I found the first segment humorous but sad at the same time. I noticed how this guy totally masked his feelings for being a homosexual and his experiences and made a funny story about the pain he went through as a confused youth at camp. I have always noticed that people who are different,  that know they are different and not always accepted by society, make fun of themselves or joke to mask that they are hurting inside because they know they do not fit into the social norms. Comedians do this so that you laugh at them and they think you are laughing with them. Comedian Gabriel Iglesias, John Belushi, Phil Hartman, Christ Farley did this as well as many others.  I know this gentleman was not a comedian but you get my point about masking your feelings and joking about it to get a laugh when people usually would not talk about these issues in a joking matter.
     It is a shame that people are not accepted for who they are and that many families and uneducated people teach others in their family  to not like someone in society because they are different. Different scares the ignorant ones and that is why they distance themselves. They must be afraid that whatever was told to them either will be true or the worst of all, it is not true. I am very accepting of all people and it is sad that children are misinformed at a young age because this is why we have these problems today.
The “Man in the Well” by Ira Sher was very interesting to listen to. It was interesting to her that a bunch of nine year olds would say “I think it’s important that we decided not to help” the man in the well. I could not believe that in the end when the man in the well called out to the boy, that the boy got so upset that he “wanted to throw stones, dirt down the well to crush out his voice”. I then thought in the end and I could be wrong that the boy may have left a family member or his own father down in the well to die. The boy said when he was at home he “listened to the rain on the roof and his mother sobbing, downstairs”, until the boy went to sleep. Was his dad or someone close to the mother missing? That is what I got from that part of the ending.
I think that if this story happened, I think that it is sad that kids tried to assist the man in the well but almost agreed to keep the man in the well as a pet. They seem to have good intensions and gave food and talked  about getting help but just decided to leave him be. Maybe they were afraid that since they did not get help immediately, they could be in trouble. Maybe they thought if they helped the man themselves, they would  get hurt and not make it home. I guess this explains how children do some of the things they do. I have seen stories of kids this age that have killed their parents and had no real motive and really feel sorry. Who knows sometimes what happens in the mind of a nine year old.
The last segment  of the kids and the class experiment was interesting. I have worked in the classroom so I know firsthand from little kids and their behaviors. There is a slang term my friends have used to describe how people are brought up at home. If you go into someone else’s home and not wipe your feet or leave the refrigerator door open when getting something from your friend’s house. It’s called no home training. Kids who do not include others or discriminate are kids who have poor home training or what we call upbringing. They are told at a young age to play with certain kids or they see their parents not include themselves with other adults for their reasons. Kids at this age do not wake up and leave other kids out for no good reason. They hear the word “NO” all the time at home and so they use the word. This is no different from when the “N” word is passed down from generation to generation. The word will continue to be used, as long as it exists. The old  word to describe black people years ago used to be “colored” but you do not hear the word “colored” used today? You see my point?
You do not use the word “NO” with a child unless it is life or death. If you do say “NO” all the time, they will use it when they want to make things final as their parents did when they said the word “NO”. If you told a kid something other than “NO” and replaced it with anything else, the chances are that the powerful word “NO” will not be used or would not be so final to a child. If a kid said that he wanted a cigar and playboy, I would not say “NO” to them. I would say sure when your 18 years old, you can have that. I did not say “NO” and I did not make it final and done with.
When I have worked in the classroom, I have noticed the children who are mean to others and have met their parents. 95% percent of the time you can tell from the way the parents talk and present themselves that they are not well informed or education. If the parents were taught how to raise a child correctly by their parents, they would have been raised correctly themselves. The nasty cycle continues until someone is correctly informed/educated and then teach others and then the cycle has been broke.
I feel sad for the kids who are taught to include others and they run into a mean kid who will not include or share with them. They must go home and feel terrible and unfortunately they get an early glimpse into the real world at too early of an age.