We had an awesome youth council meetup over the weekend—our first since February! It was nice to get together with the crew for a physically-distant skate, awesome discussion, and some delicious falafel and chicken wraps.
In the week prior to the meetup, we had all the council members watch A Class Divided, a documentary about the social experiment that Jane Elliott pioneered with her third-grade class.
Set in small town Iowa in 1970, the film shows how Elliott, a school teacher, divides her all-white students by eye color, and bestows privilege on one group, while deriding the other. This simple experiment helped the students experience for a few hours a small glimpse into what life can be like for African Americans.
The documentary captures the same students getting together as adults, and talking about how that experience in Ms. Elliott’s class had impacted them. It is a powerful film and if you haven’t watched it, you should. Look it up on Youtube.
We had to keep this meetup small in order to maintain distance, but the 12 council members that came out had some amazing insights to the film (as usual) and a fun skate session with friends!