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 In-Class Social Class Activity 
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Hey Guys,

I really enjoyed today's class, with both the standing-up exercise and the end-of-class role playing exercise. I think that these two exercises raise a lot of good talking points and I just wanted to start a thread a see what y'all thought.

Andy Ellis


Tue Feb 19, 2008 10:24 pm
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I also really enjoyed today's class. I must admit...I was caught a bit off guard, and it took me a while to catch on. I thought it was really interesting, and almost scary how true it was.

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Laura Serio


Wed Feb 20, 2008 6:15 am
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Class was great, but what I really got from the exercise at the end was the different resources each class had. As social class got lower so did the materials and people to work with, and also the treatment. The elite group was able to use the computer to make their paper nice and pretty, and so on down the line. Affluent got markers, middle class worked together with pencil and paper, and lower class worked separated. Now that I actually think about it when I was growing up in elementary school I could tell the differences between these classes during science projects. The elite brought theirs in on a pretty poster board with nice color printed pages etc. They had their parents help, while at the lower class they probably didn't have any help and if they turned one in it was evident they didn't have the resources other classes did. I just thought that was interesting.

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Chaise L. Swisher


Wed Feb 20, 2008 9:22 am
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I enjoyed it as well, but it really scared me at first. I tried to play along, but I felt like I failed drastically after the look I got. It really made me apprecieate never having those types of teachers or being in that kind of situation!

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Megan Van Hoy


Wed Feb 20, 2008 1:11 pm
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I also enjoyed the activities that we did in class. I feel like I had the same experience as Chaise in elementary school with being able to tell who was from which class due to the work they turned in, projects, etc. It was always very evident every year when it came time to do science projects. You could tell which kids had help and lots of resources to do their projects. They would always have those elaborate projects that were beyond their grade level that obviously required lots of help from their parents. Their boards would be filled with color and lots of pictures. Students from a lower class would sometimes not turn in a project at all (which could have been because they just couldn't get the board to even start the project), or their board would be very plain with pieces of notebook paper stuck on it. I realize that it is a hardship on some parents to have to buy extra materials for school projects. Now, I feel like if these kinds of projects are going to be assigned that maybe the schools should supply the materials to all the students to make it fair (if thats possible).

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Mallory Beck


Wed Feb 20, 2008 3:14 pm
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Gosh, Tuesday's activity was very interesting to say the least. I really enjoyed the first activity we did. It was interesting to see just how similar we all are but at the same time how different our backgrounds are. The activity that we did at the end of class was almost embarrassing to me. I really felt like I was in second grade all over again. It actually got me thinking a lot after class because of my own experiences. The elementary school I attended was a very small, rural school. I had just moved there from New York right before school started and looking back, I can almost understand now why I felt I was treated differently than the rest of my classmates. I had a few teachers who treated me bad just because I was a "city girl" and didn't belong in their community, and I had other teachers who treated me like I was so much smarter than the other students. It's interesting to look back on your own life now that we are all going to become educators and to maybe understand a little bit more about those teachers we loved and those we absolutely hated.


Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:31 am
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I really did enjoy the standing up activity...I also really enjoyed the other activity we did, especially since I was in the group that knew what was going on...I am sure if I had been in one of the other groups I would have been very confused and even scared! It really is crazy to think about how true the activity was...A real eye opener.

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Jayme Fox


Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:32 am
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I as all of you enjoyed all of the activities we did on Tuesday. The first activity we did was a very eye opening experience to see just how different everyone is in college and how we all come from different social and economic backgrounds. The second activity was interesting, it was a reminder a few teachers i had while growing up. You could tell that teachers just had a different attitude when it came to dealing with students who were from a lower economic background. I agree with all of the material that we read in class and the act Dr. Turner put on as well. All of these different teaching styles are very much still alive today, and it is sad. No matter the background of the student, all students have the same rights to a good education and teachers treating students differently, or being more leniant (sp?) with students from better economic background, in itself is pretty sad.

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Preston Bridges


Thu Feb 21, 2008 8:44 pm
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Those in class activities were very interesting. With the standing up activity I thought our class as a whole was not very diverse. Yes, we all had differences, but it did not seem to me that we had really extreme situations. The second activity was great as well. I was in the group that was allowed to work together to complete the assignment with pencil and paper. I did not realize at first what was going on when Dr. Turner would not allow the other group to work together. Our group soon caught on and thought it was funny. It was funny because we knew it was not real. It is so sad to know that this actually happens in many schools and classrooms. This was a real eye-opener on what not to do. I do not remember any extreme situations where this happen in classes when I was in school, but I am sure it did and I did not even realize it.

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Allyson Chambers


Fri Feb 22, 2008 3:19 pm
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I was in the second group and I remember her telling us that if we wanted to come back early and write on the board our answers that would be fine, we would just have to come early and hope that the "working class" did not steal the chalk. This I thought was weird cause I had never heard her say anything bad about anybody or sound this hateful so it just kind of shocked me and then I realized what was going on and it was really interesting to see the different sides that there could be.

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Jo Beth Pruitt


Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:40 pm
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This was interesting to me because I had never really been on that end of an example like this. I was always solidly "middle class" and had no problems with teachers. Honestly growing up it felt more like a behavioral thing to me, but looking at socio-economic class I think can have something to do with it. Because of their lower class some of those kids may act out because their parents are always working and aren't around to discipline them. Or maybe they just don't aspire to much so don't have as much motivation to do well in school. And if teachers treated you like we were treated on a daily basis, I can understand wanting to give up and just cause that teacher as much problems as possible. Like throwing books around.


Sat Feb 23, 2008 10:26 pm
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I definitely agree. I was in the last group so we got the worst of it. It was a real eye opener to see how different social classes get treated and how they feel about it. People still get treated like this and it's amazing how not much is being done, but that's just the way it's always been.

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Jenna Perry


Sun Feb 24, 2008 11:57 am
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I agree with Jenna, I feel that it is still present in todays schools. I was in the middle class group and when we were given our directions, I understood what was going on. But I was still definitely caught off guard when I back into the classroom. I think it was very smart idea for an activity dealing with social classes because I think everyone's eyes were opened.

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Elizabeth Griffin


Tue Feb 26, 2008 6:41 pm
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I enjoyed that class as well. During the activity in which she asked different questions and we had to stand up for each one that fit us I was surprised at how detailed I thought about each one. Especially the questions that involved money I was hesitant to stand for the position I fit. I think it is so weird that money is the main thing that people are timid about. Why is that?

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Megan Snyder


Wed Feb 27, 2008 6:09 pm
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I really enjoyed the inclass activity as well. Although in the beginning I was a little confused when she was kind of short with me when I started to go out into the hall like the two previous groups before mine. But then as we began the activity I figured out what was going on and I feel like it was a great activity to show what really goes on in schools. Which in a way is really sad because those kids who are in the "working class" really are treated the way she treated those 5 or 6 people on the outside row, they werent allowed to work together and then they were reprimanded for talking or making noise. And I feel that it just pushes them away even more! :cry:

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Melanie Klaus


Thu Feb 28, 2008 3:48 pm
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I honestly didn't enjoy this activity very much. Like a lot of other people it completely caught me off guard and I had no idea what was going on. I was in the working class group and all of a sudden Dr Turner just started treating us like dirt. I was already upset by the time I realized what was going on and it was too late for me to even care. I was completely shut off at that point. I do realize the point of it now but at the time, I was not amused by it.

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Julie Dean


Tue Mar 04, 2008 8:12 pm
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Julie,

I should have replied to you earlier. Sorry about that!

I know you were in gifted classes in school. Maybe one lesson you can take from the exercise is how quickly you shut down intellectually and emotionally in a less than optimal classroom. I wonder where you would be today if you had been educated in lower tracks?

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Gayle Turner


Tue Mar 18, 2008 10:57 am
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The really interesting thing about this exercise is on how many different levels and characteristics it covered. Its easy to use economics or social class as a parameter for this exercise. But what about faith, politics, sexual orientation, abilities, language, looks, social habits, and soooooo very many others. We will have to keep a watch on ourselves, to make sure our own values, ideas, faiths, and habit influence our students unduly.

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Robert W. Triplett


Tue Mar 18, 2008 11:16 am
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