Jay M. Brown
The Rumor Clinic
Objectives
The rumor clinic is designed to develop an understanding that each of us may be prejudiced and to realize that prejudices may take different forms. The lesson should make students aware of their own prejudices so that they can begin to recognize fact from fiction (i.e., the difference between what actually happened and what was reported to have happened).
Equipment and Materials Needed
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Rumor Clinic
film strip
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Tape recorder (optional)
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Film strip projector
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Projection screen
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Putting On The Rumor Clinic
Six student volunteers are selected to act as “reporters.” All the reporters are sent out of the room. The remaining members of the class are told that the group will now have an opportunity to see what happens to stories and rumors when they are told and retold.
The first reporter is brought back into the room. The tape recorder is started, or the class can take notes. One slide of the film strip is projected onto the screen. The reporter and the class view the scene for two minutes. The projector is then shut off.
Reporter #2 is called into the room. With both reporters facing the class, not the screen, the scene is shown again (this will be repeated with all reporters). Reporter #1 relates to #2 what he saw. Reporter #3 is called into room and #2 relates what he has been told to #3. The process is repeated until all the reporters have heard and related the story. The last reporter relates the story to the entire class.
After the presentation, the entire class views the film strip scene again. The tape is replayed or a student may be selected to point out the errors each of the reporters made when telling what they saw or heard.
If time allows, a different scene may be used with additional volunteers to act as reporters.
Summary and Evaluation
Students should have been made aware that people show their prejudices in varied forms—orally, visually, aurally.
Class discussion can help the members realize:
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a.
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how great the changes and distortions in a report can become as the story is passed along from person to person;
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b.
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how the changes take place, even when there is no desire on the part of the people involved to distort what they heard or saw;
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c.
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why rumors can never be accepted as fact until they are checked, and why they must be checked carefully before they are made the basis for any action.
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A teacher should point out that each of us approaches a situation with his own interests, his own experiences, and his own expectations of how people should—or do—behave. In talking about what we saw, or what we were told, this background of our own creeps into the story. The person retelling the story becomes part-author of a new version of the story rather than just a “reporter” who reports exactly what happened.
It is these changes in the story, arising out of the attitudes and prejudices of the person who tells or retells it, which we must always be on the lookout for in stories, reports, and rumors.
