Reducing Predjudice and Building Empathy in the Classroom

PDF of Text    -Initially, the thinking behind overturning the ruling that "separate but equal" was not a violation of the constitution  (originally put in place after the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling) was that it would yield a positive effect for minority learning. That is, it was posited that if segregation had a negative impact on minority students' self-esteem, then reversing segregation in school would lead to 1) an increase in minority students' self-esteem 2) reduce racial prejudice and 3) improve the classroom performance of minority students.    However, 15 years after the 1954 Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka ruling - that was not the case. Instead of seeing the predicted findings - several studies actually found that self-esteem in minority students decreased - while racial prejudice may have increased (according to early studies) - all the while their school performance was not improving.  So what gives?    Cue the introduction of Elliot Aronson and the creation of the Jigsaw Classroom (I really want to try this method!). Essentially, students are forced to work together to communicate information, regardless of gender or racial background. This method directly contrasts traditional teaching methods - in which teachers are the sole "expert" and students are vying for the teacher's limited time and resources. In the Jigsaw method - each student is responsible for learning a part of a lesson - and then they have to come together and teach each other what they have learned. That is, the focus is teamwork - as opposed to competition (e.g., whoever get the answer right when the teacher asks).   Furthermore, this method has been demonstrated in different classrooms across 4 decades now - and yet it is still only used in 15% of classrooms. I certainly had never even heard of it before reading out it in a Psych book. Why is that?