Her experiment is not only a lesson on social discrimination, but also in education: how to be a good teacher, how to focus on the lesson rather than emotion. For example, she has repeated this experiment on several groups of students and adults, and once when applied on a group of inmates in a prison, the adults reacted very badly. She maintained her composure, responded logically, without losing her focus on the subject -- that is, what she wanted to prove or teach. These classes are recorded in video and are available in the website. I suggest everyone watch these videos and take the lessons home.
A Personal Experience:
Regarding discrimination, after watching the videos I can recall how similar my feelings were when treated as inferior on a few situations earlier, especially as a boy. I still remember an occasion when one of my family members compared me with some children who were around, during a party, citing they were more cheerful and smarter than me. That person said it was because they were English medium students (I was doing my school in my mother tongue -- Malayalam). Ever since, I thought I was inferior to every English medium student. It was a really bad feeling, rather painful and shameful -- a feeling of inferiority. Though I had long forgotten this incident, I remembered it two or three years ago when a person, after talking at length with me in English, asked which medium I finished my school in. I said it was Malayalam. And he was astonished and gave me a strange look, partly in doubt and partly in amazement. I asked the reason. He told me that I spoke good English, I finished my post-graduation in a top engineering college of India, and besides, I was planning for higher studies. He continued that he could not believe that a person educated in vernacular language could do so. These are his comments. I'm not here to say that I am smart, but to point out a wrong belief prevailing among the people -- that people who are schooled in their local language are inferior to English medium students! See how this belief becomes a source of social discrimination. Just after writing this, I am reminded of our great former President: Dr. K. R. Narayanan, who struggled and made his way from the lowest strata of the society, finally to become the President of India; I used to admire him very much.
In this world there are more stupid reasons to discriminate people. In India, they are religion, caste, colour, local language, and so on. While religion, caste etc. are universal sources of discrimination, local language should be typically Indian, I feel. Indians are not a single people; they are divided as Malayalis, Tamils, Kannadigas, Telugus, Marathis, Kashmiris, Panjabis, and so on. Or, even as North Indians and South Indians. To handle the Indian situation, to impart knowledge to Indian students, to keep the harmony between our people, I think, we need thousands of teachers like Jane Elliott.
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