A friend of mine, who is a parent in northern Virginia, recently received this letter from a kindergarten teacher at a private school:

Dear Families:
To honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s noble ideas and courageous acts, we worked together on a sensitizing experiment. They were all led to believe that one is inferior than the other. We initially divided the class into 2 groups –the blue and the green people. In the early part of the day, the green group was given preferential treatment. They were given privileges such as play centers, an extra special snack, and getting paid for performing a job. The switch occurred after an hour of receiving the special treatment.
At the end of our experiment, we talked about how they felt to be the preferred group and how it felt to be the group that was not favored. After which, we read a story on Martin Luther King Jr. (Martin’s Big Words) and talked about MLK’s vision and dream.
The purpose of this exercise is to educate and increase children’s sensitivity towards people and our differences. Furthermore, to treat others the way we want to be treated.
I encourage you to talk with your child about the events of the day as some of them ended up in tears for being treated “differently” based on the color of their shirt. I fervently wish that this exercise will impact your child’s life and that they learn to embrace their differences and celebrate their uniqueness.
Thank you for your cooperation and support in this endeavor.
Here are some quotable quotes during the activity:
Jack: “This is the worst day of my life!”
Braeden: “My feelings are hurt because I’m treated differently.”
Mason: “Are you going to mark my paper with an X because green people are the best?”