I listened to teacher Liselle, almost 1/2 a year ago, talk to the pre-K kids a lot about race and (skin) color. I had never done this with my daughter, as we personally have lots of friends of different races and assumed it not to be necessary. When I asked Liselle, she explained that you can’t just be color blind, because the children don’t just ignore differences. So she helps the children to understand that the world is wonderful because of our similarities AND our differences – read more of her thoughts and methods here.

Had I not gotten it it back then, at least today I would have really understood. I really hope MNS kids would score differently on the following test….

In a CNN study – I think fairly similar to the doll study they did in the 40s they asked kids a series of questions (“Who is smart?” “Who is bad?” “Who would you like as your friend?”) and showed them identical cartoon caracters that only differed in color.

(CNN) — A 5-year-old girl in Georgia is being asked a series of questions in her school library. The girl, who is white, is looking at pictures of five cartoons of girls, all identical except for skin color ranging from light to dark.

When asked who the smart child is, she points to a light-skinned doll. When asked who the mean child is she points to a dark-skinned doll. She says a white child is good because “I think she looks like me”

After Andy read had watched the previous video he commented: I am not a child psychologist, but the questions don’t seem to be designed right. In some cases, the only correct answer is “You can’t tell from this picture”, but the questions imply that you can. You can’t expect children to think outside the box and give an answer other than one that is suggested.

See parents talk about the different ways they address race with their young children as part of “AC360” special coverage “Black or White: Kids on race” tonight at 7:00 and 10:00 p.m. on CNN (link will only work today)

For the original articles go to:
original study
main CNN website 5/13
AC360 Blog
main CNN website 5/18
download the full study here

And just because I like these photos and the whole article is too negative so far:

This one was taken at MNS in the 60s