[Music] 27 years ago when civil rights leader Martin Luther King jr. was assassinated grief and frustration erupted in America's cities and far away in Iowa one third-grade teacher knew she had to do something the shooting of Martin Luther King could not just be talked about and explained a way there was no way to explain this too low third graders in Riceville Iowa I knew that it was time to deal with this in a concrete way not just talk about it because we had talked about racism since the first day of school it was a daring experiment in the prejudice I watched wonderful thoughtful children turn into can one teacher in one day change the lives of her students forever tonight a class divided autist 1984 a high school reunion brings some 50 former students to Riceville Iowa 11 of them some with their spouses and children arrived early for a special reunion with their former third-grade teacher Jane Elliott [Music] [Laughter] [Music] 14 years earlier when they were students in her third-grade classroom ABC News filmed a two-day exercise for a documentary the eye of the storm now at their request they will see that film again and relive the experience of her unique lesson in discrimination [Music] my sweet this is a special week does anybody know what it is national Brotherhood week what's Brotherhood be kind to your brothers treat everyone the way you would like to be treated treat everyone as though he was your brother and is there anyone in this United States that we do not treat as our brothers yes black people who else in absolutely the Indians and when you see when many people see a black person or a yellow person or a red person what do they think look at the dumb people what else do they think sometimes what kinds of things do they say about black people in a city many places in the United States how are black people treated how are indians treated how are people who are of a different color than we are they don't get anything in this world why is that because they're different color do you think you know how I would feel to be judged by the color of your skin I don't do you think you do no I don't think you'd know how that felt unless you had been through it would you it might be interesting to judge people today by the color of their eyes would you like to try this sounds like fun doesn't it since I'm the teacher and I have blue eyes I think maybe the blue-eyed people should be on top the first day I mean the blue-eyed people are the better people in this room oh yes they are mm-hmm all right people are smarter than brown eyed people [Music] are you sure dad cried you know one day you came to school and you told us that he kicked you he dude do you think a blue-eyed father would kick his son brings daddy's blue-eyed he's never kicked him but Rex is dead blue eyed he's never kicked him this is a this is a fact blue eyed people are better than brown eyed people are you brown eyed or blue eyed hello why are you shaking your head are you sure that you're right why what makes you so sure that you're right blue eyed people get 5 extra minutes of recess while the right people have to stay in the brown eyed people do not get to use the drinking fountain you'll have to use the paper cups you brown eyed people are not to play with the blue eyed people on the playground because you are not as good as blue-eyed people well the brown eyed people in this room today are going to wear collars so that we can tell from a distance what color your eyes are on page 127 127 is everyone ready everyone but Laurie ready Laurie she's a brown-eyed you'll begin to notice today that we spend a great deal of time waiting for brown-eyed people the yardsticks dog well okay I don't see the yardstick to you oh you think if the brown-eyed people get out of hand that would be the thing to use who goes first to lunch the blue-eyed people no brown-eyed people go back for seconds blue-eyed people may go back for seconds brown-eyed people do not run don't you know that damn reason might take too much [Music] and it seems like when we were down on the bottom everything bad was happening to us the way they treated you you felt like you didn't even want to try to do anything seem like mrs. Elliott was taking our best friends away from us [Music] what happened at recess for two of you boys fighting John what happened John that's so Pony names [Music] [Music] yeah what's wrong with being called bride it means that we're stupid wrong like that Oh same way as other people call black people yeah that's the reason you're hitting John did it help did it stop him they make you feel better inside mmm make you feel better inside it make you feel better to call him brown eyes why do you suppose you're calling brown eyes Freddie 15 Seth the only reason he didn't call him brown eyes yesterday he had brown eyes yesterday didn't he get some pinkies always this teasing no well he what were you doing it for fun to be funny who are you doing it to be mean I don't know don't ask me did anyone laugh I watched what had been marvelous cooperative wonderful thoughtful children turn into nasty vicious discriminating little third graders in space of 15 minutes yesterday I told you that brown-eyed people aren't as good as blue-eyed people that wasn't true I lied to you yesterday the truth is that brown-eyed people are better than blue-eyed people [Music] Russell where are your glasses I forgot them you forgot them and what color are your eyes Suzan ginder has brown eyes she didn't forget her glasses Russell ring has blue eyes and what about his glasses he forgot them yesterday we were visiting and Greg said boy I like to hit my little sister as hard as I can that's fun what does that tell you about blue-eyed people the brown-eyed people may take off their collars and each of you may put your collar on a loo eyed person the brown-eyed people get five extra minutes of recess you blue-eyed people are not allowed to be on the playground equipment at any time you blue-eyed people are not to play with the brown-eyed people brown-eyed people are better than blue-eyed people they're smarter than blue-eyed people and if you don't believe it look at Brian do blue-eyed people know how to sit in a chair very sad very very sad who can tell me what contraction should be in the first sentence throw the board and write it John come on let's do it again loosen up up come on that's better now do you know how to make a W okay write the contraction for we are now that's beautiful writing is that better yeah brown-eyed people learn fast don't they boy I do with brown-eyed people learn fast very good [Music] Gregg what did you do with that cup will you please go and get that cup and put your name on it and keep it at your desk blue-eyed people are wasteful okay it might be time this morning I news orton-gillingham phonics we used the card pack and the children the brown-eyed children were in the low class the first day and it took them five and a half minutes to get to the card pack the second day it took them two and a half minutes the only thing that had changed was the fact that now they were superior people couldn't you get them yesterday oh and you couldn't think as well with the collars on 4 minutes and 18 seconds I know how long did it take you yesterday 3 minutes how long did it take you today what happened when done why are you thinking of this I hate today because I'm glue I there's nothing it's not funny it's not fun it's not pleasant this is a filthy nasty word called discrimination we're treating people a certain way because they are different from the rest of us is that fair no nothing fair about it we didn't say this was going to be a Faraday did we and it isn't it's a horrid day ready what did you do people who are wearing new colors now find out today prison make your channel not up in the prison you're throwing the key away should the color of some other person's eyes have anything to do with how you treat them no all right then should the color of their skin no should you judge people no no I the color of their skin no you're going to say that today and this week and probably all the time you're in this room you'll say no mrs. alley every time I asked that question no then when you see a black man or an Indian or someone walking down the street are you gonna say does it make any difference whether their skin is black or white or yellow or red is that how you decide whether people are good or bad what makes people good or bad let's take these collars off would you like to do with them go ahead now you know a little bit more than you knew at the beginning of this way do you know a little bit more than you wanted to yeah this isn't an easy way to learn this is it okay now let's all sit down here together blue eyes and brown eyes hey listen okay now we're back that you have make any difference in the kind of person you are does that feel like being home again girls [Music] [Applause] [Laughter] this was the third time Jane Elliott had taught her lesson in discrimination the first two years earlier was in April of 1968 on the day after Martin Luther King was killed by one of my students came into the room and said they shot a king last night mrs. Elliott why'd they shoot that King I knew the night before that it was time to deal with this in a concrete way not just talk about it because we had talked about racism since the first day of school but the shooting of Martin Luther King who had been one of our heroes of the month in February could not just be talked about and explained away there was no way to explain this to low third graders in Riceville Iowa as I listened to the white male commentators on TV the night before I was hearing things like who's going to hold your people together as they interviewed black leaders what are they going to do who's going to control your people as though this was these people were subhuman and someone was going to have to step in there and control them they said things like when we lost our leader his widow helped to hold us together who's going to hold them together and the attitude was so arrogant and so condescending and so ungodly that I thought if white male adults react this way what are my third graders going to do how are they going to react to this thing I was ironing the teepee we studied an Indian unit we made a teepee every year the first year the students would make the teepee out of pieces of sheet we'd sew it together and the next year we decorate it with Indian symbols I was ironing the previous year's teepee getting it ready to be decorated the next day and I thought of what we had done with the Indians we haven't made much progress in these 200-300 years and I thought this is the time now to teach them really what the Sioux Indian prayer that says oh great spirit keep me from ever judging a man until I have walked in his moccasins really means and for the next day I knew that my children were going to walk in someone else's moccasins for a day like it or lump but they were going to have to walk in someone else's moccasins I decided at that point that it was time to try the eye color thing which I had thought about men many times but had never used so the next day I introduced an eye color exercise in my classroom and split the class according to eye color and immediately created a microcosm of society in a third grade classroom Riceville hasn't changed much in the 17 years since then it's still a small farming community surrounded by corn fields its population is still under a thousand and it's still all white and all Christian and though Jane Elliott has continued to teach her a lesson in discrimination there's been little outward local reaction no objections from school authorities or the parents of the 300 odd students who have by now been through it the reunion of her former third graders was Jane Elliot's first chance to find out how much of her lessons her students had retained Raven why I wanna know why you were so eager to discriminate against the rest of these kids yeah at the end of the day I thought the miserable little Nazi really I just I couldn't stand you it felt tremendously evil you could all your inhibitions were gone and no matter if they were my friends or not any pent-up hostilities or aggressions that these kids had ever caused you you had a chance to get it all out it felt like I was a king like happy you know and you did it all day yeah how did you feel when you were the out-group boy that day after we went home who gonna talk about hating somebody it was there you hated me yeah of what you were putting us through nobody likes to be looked down upon nobody likes to be hated teased or discriminated against and it just boggles up inside of you you you just get so mad where you're just angry or was there more than that I felt demoralized humiliated is the learning worth the agony yeah it made everything a lot different than what it was you uh we was a lot better family all together even in our houses we was probably because it it was hard on you when you have your best friend one day and then he's your enemy the next it brings it out real real quick in you I don't know some of the remarks were the kinds of things I would have wished I could have programmed into them if I had been able to program them they're the things I would have wanted them to say some of the things were just mind-blowing you know you hear these people talking about you know different people how they're you know me difference and they'd like to have a mother country wish they'd go back to Africa you know and stuff sometimes I just wish I had that caller in my pocket I could whip it out and put it on and say wear this and put your put yourself in their place I wish they would go what I went over you know do what I went through we was at a softball game a couple weekends ago and there was a black you know I really and we hugged each other and everything and some people really look just like what are you doing with him you know and you just get this Bernie feeling insatiable let it out and put them through what we went through to find out they're not any different myself sometimes when I see some people together and I see how they act you know I think well that's black and then right in the next second don't even finish the thought I'm saying well I've seen whites do it I've seen other people do it it's not just the blacks it's everyone acts differently it's just the different color is what hits you first and then later as I said I only have finished that thought before I remember back when I was like that and I remember not you know everyone acts the same way it's just your way of thinking is the difference like one of my grandparents just somebody and they started talking about old times and they say the Japs and all this and that and they start you know holding that against them I think how'd you like to have been them Japanese Americans get sworn into this camp just because they happened to be part Japanese you know I I just calm down and think about it but when they get older they set in their ways and they're not gonna change when you get older I'll be set in my ways but they're different than that way when fellas absolutely enthralled Sandi dolmens statements that when my son comes home with the word and the other things that he hears downtown I say to him listen that isn't the way we judge people you don't judge people by how they look you judge them by what's on their inside not their outside I'm glad that she's teaching him not to hate because even though he does hear this from the other people he if he goes home anything's on mom and diet dad like the black people I'm gonna like him too so I don't think he's gonna pick nothing bad about it you chose your husband well he chose me taken you know they listened a lot of other people too so they're gonna end up kind of confused over it yeah kind of person you kids are or is he going to be the kind who judge people whether well he'll know right somewhat right from wrong the ideas he won't be judging him by their color but he won't know what we know fully having been through it he won't learn collar the prejudice Piermont dollar he won't look prejudice first handed yeah they don't learn to be prejudiced from us I mean they won't learn to discriminate between people from us they might he might hear from others but never from us okay what's it like to be married to somebody like that and I was gonna marry Sheila I knew it for my future that I was going into the military at first I thought is she gonna be able to handle being with all the different nationalities and then I read the storm read the book a class divided the class divided before we got married and before I joined the army and I said hey she's not gonna have any problems should every should every child have the exercise or should every teacher I think every school ought to implement something like this program in their in their early stages of education if Jane Elliot's lesson in discrimination changed the way these young people feel about discrimination and racism it also had a totally unexpected result the second year I did this exercise I gave little spelling tests math tests reading tests two weeks before the exercise each day of the exercise in two weeks later and almost without exception the students scores go up on the day they're on the top down on the day they're on the bottom and then maintain a higher level for the rest of the year after they've been through the exercise we sent some of those tests to Stanford University to the psychology department and they did a sort of an informal review of them and they said that what's happening here is kids academic ability is being changed in a 24 hour period and that isn't possible but it's happening something very strange is happening to these children because suddenly they're finding out how really great they are and they are responding to what they know now they're able to do and it has happened consistently with third graders the film made of Jane Elliott's third graders in 1970 has been widely used with students and teachers and by government business and labor organizations concerned about human relations perhaps the most unusual use of it is here at Green Haven Correctional Facility a maximum-security prison in Stormville New York [Music] here in a sociology course taught by Professor Dewayne W Smith of Dutchess Community College is almost exclusively black and Hispanic classes have been seeing the film for more than 10 years what I'd like to do is introduce the subject of prejudice and discrimination through this film called the eye of the storm [Applause] [Applause] [Music] Sandra and her brown-eyed friends didn't like that day but did you think the children by this process really learned the meaning of the discrimination most of the children before the film started they had played and lived together in harmony and certain action of coming from the teacher and seeing the teacher has an authoritarian figure and someone to respect they accepted the views that was being given to him but I think in at the end of the lesson they would they could clearly see that prejudices and other forms of discrimination are things that people build within their minds and they're not actually actual physical barriers that say yo you can't cross the street the one kid I could really agree with was at recess it was a brown-eyed kid he had this inner turmoil against this feeling of being divided or prejudiced against where he would hit another kid that he is known for so many years in the gut whether he also stated that it didn't help any so that automatically should be a lesson to every adult in the world violence doesn't open and you know this is a film that I hope my children good to see unlike New York Iowa is 98% white anglo-saxon yet even here minority groups account for more than 20% of the prison population to make sure its prison system employees are sensitive to the concerns of this large minority the Iowa Department of Corrections last fall hired Jane Elliott to give her lesson to some of them the group which included prison guards and parole officers was told only that it would be attending a day-long workshop David Stokes buried most of our training you go to people give you information and you learn that way Lou I when I first came with the sign up and such and and got put in the group I didn't know when I start seeing the signs around you know brown eyes only in such I figured they were the better group because they had a lot of spaces available and and they were done for the blue eyes so when I got put in the blue eyes group and put the collar on and I I knew well then I was going to be in the deprived coop again okay now you can stay in this area the workshop was supposed to begin at 9:00 they took the brown eyes in about 9:00 and then left us standing in the hall but I'd literally stood because there weren't enough chairs and I didn't know whether or not I'd wanted to fight to take a chair down it and know if somebody'd come and take the chair away from me if I did while David Stokes Barry and the other blue-eyed people waited inside the meeting room Jane Elliott prepared the brown-eyed people for what was going to happen now this is not something I can do alone this exercise won't work without your cooperation blue eyed people aren't allowed to smoke blue eyed people aren't allowed to sit in these empty chairs do not let a blue-eyed person sitting next to you you know you can't trust them and besides which they don't smell good everybody knows that about blue-eyed people you don't know what you can catch from a blue-eyed person by 9:20 I felt someone tagging and I'm stuck out here for 20 minutes standing waiting I still say we always see what kind of reaction we'd get by everyone just simply going in no one wants to do opposed and by all senior song we shall overcome I need to have you keep it down I don't how many times I need to give that instruction but you need to keep it down so you don't bother the people in the little workshop mm-hmm I was pretty well ticked off by the time we got taken in their home person already pointed at your own feet have you butchered person to coat the coin it would be to your advantage in the future people if you'd get to meetings on time it would also be to your advantage if you'd put your gum away put your gum away you want to get paid for today well then stay but put your gum away I'm sure that you are inventive enough to find a place for the gum now I'd like for you to notice where she put her gum you have this problem with blue-eyed people you gives them give them something decent and they just wreck it you'll also notice that blue-eyed people spend a lot of time playing look at me see how cute I am I can be funny I can make a joke of this this is amusing I'm amused by this another thing that is obvious about blue-eyed people is that they're poor listeners the first thing you have to do when you get when you're teaching in a segregated situation when you're working in a segregated situation is teach the listening skills the listening skills are number one good listeners have quiet hands feet and miles everyone needs to write these down I'd like for you to look at the man in the back in the black jacket the game we're playing is playing it cool this is a favorite blue eyed game playing it cool nobody can bother me man I can handle this I don't have to do this I'm gonna ignore this whole thing number two good listeners keep their eyes on the person who is speaking I take it you don't have a pencil you're you perhaps you could borrow one from one of your neighbors sir I realize that you feel that you don't need to write it down but whether or not you write it down perhaps you could remember it good listeners have quiet hands feet and miles do you know what that means I'm not sure I believe that do you want me to explain it to you ok I'll get a pencil and write this down directly look blue-eyed people all many of you have pencils well one of you please lend him a pencil or don't you trust me which I can understand from the last 10 minutes what have you observed about blue-eyed people you lie people are very stubborn very self-centered and wish to control as much of their surrounding as possible people that wise I mean very inconsiderate people I don't even know what you're having here in the first place we have them here because we are required to have them here this is one of the things you have to put up with number three good listeners listen from the beginning to the very end okay good listeners decide to learn something and this is the thing you'll have the most difficulty with with relied people they decide not to learn something some of you have had trouble with blue-eyed people in your home environment some of you have had trouble with blue-eyed people in your workplace does anybody have an example of that that they'd like to talk about anyone two nephews ones blue eye and one brown eye and the blue eye one that King never cleans his room and he's real lazy and the brown you know he doesn't seem to have a lot of energy the blue eye one but the brown eye one he's draw outgoing and he plays in sports and then he's pretty good at it you know he just seems like a better kid so if I have kids I hope they have brown eyes you are you married no I think it's a good thing you don't have kids in it right well you will know what to do when it's when you choose a mate right would you like to read that first listening skill to me have we got on that paper yet oh why is that I am the borrow the pencil to write it down as yet how do you think it's unnecessary at this particular point yes I do why well I have it in my head for the most part they're a base up there for it isn't their friend do you suppose you could tell me what it is it had something to do with keeping your hands and feet still that's something to do with that I find it interesting that you're amused by our having to stand here and wait for this man to do something that everybody else has already done I find that highly interesting stupid but interesting if if you are in a situation where someone is constantly constantly refusing to do what the people in authority ask them to do what do you know about them what do you know about that person well I think it's a game with them attention has it gained anything for this gentleman disrespected from I think for the brown-eyed people has it proven anything to brown-eyed people yeah this is a typical trait of a blue-eyed person I read the second one yeah I don't have the second one can I read it off right I don't have the second one either you have you are keeping it in your head what happened to that plan just them just the first one I had in my head not this the other three aren't important well they're probably more important but not important enough for you to write down right well they're important I should have written them down most probably most probably does anybody back there knows you don't have it written down either I want you to take a look at these two so-called gentlemen now we need to hear the good listening skills from you I don't want you to think that I'm badgering you boys but on the other hand on the other hand you're here to learn something and if you learn nothing else today it would be nice if you would learn the listening skills what do you know now about brown-eyed people that you didn't know before you about blue-eyed people that you didn't know before you came in here finding I'm gonna have to explain things a bit more explicitly to a blue-eyed person that I went to a brown that person how many times did I have to repeat the listening skills for Roger brother Rogers having a rough time two days man it was about six seven different times you think that's amusing Roger apparently somewhat amusing as part of the lesson the corrections department employees took a written test all right I need these names and the scores are just initials they are just an initial no last name no names how many eleven in Jordan or Charles I'm not sure thank you sir tell me the name again Jordan you can't read the name no I can't I can't make it out what's your name my name is chambers first name Janine and what was her score thanks you Riley with a 5e e Riley well a Riley please stand you know it's what you do to the image of blues with your behavior is unfortunate what you three people do to the image of women with your behavior really makes me angry the fact that you do this kind of thing and this kind of sloppy work reflects badly on women I resent that ee yes ma'am I'd really appreciate it if you'd call us by name when you say you three people we don't know who you're speaking to it could be anyone here my dear if you wanted me to call you by name you to put your name on your paper it's on my it was to be on your paper you didn't see my papers I didn't get your name either because it wasn't on your paper all right now how can one call you by your name if you don't care enough about your name to put it on your paper don't expect me to worry about it don't expect me to worry about it if you don't put it on your paper don't sit here and say my name is important to me after you have just deliberately not put it on your paper you're being totally unrealistic important to me I remember saying I like to know who you're speaking to you when you say you three then what should you do ask you to use my name which I did and where should your name of the bin right where it is on your paper and on my birth certificate is it on your paper no ma'am where'd you get a birth certificate same place you got out of a slot machine same as you did lady I think you're probably right about your own at least I know who my parents are ma'am being rude yes she's being inconsiderate very being uncooperative very being insulted yes are all those the things that we've accused blue-eyed people of being yes is she proving that we're right yes does anyone have any comments to make at this point do you feel that there are important blue-eyed people there are exceptions to every rule and what are those exceptions there are a few important blue eyed people very few you should think that you're one of them no that is why are you up there then I'm blue eyed the difference between you and me is I have a brown eyed husband and brown eyed offspring I've learned how to behave in a brown-eyed society and when you can act brown enough then you too can be where I am I wouldn't be where you are are you certain absolutely how'd you like where you are I love where I am you liked it so much that you don't even identify your self on your paper I don't need to lady her using the term lady where I'm concerned what you think she's trying to do is it ignorant or is it deliberately insulting I wouldn't say was deliberately insulting if it's ignorance she needs to be taught that to many of us the word lady is a pejorative I don't appreciate it it is it's a put-down and it's used to keep women in their place I'm sorry calling it by a correct name after this I won't be kind that was kindness on your part yes then you are sure come when a lady is a kindness then your problem is ignorant you shouldn't call me lady anytime you like I wouldn't do that to you no I really wouldn't I I think that and that's part of the problem is a total lack of awareness and what sexism amounts to and how much you contribute to the sexism that keeps you where you are it's not like where I am lady get up with this whole bunch of garbage just brown-eyed people's are no different than we are I hate to tell them that they have these false delusions and such are they being erected no you trained them very well I think that's what they did with the stormtroopers in Germany also you guys do a real good job sitting where do I think I am the Jews after a break for lunch Jane Elliott helped the corrections department employees analyze what had happened did you learn anything this morning I was powerless there was a sense of hopelessness I was angry I wanted to speak up and yet I at times I knew if I spoke up I'll be back in a powerless situation I'd be attacked a sense of hopelessness had you had you experienced that before I realized this morning that there are very few times in my life that I've ever been discriminated against very few and you are this uncomfortable in an hour and a half I was amazed at how uncomfortable I was in the first 15 minutes can you empathize it all then with blacks minority group members in this country I'm hoping better than before we tried to argue with you you you would use just the mere argument as the reason for us being lesser than the brown-eyed folks you know you couldn't win don't we do that every day I think I think some do yeah but I would hope that I never get so unreasonable I died you know the statements you were making were groundless and such and yet we couldn't argue with them because if we argued then we were argumentative and you know not listening and and getting out of our place and all that stuff and and that was frustrating to me and then frustrating to me was the other little green tags who are sitting on their hands my group here was I didn't think the boisterous enough in our opposition to the whole thing why didn't you people support one another why didn't the blue-eyed people who I people on this side just sat there and let's face it you're covered your asses right why did you just sit there I think that symptomatic of the problem as a whole we see that you know in society in general you see a few people who are making a lot of noise and the rest of people sitting back waiting to see what they're going to do okay as long as I was picking on you to him I was leaving you alone right right I'd say a lot of people accept that they let have a few people do their fighting form and they stand back and and if this person's gonna win then they'll get on this side if that person's not gonna win they'll stay back over here you know that's just how it works if you were in a real situation where you had to do something about racism well just would you stand up and be counted what I would do I don't know it would depend on the existing I couldn't go home tonight and face my kids if I didn't how did you brown eyed people feel while this was going on did you have the right color eyes absolutely I really understood at least I felt that I understood what it was like to be in the minority why are you angry first of all because it was unreasonable secondly because I felt discriminated against thirdly I think that all of us everyone in this room has dealt with discrimination on both sides you don't have to be black or Jewish or Mexican or anything else to have felt discrimination in your life and as you become an adult you learn to deal with those feelings within yourself you learn to handle those and when you feel yourself in a situation that you can't get out of which we couldn't we were a captive audience and it was not a normal situation because normally aren't badgered what if you had to spend the rest of your life this way I don't know how to answer that you don't wake up every morning knowing that you're different you wake up as a white woman who is going to her job at 8 o'clock whatever where a black person is going to wake up knowing for a minute they get up out of the bed and look in the mirror they're black and they have to deal with the problems they've had to deal with ever since they were young and realize that I am different and I have to deal with life differently things are different for me and I don't think you can really say that you have felt maybe it felt some sort of discrimination but you haven't felt what it is like for a black woman to go through the daily experiences of arguing and saying listen to me my point of view is good you know what I have to offer here is good and no one wants to listen because white is right that's the way things are I think the necessity for this exercise is a crime no I don't want to see it used more widely I want to see it's the necessity for it wiped out and I think if educators were determined that we could be very instrumental in wiping out the necessity for this exercise but I want to see something used I'd like to see this exercise used with all teachers all administrators but certainly not with all students unless unless it's done by people who are doing it for the right reasons and in the white right way I think you could damage a child with this exercise very very easily and I would never suggest that everybody should use it I think you could have training classes for teachers bring them in put them through the thing explain what happened do the debriefing and then practice doing this until teachers until a group of teachers were able to do it on their own and I'd that teachers are not disabled learners they could learn to do this obviously if I can do it most anyone can do it it doesn't take a super teacher to do this exercise what began in a third-grade classroom has spread from students to teachers to corrections officers at the center is still a single teacher determined to inoculate her students both young and old against the virus of bigotry after you do this exercise when the debriefing starts when the pain is over and you're all back together and you're all one again you find out how society could be if we really believed all this stuff that we preach if we really acted that way you can feel as good about one another's those kids feel about one another after this exercise is over you create instant cousins I thought maybe that lasted just while they were in my classroom because of my superior influence but indeed these kids still feel that way about one another they said yesterday over and over the remark was made we're kind of like a family now they found out how to hurt one another and they found out how it feels to be hurt in that way and they refused to hurt one another that way again and they said we're kind of like a family now and indeed we were [Music] you [Music] you [Music]