Analysis Of PBS Film: A Class Divided

A Class Divided The PBS film, “A Class Divided” is a chronicled reunion of the 1970 third grade class who were involved in an experiment conducted by their teacher named Jane Elliot. The exercise is known as “The Eye of the Storm” which dealt with prejudice and discrimination based on the children’s eye color. There were two distinct groups in her third grade classroom: the dominant group and the minority group. Elliot splits the class into blue eyed and brown eyed students and both groups would alternate from being in the dominant and minority group. She wanted the whole class to know how it felt to experience discrimination, prejudice, and show how it affects people.
The main focus of the film has to deal with the experiment of Jane Elliot base on the children’s eye color. The scene which also shows prejudice and discrimination that I will remember the most has to be at the beginning of “The Eye of the Storm”. The teacher tells the children: “today is special, it’s National Brotherhood Week” (PBS). Elliot explains to the children the meaning of Brotherhood, “Treat everyone the way you would like to be treated. Treat everyone as though he was your brother” (PBS). Then she asks them, “Is there anyone in this United States that we do not treat as our brothers?”(PBS) The way the

The children say black people and Indians. The children view people of different color skin as “dumb people” (PBS), and one boy even says, “Like they’re not part of this world. They don’t get anything in this world” (PBS). The teacher asks “why is that?” and the same boy says “because they’re a different color” (PBS). The type of prejudice and discrimination in this scene reminds me of how bad people, who are not part of the dominant group, had it back in those days. The unfair treatment of minority groups did not give them an equal opportunity to become successful in life because of the negative attitudes of the dominant