Sunday, December 31, 2006

Blue Eyes Brown Eyes. what does this mean for us?

January 15, 1929 Martin Luther King was born, he died April 4, 1968.

When, on April 5 1968, A person in Jane Elliotts class at junior school wanted to know why he was killed. She wanted her class to understand why Martin Luther King was killed .... the strangest things began....

A simple separation of the class by eye colour and in 15 minutes personalities changed, at lunch a fight broke out between a blued and browned eyed kid. The blued kids came up with ways to punich the browned eyed. The performance starts to change. Kids are now not performing as well or are performing better depending on what we are told them about what it means to be brown or blue eyed.

The keaness to pick on specific examples and translate the whole group. Speed with which perpsectives are changes. The use of the arguement to suggest that that is meaning full. ie blue eyed people that argue are proving that blue eyed people are argumentative and uncooporative.

And then there are the adults reactions.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/

  • Who are we?
  • How much do we really know?
  • What do we think?
  • Do we need a guide to help us how are feeling and fears into perspective and check (an inner light perhaps if not a God)?
  • This is so much more than just descrimination, it is about how we define ourselves and how we interact with people and how are brains actually work.
  • Is this how terrorists happen?
  • Do we really need to be protected from our selved like this?
  • Who is in control really?
  • What is freedom if this is possible?
  • Leadership is everything every day perhaps

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