Perhaps some of you have seen the video circulating on Facebook lately that features a collection of college students supposedly lining up for a race. But before the race begins, students answer questions that allow some of them to move ahead of their peers. The point is to show that we do not all operate on an even playing field.

In ENG 99/108, we are looking at the idea of identity as we read a number of articles along with Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. An important aspect of this novel is the contrast between the privileged white school and the disadvantaged Native American school. In reading this novel, students struggle to see that maybe life is harder for the Native Americans on the reservation because of a long history of racism and white privilege as opposed to individual personal failings. So I was looking for a way to show that some people have advantages that others don’t. The Facebook video gets at that idea, but I didn’t want students to have to reveal such personal information so publicly; I needed another way to do the race, and I thought technology could help me.

I went to EMT, and Mark, Ryan and I brainstormed and came up with an easy alternative. I assigned each student a numbered row anonymously and then made up a spreadsheet. Column A  was the starting line. It looked like the image below.

Once everyone knew their number and practiced moving, I presented a number of different statements telling students to move forward one column if that statement was true. For example, I said, “Take one step forward if your parents are still married” and “Take one step forward if you have never had to go  hungry because there is not enough food in your house.” The first box in each row was a different color and had an X in it. As I asked the questions, students just used Control + V to paste that color and X into the next box, and our various lines moved forward at different speeds. When we were done, we talked about what this race suggests. We discussed what it means that some people get to move through life many steps ahead of others. Or what it means for the people at the back of the pack. It turned into a pretty interesting discussion for a class that generally is very quiet.

This might be an interesting activity to try in other classes as well. Feel free to borrow or modify this idea if it suits your class! Here’s the original video: