Getting Students to Resist Discrimination & Discover Their 'Real Selves'

Jane Elliot Video Clip Part 1
Jane Elliot Video Clip Part 2

When doing the presentation slides for my group’s presentation this week on using multimodal artefact to represent the videographer’s “true identity”, some issues struck me. One of which is the question on how do we, as teachers, get students to successfully recognise their “true selves” when they are made to believe they are of certain “selves/identities” based on the general society’s point of view?

Simply put, since the day an individual is borne, the individual has been subjected to a particular identity. As seen from the video of what Elliot did to her class of students with blue and brown eyes, we cannot help but see that students, who possess minds that are fresh and young, buy into whatever people say about them easily. As such, they internalise what is said of them and actually believe that they are what is said of them by others. As a result, they believe that they are of a certain “selves” which are given by the society. With such a phenomenon occurring, one cannot help but wonder how is it possible to get each student to see himself/herself as how they really are in person instead of how they are perceived by the society.

Let me draw a line between the definition of “identity” and “self” as they are not to be used interchangeably – “Identity” is imparted by others; while “self” is given by the person himself/herself. For instance, A male child may see himself as a girl, thus, he has defined his own “self”. However, due to his physicality which is of a boy, the people around him would identify him as a boy. From this, we see that the child’s “self” is a girl because this is what he has thought of himself as; but his identity is that of a boy because his identity is given by the people around him.

To me, it may be a tough road ahead if we are to make students see themselves as what they would see themselves as rather than what the society see them as. The reason is very simple. If one is to declare oneself as possessing a certain identity, one will have to get others to agree with one in order to successfully “possess” that certain identity. Let me give you an example – I can say that I am a girl. In fact, I can keep telling myself and everyone that. However, if nobody buys into this idea that I am a girl, I will forever be identified as being a boy. So, what is the point of me identifying myself as a girl when no one, other than myself, believes so? Hence, in this sense, we see that a person’s identity is very much bestowed by not the person himself/herself, but others.

Riding on the aforesaid point, we, as teachers, have to devise some ways to, first of all, get students to resist the identities given by others to them, and move on to discover their “true selves”. To do that, I think it would be helpful to show them the video clips of what Jane Elliot did, as well as the following video clip.

Taught to Self Hate Video Clip

Watching Jane Eliot’s clip and the clip above will let students see that everyone’s identity is actually given by other humans and everyone actually has the power to resist it. This can be done via disbelieving what others say about them, if they think what is said of them aren’t true. Then the next step is to get students to explore what their true selves are. This can be done by getting them to reflect on the things they do in their lives, their likes and dislikes, as well as getting responses from them based on given scenarios. One scenario could be:

One day, 10 children were told not to play at Railroad X because trains will be moving via it for the day. They are advised to play at Railroad Y, which will not be used that day, instead. However, 7 children did not heed the advice and were seen playing at Railroad X, while 3 other children heeded the advice and played at Railroad Y.
You are the worker who is in charge of shifting the directions of railroad. A train is fast approaching and there is not enough time for you to warn the children. You have to decide whether to shift the track to direct the approaching train to Railroad X or Y. What would you do? Why?

Students will have to reason with themselves and justify for their decisions, and through articulating their thoughts and exchanging views with their classmates, they will be able to know more of others, as well as their own selves. Additionally, after the discussion, they can write a short paragraph or two on what they think of themselves as well as what they think of some of their classmates, based on the answers and reasons they have given. Then, they will read them out, so that everyone will have an idea of how each student perceive his/her own self and how every student is being perceived by others.

After which, students will have some idea of what they “real selves” are, and they can get to the part where they create a multimodal artefact to show to others what they think they really are. The artifact would serve a persuasive function as I have mentioned earlier, we all need others to buy into our ideology in order to successfully possess identities that we want to have.