Green Skin

What would you say?

While growing up I remember the popular hidden camera reality television series Candid Camera. I’m sure some of you are familiar with  it or have heard of it. The show ran from 1948 in to the 1970s, was created and produced by Allen Funt and at some point his son Peter co-hosted the show with him. In this episode Peter visits a New York City public school and interviewed first graders, and was aired in 1965. He shared with students that they were getting a new student in the next week who had green skin. Out of the mouths of young children their responses tell a wonderful story. The children gave Allen a lesson about understanding, tolerance and much more, that is worth revisiting today. Perhaps you’ll consider a way to use this in your own classroom as a conversation starter that may lead to some form of art making. I know I’ll be sharing it with my middle schoolers this fall.