Thursday, September 26, 2013

PERIOD 2: MRS. ELLIOT

You have been watching the documentary, A Class Divided. Please post a reflective comment about the film. What did you personally take away from this documentary?

24 comments:

kevin skirvin said...

This video was very interesting. This experimental way of teaching was a genius way to reach those kids. What surprised me the most was that the students grades improved when they were superior, and decreased when they were inferior. Not only that, but after the experiment was done their grades were consistently better. Overall, this film made me realize it is important to step into others shoes to see how they would feel.

Ryley Palladino period 2 said...

I thought that this film was a great demonstration of how people can be prejudice. Mrs.Elliot's experiment on her third grade class really affected them for the rest of their lives. In the reunion of all the children they all seemed to still not be racist or predjudice. I think that being racist and predjudice is a very bad thing and what mrs.Elliot taught her students really stuck with them for a long time.

Sam Kruse said...

I was very intrigued with this film. This documentary truly displayed how easily people can be prejudice, when they feel superior. I also found the activity the children participated in to be genius because it was an effective way to show the children, how discrimination was wrong. Once the children realized this, not only did they treat all others equally, but they raised their grades. Although racism isn't as much of an issue today, I firmly believe this activity should continuously be taught to young students.

Kayla Harrington said...

When viewing the film of "Mrs. Elliot" I found it to be very inspiring. Not only did she instill in the children that racism should not be accepted, but how it psychologically affects individual's mindsets. As the experiment was given I thought about how much our society is always singling out people just by groups whether that be race, weight, or class. Seeing that I want to be an elementary school teacher I found it to be very interesting how someone can affect what was said to be around 300 students. I took away how even the people with very little power in our world can have the most influence on how our culture is ruled. Overall the film taught me not only that everyone should stand up for themselves, but to voice their own opinions and not let superior people continue to take away what they think may be inferior ideas.

Maggie Tragakis said...

I think the experiment Mrs. Elliot tried with her students was well thought out and made a great impact on her class and film viewers. The idea of people needing to step in other's moccasins made more sense through this experiment. Children will never actually get how someone feels being discriminated against unless they have personally been discriminated against. Changing ones perspective on things can make a whole difference. I think this experiment should still be used on kids at a young age to get them to understand discrimination fully. I also find it interesting that an authority figure can make one believe what they want them too so quickly.

Rebecca Piscia said...

I thought that Mrs. Elliot's experiment was ingenious. Not only did it teach the children that prejudice and discrimination were wrong, but it taught adults the impact of how they act around their children. The third-graders were so impressionable and quick to believe whatever their teacher told them. This shows that they'll adopt whatever beliefs their parents have, so if their parents discriminate, they will too. I believe that all people should have the opportunity to experience this experiment and to feel what it's like to be an outsider so they can truly understand the effects of their actions.

Chris Clancy said...

I thought Mrs. Elliot's experiment was very insightful, beyond the years of hertime. It showedjust how impressionable young children are and if we can teachthings at a younger age they will hold those beliefs as adults so the era of discrimination can end for good. I think all people should go through this so they can really learn what it's like ot be discriminated aganst. However I did not think the color thing was appropriate.I personally would not want my childcolored even f it didn't hurt them.

Jackson Venditti said...

I thought this film was really awesome. I didn't know that anybody tried to do this kind of experiment before, and I thought it was an amazing idea that should be implemented everywhere. There's no doubt in my mind that this experiment had a huge affect on how those kids thought about all races and equality, after they were shown the same treatment. Mrs. Elliot made a huge statement by doing this for her students and really helped them along the road especially in those times.

Joey Bernatchez said...

I found the documentary we watched very inspiring and surprisingly funny at moments. The revelations revealed in this video about the young mind is amazing. It stood out to me how impressionable the young mind is. Many times people say that the most honest show of human character is in children about this age. The fact that their ideas were changed so greatly simply based around what Mrs. elliot told them is amazing. None of the students went against the discrimination and showed just how harmful it can be, especially amplified as it is in the real world. I believe Mrs. Elliot is one of if not the smartest unsung hero I have ever heard of and I have an extreme amount of respect for her.

Brian Hodgdon said...

I thought that what Mrs. Elliot did with her 3rd grade glass was really amazing. By giving the young kids such a good demonstration of what it is like to be discriminated against,Mrs. Elliot changed the way those children viewed discrimination for the rest of their life. I thought it was cool how they had the kids come back as adults and talk about how they had kept that lesson from 3rd grade with them over all the years. What Mrs. Elliot did was great and she changed many lives through her lessons.

Kevin Blackney said...

I was very inspired after watching the film about Mrs. Elliot and her class of third graders. She was so deliberate in the way she was able to teach the affects of discrimination. This film just goes to show what authority can do to persuade people and make them feel superior and better about themselves. The experiment clearly left an impression on the students as they continued to grow older and deal with discrimination in real life. I think the same type of teaching needs to be done for proper communication and manners in 2013.

Justin Beron said...

I thought that this video was very interesting, although I am not surprised by the results. Young children have no initial prejudice, only the amount that is forced on them by society or people around them. I think that this was a great experiment for Mrs. Elliot to conduct, it really showed how humans want to feel dominant over other, whether its because of skin tone or eye color. I also believe that this is something that should be repeated even today, although racism is not as big as it was back then it still exists and this activity could help to show children what it feels like to be discriminated against.

Unknown said...

I personally learned a lot from this documentary. Listening to a group of people and taking their advice is not always the best option. It is often more beneficial to take the road less traveled. The 3rd graders of Ms. Elliot's class acted the way they did because a majority of the students were discriminating. Not one student was brave enough to stand up for what they believed. They were 3rd graders after all, so hopefully as adults, they learned this lesson.

Jenna Thomas said...

Watching the film today makes me wonder why teachers don't do that lesson today. Children and adults can both learn so much if they both learned and felt what being discriminated against was like. I was surprised about the information about the children's test scores. I didn't realize how their mindset could switch that fast to the point where they actually thought they were stupid and did worse on their tests. I definitely think children should be introduced to this lesson to stop the discrimination that there is today.

Siobhan Burke said...

When watching this film I couldn't believe that this teacher was allowed to teach that lesson in that way, it was very creative of her and it obviously stuck with the young third graders, but in a classroom today that would never be allowed. If we had discriminatory problems a teacher would never be able to teach a lesson that way without getting a thousand phone calls from parents and administration. The film really shows how some times society needs to teach young minds, without pre-concieved ideas, in order to change things. This lesson had a huge impact on the children and will now prevent racism in their children and so on.

John Towne said...

I think the experiment the teacher carried out in the film was very clever. It was important to use children in her experiment as they are easier to convince something is true. I found it interesting that because one group of people believed they were better than the rest, they performed better in school. Since Mrs. Elliot’s results were as wished for, I believe other similar studies should have been done on other groups of people who typically came from a racist background.

Evan Kowaleski said...

When watching the film I was surprised of the teachers method of teaching discrimination to her third grade class. It was surprising how quickly the children turned on each other and how impressionable they were. It was interesting to see how their performances on tests and quizzes were related to the discrimination they experienced. This lesson seemed to work very well and should be taught more often, however no teacher could do this today without protest from over protective parents and administration.

joe p said...

I was very surprised to see that a teacher was so determined to teach children discrimination. I thought it would take years for whites to see the other side of things and connect with blacks; the children were unable to do that before the lessons. It is amazing how people are impacted by lessons at a young age and people like the teacher in the film are inspiring.

Mike Gallo said...

Mrs.Elliot was an intriguing video and a creative experiment. If not for the ethics of it I would like the see how multiple days or weeks of the discrimination would effect the 3rd graders. I was shocked by the results of the test scores. The fact that the children actually improved in just one day because of feeling superior tells us a lot about the human mind. When humans believe they are better and superior they perform that way. The children in this film were actually effected which tells me that 3rd grade teachers everywhere should be using similar experiments to maybe combat the recent bullying problems. Mrs. Elliot was a very entertaining film but also had a significant impact on its audience.

Adhu Krishnan said...

I was absent from class that day at a college presentation. Thanks.

Brendan Shunney said...

I was very surprised how well Mrs. Elliot's method of teaching her students about discrimination worked. She used a method of showing the kids how terrible it felt to be treated like you are less important than another person. This truly impacted the children because they were very upset at the end of the day because they were told that they were less important than some of their peers. I think this method was a very strong and powerful way to teach the children and i think it should have been used all around the U.S. at this time.

Max Foy said...

I was very surprised by the results Mrs. Elliot found in her excercise. I wasn't expecting the students intelligence to increase when they were "superior" to a group of students. I was even more surprised by the fact that the students intelligence remained at a higher level after the excercise. I think that these students learned a valuable lesson and that this lesson should be taught through the US for students in third grade. Boy, I wish my third grade teacher taught my class this lesson.

Brian Pu Ruiz said...

I saw the documentary " a class divided" which made me think about a comment one man said. "Your blue eyed and you said brown eyes are better, yet your teaching the class." The teacher answered that "yes i am blued eye, yet i married a brown eyed man and have brown eyed children... so i've been influenced by brown eyed people." This comment holds true to me because i am Guatemalan yet i consider my self more white american because of the environment i have grew up in is white. the way i dress and the way i act are all classified as white yet im not white. i don't belong to the white club, because I'm brown, and im not consider hispanic, yet i act white. my environment has influenced my, but i learned how to be myself and i consider myself both and all the cultures around me. the way i act and the way i dress doesn't determine what group i belong to , i am myself.

Adam Gibbs said...

I wasn't sure if we were supposed to comment on part 2 of the documentary, but I had some thoughts anyway. It was incredible and amusing to see Ms. Elliot's experiment performed on adults. Although one student still appeared to be a racist by the end of the lesson, it was clear that most of everyone else changed their mind about discrimination. Clearly, when someone is in authority, they can convince anyone of almost anything. No one in the class was brave enough to argue with Ms. Elliot because she was in control.