While scanning my RSS feeds while eating lunch, a Buzzfeed Article caught my eye: “Parents Outraged Over Field Trip Where Students Re-Enacted Slavery And Were Called The N-Word“. This concerned a camp in MA where slavery was reenacted for a short period; the article did not indicate why the school did this. Naturally, the parents were incensed about this.
It brought back a memory to me of something that happened at Camp Hess Kramer one summer between 1969 and 1971. Camp back then was very isolated — you got no news of the outside word; there was no TV, Internet, and phone access was limited. Some kids had transistor radios, but those were usually left back in the cabins and not brought to activities. One day during discussion groups, some of the senior counselors came down and informed the camp there had been a coup, and there were new restrictions on Jews. I don’t remember all the details (I was between 9 and 11 at the time), but do remember we were herded together and segregated. A few hours later, we learned that nothing had really happened; the purpose of the exercise was to provide a taste of what it was like for Jews in Germany. There were discussions the next day about it. I recall hearing that some folks got in trouble for this, but it was many many years ago and I don’t recall all the details.
This brought to mind similar exercises that were done at the time, where one group was deemed “superior” based on some clearly meaningless characteristic — hair color, eye color — and this was used to teach people what it was like to be part of a minority group. I don’t know whether any of these efforts ultimately imparted the lessons desired. I’m also not sure whether something this overt would fly today — especially if you were putting children in an overlord or superior position (I remember too many stories of such positions being abused).
My question today is: Are there any exercises — either like this or otherwise — that can be used to teach sensensitivity. Is there away to adapt any of this to teach the subtle cues that people don’t realize they are doing. For example, could a camp environment (and I’m not involved with any camps in this way) have counselors, without telling the camp ahead of time, give slight and subtle preference based on some meaningless characteristic (last letter of last name, for example) to see if people can realize it, and then later discussion how they either saw or didn’t see the signs. Would something like this just not fly in today’s society?
As I said, this is more of a thought experiment than anything else. The Buzzfeed article got me thinking, and I tend to just let thoughts roll around my head during lunch.
