in the classroom
If you actually break it down into its attendant elements , which is what we do with the kids , it starts with stereotypes and biases and it grows into prejudices . When you break it down into its elements , it ’ s totally solvable .
We just need to give ourselves the right framework with which to talk about it . I don ’ t want to get too Whitney Houston here , but to my amazement , the kids are definitely the future . Because they ’ re so capable of getting into topics that adults find difficult to talk about . And they ’ re so good . I ’ m completely surplus to requirements in some ways , because the kids are the stars . They really are . They just sort of blow you away with their ability to navigate really complicated issues .
How did the kids feel about having to talk about this for three weeks ? It was a pretty multicultural suburban Sydney class , so it ’ s certainly representative of the sort of class you ’ d get in most suburbs of a major Australian city . It ’ s quite a complicated picture because some kids had definite experience or held views that kind of verge on prejudice , as we all do , by the way . That ’ s not in any way unique to kids , and some kids had none at all .
You could see the movement in them from that process onwards . And I think the kids were smart . Even by asking the questions , and the race and the cultural issues test , it ’ s basically asking you to scale what you think is like a serious incident of racism or non-serious incident of racism .
I think the value of that is it really prompts the kids to ask , ‘ How serious do I think this problem actually is ?’ And that I think is a really useful tool to understand what does and doesn ’ t matter for people .
I was watching the first episode , and I realised how nervous everybody was on day one because I think the kids weren ’ t sure what to expect , and I wasn ’ t quite sure what to expect from the kids . You can see that nervousness abate across the series as they learn how to talk about it .
There are really uncomfortable conversations in the show , but the trick to uncomfortable conversations with kids and adults is to make sure they do it in an environment where they feel safe and they feel secure . They can be honest . They ’ ll be heard .
I think putting a framework around those conversations is the key to doing it . It ’ s about making sure that people feel like they ’ re secure and they feel comfortable to express what they really feel and think , and then we go from there . So , the reactions were really interesting . I think they were really surprising .
What about the teachers ? How did they find it ? Those three teachers are among the greatest people I ’ ve ever met in my life . I think it ’ s really courageous , because all three of them had very different experiences . They all come from different backgrounds and they ’ ve all had very different lived experiences of this , but being willing to make yourself vulnerable while also still maintaining a class requires a significant degree of leadership .
The reality is it ’ s really hard to talk about this stuff at the best of times , when there aren ’ t kids and cameras looking at you . To do this with cameras on you and kids ’ eyes on you knowing that the response you give will resonate with kids and hundreds of thousands of people watching
It ’ s about giving kids a toolkit with which to navigate talking about race .
– knowing that there ’ s a value in that , that there ’ s a power , a potential to change people ’ s minds – is a courageous act on their part .
They are just so good at communicating and creating an environment where the kids feel that they can share and be honest . The three of them are some of the best interviewers I ’ ve seen in the business at creating an environment where people want to share and be honest .
Kids have a really strong capacity to tell when somebody ’ s being inauthentic , and they ’ re so good about being authentic without ever losing that professionalism , which is so vital to kids ’ welfare . So I just think they ’ re the most incredible people .
I ’ m the son of a teacher . My wife is the daughter of a teacher . I ’ ve grown up around teachers . I believe it ’ s one of the most undervalued professions in the nation and so vital .
Can you tell us about this show and the setup in an academic sense ? Kevin Dunn : What this school has attempted to do is to help make students more aware of the unconscious bias that they may have towards people of other ethnicities , particularly the unconscious bias that people from Anglo-Celtic backgrounds have towards people from what you might call minority backgrounds . So it speaks of privilege and the extent to which people can become aware of the fact that they do have a cultural privilege , or are aware of the fact that others have a cultural privilege that they don ’ t have .
How did the class timetable go day to day for these kids ? They were provided with instruction on the issues , the definitions , how you define anything like privilege , unconscious bias . And then students were taken through , in a very demonstrative way , the ways that privilege might be manifested .
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