My lad's just been describing today's goings on at school, which he says were the result of a government directive to all schools in the area.

They took year 5 & 6 kids in the hall this morning & split them into groups, depending on their eye colour, and made them go off into classrooms they don't normally occupy.

They told them that from now on, the brown eyed kids would only be attending school from 10am, because people with brown eyes are generally cleverer than others, so they don't need to spend as much time studying.

He's got green eyes, and they said that his group are of 'average' intelligence, so they'd be doing normal school hours.

The blue eyed kids were informed they'd have to do longer days - 8am -4pm because they are the stupidest. (He thought that was pretty funny, because my eyes are blue).

At the end of the day, they told them that this had all been an exercise to show them what it feels like to be discriminated against due to physical characteristics.

My son had guessed that was the score earlier on. & wasn't bothered, but he said that he'd felt anxious at first about being split up from his mates (all blue eyed lads).

But according to him, at lunch time, some of the blue-eyed children had been really upset & were crying - and one girl who he normally plays nicely with had told him to get lost & called him a 'green eyed freak' when he'd approached her, which he seemed fairly hacked off about.

They will be doing these kinds of exercises every day this week, at the instruction of the government.

Some people might think this is OK, because it's making them understand. But I think it's callous, unnecessary BS and the government needs to fuck right off with its political interfering. I could make my views known to the school, but at the end of the day, they're just following orders.

What do you make of it?

First question, I'm old school, what age is year 5 & 6?

He's in year 6 and is 10 years old.

*Edit* I forgot, he'd also been made to stand up in the hall at one point because he wears glasses. He hated that.

That ^

I'll bet none of the kids even noticed their difference in eye colour before today. But they certainly will from now on, won't they....

I can see what the exercise was supposed to achieve the "this is how it feels to be discriminated against" feeling but they did it by only discriminating against one group making the exercise in itself discriminatory.

Well I think the green eyed ones were supposed to feel bad about being labelled 'average' too - it's just that my lad couldn't care less (so long as he wasn't tricked into thinking he'd to put extra school time in).

Sounds a bit Common Purpose-ish to me.

Some of their group training exercises involve singling out individuals and subjecting them to prejudiced treatment. The idea is to show them how it feels to be discriminated against. What it's supposed to achieve is beyond me.
Some sort of weird mind-fuck business.

Well it also occurred to me that, while they're making the point about the wrongness of labeling people based on physical characteristics, it still highlights a difference in attitude, which is apparently perfectly acceptable to them, towards people of varying levels of academic ability, though that wasn't addressed at all. Yet many people who didn't do well at school have gone on to do well in adult life.

Like it's OK to look down on the ones who need extra help to grasp the 3 R's - just not because it's linked to their colour etc.

Not sure if I'm making too much out of it, but it bugged me.

So essentially they told them the discrimination they had just experienced was bollox.. ...

Some fucker must be getting paid a wad to think up shit like this.

Kids are too young to be taught discrimination. In fact, they should not learn it at all. A child does not automatically discriminate unless someone shows them how.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_%28novel%29

I would say it was a reenactment of this ^^^

My school did similar though we were around 14-15 at the time not ten.

It's anti-discrimination learning.

Here is the original experiment and subsequent examples.
A Class Divided

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/etc/view.html

I am very much supportive of it.

I don't like it Feather. My kids wouldn't be racist, because they've been brought up not to be. I don't want people playing with their heads.

I can see the merits of it, but as Gilly has pointed out, it actually drove some kids to tears.

Were I a parent, I'd be pissed. That is NOT what I'd be sending my kids to school for.

As has also been pointed out, children aren't born with prejudices and they'll have plenty of time to learn all about them as they grow up. Just as did we all, I suspect.

Gilly wrote:
Agreed.

& that's just what they are trying to do in my opinion.

Teaching children not to discriminate against people is a good thing, but what they did at your son's school is quite strange. For a start, it's a government initiative, but this is the same government that is responsible for the propaganda about disabled people being benefit scroungers.

I agree with DG, it is messing with their heads. Why not actively recruit more people with disabilities to get jobs in schools - or something productive like that? That would teach children that they can connect and form meaningful relationships with people who are different to themselves in all kinds of ways.

Is this kind of thing just paying lip service to the fact that a sinister kind of social engineering is afoot? The cynic in me thinks so, but I’m having trouble vocalising just why this doesn’t sit comfortably with me. It’s not cool that children were in tears either.

I love ya all dearly but you all have me a tad confused atm.
From the day you're born your head is being 'messed with'.
You could convincingly argue it is the very reason we send our kids to school.
"gimmie a child until they are seven" etc.

I see this as quite a revealing and positive way for children to not only try to understand but to actually experience discrimination, (and conversely, the negative effects being placed in a 'superior' position can have on your personality and demeanor).

Discrimination is a fact of life. (As are tears unfortunately).
Whether is gender, race, colour, appearance, religion, name your excuse ...... teaching kids what a hideous practice it is and how diminishes everyone involved can only be a good thing in my mind.

feather wrote:
I did think about that whilst typing "send my kid to school", feather.

I suppose the effect would be diminished if it were explained before the lesson began?

I'd still be pissed off if my child came home and told me that they had been crying because of it though.

Some of life's best and most important lessons come wrapped up in tears.

I'd be more pissed off if it wasn't tackled and my kid came home and topped themselves because they were the victim.

Slightly unusual, but perhaps a beneficial learning exercise?

Did it lead to you having a chat with him about discrimination what did you say, it's kind of awkward all this new teaching, I remember a while ago being round my friends and her youngest boy came home from school wondering about how he will know if he's gay and whether their pet dog was gay because he'd never had a girlfriend, this was obviously met with rapturous laughter from my direction, but a quick glance from his mother told me she could have done without a biological discussion of sexuality at 4pm in the afternoon with her 11yr old son

She told me afterwards it's like she's getting an education from her kids on a lot of these subjects and knows next to nothing about them herself, I'll have to get in touch with her see if they've done this at her local schools, she was brought up in a racist environment so I can imagine this will all be totally incomprehensible to her and she'll yet again feel undermined by the school.