To get started. The Lemon Exercise
This is a good exercise to learn about stereotypes and biases, which you can do with old and young persons in all different context.
Step 1
Show a basket of Lemons
Ask everyone:
- What do you see?
- How would you describe lemons?
let them List it down
Step 3
Compare the 2 lists
Have a look at the two lists made. Ask:
- Are there similarities? Are these the same words? Or did you describe your individual lemon in other words than all of the lemons?
- And can you find your lemon among the other lemons when it is put back in the basket?
Step 2
Pick one lemon from the basket
Give the Lemon to an individual or a small group. Ask:
- Get to know your lemon.
- Which characteristics can you see?
let them list it down
Step 4
Reflect on the moral
Ask:
- What can we learn "from the lemons“?
- Do we tend to have already an opinion about something/someone without having "a closer look“?
- Does it remind you of everyday life or school situations?
This exercise show us, that often we have a rough picture about a certain group. But this is often incomplete or even wrong.
Only if we get to know another human in detail, we get to know him fully.
This counts for children, parents and teachers alike.
What are biases?
Bias works when we meet people. We judge them unconsciously, we put them in drawers. In seconds, we decide here whether the person is competent, pretty and a person we want to talk to.
And we make these decisions based on our experiences, on our up-bringing and images in media.
Some types of unconscious biases
Biases are based on inequalities in societies and lead to imbalance in schools
Anti-Bias education is an approach from the USA developed in the 1980s by Louise Derman-Sparks and Carol Brunson-Philips in order to overcome the „South Afriacan apartheid system in the minds“
Anti-bias education helps us…