Do kids see race differently?

I was over at a site called the Tempered Radical whose author, Bill Ferriter, has decided to create what he calls TWITs – This is Why I Teach. Just simple little snippets that reinforce the reasons why we all work with kids.

And I know I’ve been thinking and writing a lot about the whole Obama / McCain / election thing but this just really made my day. Bill found an interesting image representing the 44 US presidents and showed it to his 6th grade kids.

And he asked his students a simple question:

“What point do you think the artist was trying to make with this image?”

My students’ answer: “Well, that’s pretty obvious, Mr. Ferriter. He’s trying to say that the United States has never had a woman president.”

Okay . . . as an old guy, what I see is a pretty incredible shift in American culture. What his kids saw was gender. And while we have a lot of work still do in the US, it makes me feel kinda warm and fuzzy that the conversation is different, perhaps, with kids than with people my age.