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?

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.

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.

I love ya all dearly but you all have me a tad confused atm.

An aspect of that lesson seems to me to be that trickery & deception are OK too.

You can look at that another way, they've shown children that authorities/people they might naturally trust, will use trickery and deception to create prejudices or try and divide the class.

It would be interesting to know if they sat down afterwards as a whole and discussed how they felt when they were told their eye colour was the superior or inferior one, whether those deemed superior had to listen to the experience of those deemed inferior, whether they naturally empathized with the victims of discrimination during or after the exercise.

You can look at that another way, they've shown children that authorities/people they might naturally trust, will use trickery and deception to create prejudices or try and divide the class.

It would be interesting to know if they sat down afterwards as a whole and discussed how they felt when they were told their eye colour was the superior or inferior one, whether those deemed superior had to listen to the experience of those deemed inferior, whether they naturally empathized with the victims of discrimination during or after the exercise.