Who else went to an elementary school that had "segregation day"?

[Halcy Caritas]

Basically, on the day of, every student in the 3rd/4th grade (I forgot which one) was given a random sticker. Kids with sticker color A represented "Whites". Kids with sticker color B represented "Colored". Kids with sticker color C were those whose parents opted out of the experience. A/B were randomly assigned. There were way more kids with A than B.

1. A's got to sit in the front of their classes. B's were forced to the back.
2. A's got to sit wherever they wanted for lunch and got to get their food first. B's had to wait and had to sit bunched up in one table.
3. A's got to have recess and run wherever they wanted. B's were forced to stay in a part of the outside area that had no playground where you could only sit and do nothing or scream about how unfair it was.

At the end of the day, all the students had to reflect on their experiences as an A or B.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? This happened in a very diverse part of Texas.

 

[Deleted member 2171]

Yes, we did this in third grade in Nebraska. Our version was only in the classroom itself though, the A group only had to do something like a 10 question test and they'd be given 5 wrong answers converted to correct for free, while everyone else had to do a 50 answer test and wrong answers counted double. also the A group could ask for help from the teacher while doing the test.

 

[Banzai]

Sounds interesting. I would hope that every A kid is a B kid the next year and vice versa.

 

[bry]

Not that I remember.
Thats an interesting experience though

 

[Deleted member 12790]

Nope, but in sex ed in like the 7th grade, they dipped certain kids hands in paint and had kids go around shaking hands with one another, and in the end, if you had any paint on your hands that meant you had gotten an STD.

EDIT: In Houston.

 

[ratcliffja]

That seems like a good exercise. It's a lot better than ignoring it like so many other schools do. We have to confront these things because our past is still very much our present.

 

[mac]

Wow. How do you feel having gone through that?

 

[Halcy Caritas]

Wow. How do you feel having gone through that?

Click to shrink...

I was a B and I remember joining in on the screaming during recess. I did feel like it gave me a different perspective on the past. However, it's not something that I think about often.

 

[tintskuecha]

That sounds interesting, and I think something I'd support. My school didn't do that. I'm pretty sure there would be a revolt if they attempted it

 

[Driggonny]

Yes, actually, my elementary school in Texas did do that. I was assigned to be "black" and I remember being extremely frustrated. We had a notebook to write about our experience and all I wrote was something like "this is stupid!!!" And that gave me 100 for the experience lol.

I wonder if that affected how I view race today

Also, I wonder how it affected the people who were assigned "white." Were they like "this is awesome white supremacy woo" or sad because their friends couldn't play with them despite the advantages

 

[ThanksgivingDinner]

I didn't have that, but I had a week long segregation thing in 3rd grade (early 90s), where the teacher would pick a color of hair, color of eyes, length of hair, etc., and allow those kids to go to recess on time, while the rest of us had to wait 5 minutes.

I remember how shitty I felt and how unfair it was. If my memory is correct there was one kid that didn't have to stay.

 

[wandering]

I didn't experience that; instead our elementary school had us do reenactments of the Civil War without really talking about slavery much, which had the effect of all the fifth graders thinking "This is awesome!" In retrospect, it was a pretty dumb thing to do.

 

[Cvie]

I remember we did something like this but we were split up and discriminated by hair/eye colour i think not told we were different races.

Australia here

 

[Conciliator]

I think this traditionally comes from Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes experiment

I learned about all this stuff later since when I went to my southern, 75% white high school in the 90s we were basically taught that racism was an old thing from the past that was fixed in the 60s and now there's absolutely no problems.

 

[Bold One]

W
T
F
?
!!!

 

[TheBeardedOne]

What the Hell?

No, my school never did that. I've never even heard of it being a thing before, and am kind of surprised to be honest.

There wasn't a lot of diversity at the schools I went to, though.

 

[Banana Aeon]

I did. I was living in West Virginia at the time, so I'm pretty sure any lesson to be found was ignored.

 

[skeezx]

in first grade they did a thing on MLK day where they brought cake and white kids couldn't have any. in retrospect seems like a poorly thought out "lesson" for 9 year olds but it was the 80s, there were different ways with grappling with that stuff i guess

 

[Mr_Black]

Sounds like an interesting idea. Probably have to be longer than a day though. Maybe weeks or months.

I'm all for fucking with kids' psyches as long as it ends up in a teachable lesson that would instill a good sense of civic values.

 

[BarryAllen]

Yup we also did that go to prison and meet inmates thing. Forever traumatized at 11

 

[Deleted member 25702]

That's just The Wave, right? They would just play the TV-movie for us.

 

[nel e nel]

I think this traditionally comes from Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes experiment

I learned about all this stuff later since when I went to my southern, 75% white high school in the 90s we were basically taught that racism was an old thing from the past that was fixed in the 60s and now there's absolutely no problems.

Click to shrink...

Don't think it, know it. I did this in the third grade back in the 81-82.

She first did it the day after MLK was assassinated.

 

[Snack12367]

My school did this. They stopped after three hours because one kid got so upset he ran away from the school.

It did make me reflect, but it wasn't about race as much as it was identifying with the plight of Jewish people during WWII.

 

[lukeskymac]

That oversimplification seems like it won't teach anyone anything. But maybe that's just me.