A Class Divided Analysis Assignment

A Class Divided Analysis

Tatum explores the effects of racial discriminations in the classroom and reinforces the need for teachers avoiding racial conversations. Teachers should be racially conscious and ensure that the classroom environment is accommodating and comfortable for all the learners regardless of their racial identity. The video on the ‘A class divided’ demonstrates how teachers can sometimes fail to be racially conscious and engage conversations that discriminate some of the students in the class. From the video, the teacher critically undermined (A Class Divided English Subtitles).

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In her conversation, the teacher continuously pins the blue-eyed people by sarcastically telling the class how intelligent they are. The blue-eyed are the minority group in the class, and most of the time the teacher says something about them, the whole class bursts into laughter. The teacher says that blue-eyed people are better than brown-eyed people and the students refuse the claim as it was evident through their non-verbal communication. The conversation in the class indicates that the blue-eyed people have been pinned for some time and they are generally considered inferior compared to the brown eyed. For instance, it was evident that some of the students switched off and got pissed off by the lesson that they could no longer be part of the class; however, the teacher was not conscious about this (A Class Divided English Subtitles).

The minority students in the class felt intimidated and were uncomfortable being in the class. According to the concepts raised by Tatum, teachers must also measure their words and ensure their diction does not disadvantage part of the students in the class. A class should be a place where all learners are brought together a neutral ground, and they can freely interact with one another and exchange values.