I keep seeing headlines that claim there’s a bias against White folks or how adolescent boys have become radicalized militants of conservative outrage. Curious… Generally those trumpeting manufactured outrage do so to mask their angst around losing the power and status they have benefitted from (or were expected to inherit) for years.
You’d expect this from middle schoolers but not from adults. Fortunately I’ve long suspected that adulthood really just replicates middle school.
“That’s not fair.” “That’s reverse discrimination.” “How come she gets…” When this comes up in class, we play Red Light, Green Light (RL/GL). Sometimes a simple, accessible approach yields the best results. RL/GL has proven to be one of the most effective teaching strategies to address these issues in my twenty years of teaching.
Schools spend considerable money and time trying to instill a basic understanding of diversity, equity, and the spectrum of -isms that plague society. And yet, these programs often do little or make little difference to improve the day to day experiences of students who bear the brunt of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. We know students don’t like being talked at and that lecturing isn’t the most effective form of teaching. So why use that strategy in your efforts to dismantle the -isms?
Red Light, Green Light (RL/GL) represents an old school playground activity that appeals to students from a wide range of backgrounds. This activity provides a platform to address power, privilege, discrimination and many other concepts within multicultural education.
NOTE: While contemporary parlance uses a variety of acronyms (DEI, DEIB, JEDI, etc.) for ease of use and to avoid confusion I will use the term multicultural education (MCED) to represent these terms and their objectives.
If you’re not familiar with the game it’s pretty straightforward. One person stands say on one side of a space (eg. a basketball court) while the rest of the group stands on the other side. The object is to be the first person from the big group across the space. When the director (single person) calls out green light, individuals run forward across the space. When they yell red light each person has to stop and freeze. If the director sees movement they instruct that person to start over.
If I’m not mistaken, the first time I used RL/GL to teach MCED was in Professor Geneva Gay’s summer Diversity Institute class. While the game seemed to go over the heads of the adults, I thought it would be great with students. Since then I have pulled out this almost once a year. And almost every instance was precipitated by the outrage of a wealthy White dude who felt efforts to level the playing field was an effort to discriminate against him.
To use RL/GL for this purpose you have to alter the set up a bit. For the purpose of clarity let’s say this example is happening on a basketball court. Instead of everyone starting in the same place (say the baseline), start the kid who complained loudest and start him on the foul line or midline of the court. Have a few people start on the foul line near the base line where others are starting. Inevitably, the students who start closest win the majority of the efforts. The other participants will become frustrated and grumble about fairness. The kid who wins will not recognize or share that frustration.
Next, switch things up. This is when things get interesting. You have plenty of options depending on your group. First, you can just have the student or students who started closest start on the endline with everyone else. You could have everyone start at the same privileged place the winner started from for a few rounds. If you have time, I recommend playing around with the starting points for different groups within your class - move the marginalized kids up, and the popular kids back. Assign starting places by some random decider, etc. From these various iterations you should have the makings of a substantive discussion.
Inevitably you will have discussions about what’s right and what’s fair. You can facilitate the conversation a few different ways. Usually, the question of ‘why do they get to start up there and we have to start back there?’ dominates the discussion. You can steer the conversation towards having the class problems solve a scenario to begin that is ‘fair’ and ‘right.’ for all. Along the way students who enjoyed a privileged starting place will voice their displeasure around losing that privilege. Often it comes in the form of, “why am i being punished?”
To make this activity really effective you must take the time so the group can dismantle and rebuild a lot of big feelings. One of the keys to facilitating this activity is to use that question and flip it back on the group. You can approach this a few ways: “Are you being punished?” or “Why are the others being punished by having to start way back there?” starts a lot of conversations. After a bit of conversation, find a moment to step back in and ask the group to craft a starting point that works for everyone. Give them some time to try out and revise their solutions before you end the activity.
At some point you can then connect RL/GL to issues of power, privilege, and discrimination. Please note that during the activity I purposely don’t use those terms as descriptors. I generally wait a bit before making the connection. This allows the experience to steep in students’ brains and for them to construct meaning from the activity. Moving forward students will have that RL/GL experience as a point of reference and can refer back to their experience to defuse issues in the future. If need be, you can always play again and tweak the game to fit the situation.
For the record, I generally connect this to other activities and discussions throughout the year, but it could act as a stand alone if need be.
As I mentioned, this has been the most effective means to address anxiety and outrage over perceived loss of power, etc. from those at the top of the sociopolitical hierarchy of my classrooms. The underlying question almost every class has had to address comes down to, “How is making things right for me a punishment for you?” As a class and as a community we must confront unearned privilege and real entitlements head on. Might as run around a bit while we do so.