~Vince Gill
I don't know how long I will leave these posts up, but I know there's a community of you who are checking these out so this is for you. Since the election, I keep thinking about an experiment my fourth grade teacher did with our class. It was a rough experiment, not one that would have been done in more recent times (I think?).
In the morning, my teacher told us that kids with a certain eye color would be in charge. They could do whatever they wanted to the other kids. It was stuff along the lines of getting them to sharpen their pencils, tie their shoes, generally being bossy, saying things. I don't remember the details, what exactly was said to me or what I said. I think blue-eyed kids were in charge first. I remember being scared.
Halfway through the day, the teacher had things switch and the brown-eyed kids were in charge. She wanted everyone to have a chance to be afraid. I remember being relieved when it was our turn to be jerks -- she hadn't told us at the beginning that we would be switching, so the kids at the beginning didn't hold back.
My teacher wanted us all to see how it felt and how unfair it was. The people who could do whatever they wanted clearly weren't better than everyone else (although I think she told them that they were when it was their turn to be in charge!). Overall, I thought it was a pretty terrible day.
What I keep thinking about is how much some of the kids enjoyed it.
I am reading your posts, Tabatha, and for this one, it brings up the idea that everyone likes power, perhaps before feels powerless and blames it on the 'other'. I imagine it goes back to how comfortable each feels in his or her own body/skin. I had conversations with my students often enough about answering this question: "What kind of person would you be if no one was looking?" They had good answers, to me, but maybe even then, it was challenging to be honest. Thanks for all your own questioning!
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