther King; a 2^nd grade teacher from Iowa, named Jane Elliot made an experiment on her students to teach them about discrimination, and she taped it on video camera.

Elliot made the blue eyed and brown eyed experiment for three days. In day one she divided her class students into two groups, those with the blue eyes and those with the brown eyes. She started with favoring the blue eyed and herself, being blue eyed, over the brown eyed children in class. She gave the blue eyed extra time at recess and having to leave first for lunch, before the brown eyed. She even made the brown eyed children wear blue collars around their neck to recognize them from a distance. She also kept referring to them as brown eyed for any slack at work and treated them differently. At the end of the first day you can clearly see that the blue eyed felt superior over the brown eyed children.

The next day Elliot gave the brown eyed a privilege over the blue eyed. And the effects from the first day appeared almost the same but in reverse! The blue eyed felt inferior this time, their score dropped and they were slower in solving problems. Jane Elliot wanted to show both students how it feels to be discriminated against.

The experiment showed that children were willing to discriminate against their own classmates and even their friends. 15 years after the experiment Elliot made a reunion with the same students to show them the video and to talk about the experiment and their experience of it; the students said that it helped them to be less prejudiced as teens and young adults because they know the feeling.

1st Reflection

Cultural diversity is the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region. And it is the sum of different ways in which individuals are viewed in terms of way of life, religion, racial inclination, skin color, sexual orientation and personality. The term is also sometimes used to refer to multiculturalism within an organization. For example, laughing is, in most countries, a sign of happiness and joy; in Japan it is often a sign of confusion, embarrassment or insecure-ness.

In this course I think I will learn how to deal with different cultures and to accept different beliefs from different people around the world. So when I travel or visit another country I would know to respect whatever they do and observe the way they living their life, what do they like what do they dislike or get offended by, and the way they eat and what they eat.

Well, so far, I have not learnt as much from this course as I thought I would. Just maybe how to make a blog. Nevertheless, I have learnt a lot from our experienced teacher, who I will talk about next, and what I have learnt from him.

Hedley Butterfield, as a person is one of the nicest people I have ever met. He is so patient when it comes in teaching and so friendly. Mr. Butterfield is like the British version of Ibn Battuta the explorer he has been EVERYWHERE and knows a lot of other cultures and the way they live. He taught us the real meaning of cultural diversity all from his experience of life; the stories he has been through, really I can’t think of a better teacher, nay, person to teach about cultural diversity, he is the perfect guy for it. There’s a lot more to talk about the explorer Hedley, if there was a book about him it would’ve been a three chapters book.