An embarrassed group of “disadvantaged” students was moved to the back of the room to symbolize victimhood while the more “privileged” students were positioned up front.
in News
13-year-old students separated in class according to their privilege (www.libsoftiktok.com)
deletetheelite
24 Votes
I see where the teacher was going with this. It’s actually a neat exercise to do with a lot of folks. You may be surprised by the answers. This country is a melting pot for a reason. All of our races struggle. I’m your typical white lady from the south, but I ticked off more back ward steps than forward steps.
Edit: I grew up about 25 minutes south of Hendersonville. I know this area. It’s farmers and rich people.
The lady in the article mentioned her daughter’s friend was embarrassed that she couldn’t step forward if her family had ever told her she was smart, beautiful, and successful. I feel like rather than attacking the school, go investigate why the child felt that way. Maybe her home life is troubled. I’d be more worried about that than anything. You can find out a lot about what’s going on at home by asking questions like this.
I’ve read both your comments and my question is, why do you feel this is appropriate for school? What benefit is there from this exercise, except to divide and to fuel feelings of injustice, envy and shame? What did the students at the back feel at the end of this? What positive change came of their feelings? What did the students at the front feel at the end of this? What positive change came from that? Was positive change in any way part of the intent here?
If you read the comments, one person spoke of being part of such an exercise – I’m assuming he’s white because of his name and what he relayed – he took a step back at a point that conflicted with the teacher’s bias and was called to account for it. He was told, “That’s not what I meant” by the teacher, meaning that his personal experience didn’t count as it didn’t illustrate according to preconceived intent. Does that seem in good faith to you? In what scenario might this exercise actually be deliverable with good faith intent?
It is designed to cause conflict to no valid purpose. No one responding has any control over what happened to them in these scenarios and pointing them out in large groups like this is only designed to instill shame and resentment. It is granting legitimacy to victim-culture, and in some instances seems to insist that whites cannot be honest about bad things that happened to them because it mars the picture being presented. It is socially constructing a crabs-in-a-bucket mentality – as a southerner, you should grasp that meaning. Dragging everyone down to the same level over things no one taking part in the exercise can control. What are the participants supposed to do, in the end? How do they translate pity and empathy into meaningful action here?
Victims stay that way – when you see yourself as one, you cannot move forward as it is external forces holding you back. You are stuck and at the mercy of things beyond your control. Remove that mentality and, no matter how much of a victim one has been in reality, their future is wide open to them – they can change, therefore so can their circumstances. This does nothing but emotionally hobble people. And it is certainly not the business of a teacher.
I also see this as driving a further wedge between families. People who mostly stepped forward felt what? Shame? Were they meant to? How will they now react towards the pure goodwill of their loved ones?
People who mostly stepped back felt what? Also shame? Anger? Resentment? In what way will this exercise be beneficial to anyone?
Shame all around I’m guessing and really deep humiliation. I wouldn’t be comfortable at all doing this in a room of my peers and I’m a very bold, outgoing adult woman. This is so disgusting to me. Imagine how that would feel for kids whose friendship bridged an economic/racial/cultural gap? Could this time in class not have been better utilized? Even, perhaps, for something that didn’t make an entire room full of children feel like s**t? Something fun? Jesus. Remember when they’d just throw on some fun movie they taped off TV and fast forward through the commercials? Sigh.
These “teachers” fail to teach children to read, write, and solve problems, but they never fail to shove marxist post modern propaganda down the kids’ throats along with marxist transgender BS. This is how liberty dies.
This is completely insane. Literally. How exactly is this supposed to move humanity forward or help people?
Obviously, the goal of the shitshow isn’t to lift oppressed people up, but to bring everyone down equally. The road to owning nothing, being nothing, while a few own everything and control everything. I would recommend everyone works together to stop this insanity, and we discuss our differences and disagreements later .