Kids on Race: Accepting all Colors in my Classroom

The other day in class we watched a bit of "Anderson Coopers 360: Kids on Race". Below is just a clip from what we watched in class.



I thought this was a really interesting study. However, not knowing that much about studies and research I found myself wondering somethings. The questions were posed in such a way that implied that the participants had to answer. They asked "which girl is the prettiest?" or "Point to the girl that is the good student?" which makes it sound like there is an answer. I started to think about this when some of the older students responded by saying that there was not enough information for them to answer the questions, and that all people are equal regardless of what their skin color was. So how do you decided if younger children in the study just answer because it seems like they have to or because they are showing biases? What if the questions were "Do you think any of these children are smarter than the others?" that to me would show more than just asking them which one.  While I do not know too much about research I do know that they look at the validity of the study to see if things were conducted appropriately. I would be curious to see what others would say about this study.

Another thing that I think is important to look at in the data is the other side. They said that "66% of students pointed to the darkest skinned child when asked to point to the mean child". The other side to that is 34% of children did not and what are they hearing and learning that is influencing their decisions.

Regardless of my knowledge of this study and research in general I think there is a message I can take away from this that will impact my teaching and when I am a parent some day. I want to make sure that the things I say and that my actions don't make any students think that one color over another is better or worse. That is not something I believe and therefor do not want it to be a message that students pick up. One of the expectations in my classroom will be that students work together and accept and cherish diversity and everyone differences. I will not only tell this to students but I will have activities in place that help the students to see this in action. That will just be one of the way we will begin to be a class that is not colorblind but one that accepts color regardless of the shade.