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The next day, Jane made it known to the students that she had made a mistake and that the brown-eyed pupils were better and smarter than their counterparts. (She prefers the term "exercise.") Need an original essay on Essay Sample: Ethical Concerns in Jane Elliot's Experiment? Normally, blue-eyes isnt an insult. The blue-eyed girl apologized. They are more civilized than blue-eyed people. She traveled to corporations, banks, prisons, schools and military bases. We Are Repeating The Discrimination Experiment Every Day, Says - NPR PDF Blue eye Brown eye activity - The Classroom The never-before-told true story of Jane Elliott and the "Blue-Eyes, Brown-Eyes Experiment" she made world-famous, using eye color to simulate racism. Introduction | FRONTLINE - PBS "It's happening every day in this country, right now," she said in an interview with Morning Edition. "Let me look at you," Elliott said. I was stunned. She could feel a chasm forming between the two groups of students. When you read about this experiment, its hard not to question labels. The experiment, known as Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment, is regarded as an eye-opening way for children to learn about racism and discrimination. The basic idea was to separate the class into two halves, students with blue eyes and those with brown. (2010). Stripping away the veneer of the experiment, what was left had nothing to do with race. A smart blue-eyed girl who had never had problems with multiplication tables started making mistakes. Racism is not genetical. The tallest structure in Riceville is the water tower. If brown-eyed children made a mistake, Elliott would call out the mistake and attribute it to the students brown eyes. Jane Elliot, a third-grade teacher from Lowa town, became troubled with the turn of events and knew that something had to be done about racial discrimination (Danko, 2013). Folks leave their cars unlocked, keys in the ignition. Cookie Policy The second day, Elliott reversed the groups. Brown-eyed people. Why are we still talking about this experiment over 50 years later? It has since evolved into an online blog and YouTube channel providing mental health advice, tools, and academic support to individuals from all backgrounds. Elliot's approach to the experiment involved creativity in which the pupils' age and ability to comprehend discrimination was taken into account. She had never met me, and she accused me in front of everyone of using my sexuality to get ahead.. Jane Elliott and Dr. On April 5 1968 the day after the death of Martin Luther King Jr Elliott decided to show her students how easy it was to be influenced by racism. The blue-eyed brown-eyed experiment was conducted by Jane Elliott, a school teacher from Iowa, in which she separated blue eyed children from brown eyed children and took turns making one of the "superior" to the other. It didnt take long for the children to turn on each other. When she went downtown to do errands, she heard whispers. I often think about Paul Bodensteiner. I'm tired of hearing about her and her experiment and how everyone here is a racist. The searing story is a cautionary tale that examines power and privilege in and out of the classroom. The effectiveness of a well-known prejudice-reduction simulation activity, "Blue Eyes-Brown Eyes," was assessed as a tool for changing the attitudes of nonblack teacher education students toward blacks. Why was the Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment considered - Study THE ANGRY EYE , a 35-minute video, features Jane Elliott conducting her Blue Eyed/Brown Eyed exercise with college students. When the blue-eyed group saw that the brown-eyed group was going to be seated first, some became upset. That spring morning 37 years ago, the blue-eyed children were set apart from the children with brown or green eyes. The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise received national attention shortly after it ended. Then tell them that . She asked her students, who were all white, whether or not they knew what it felt like to be judged by the color of their skin. The Blue Eye/Brown Eye was an experiment performed by Jane Elliot in 1968 on the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. She nodded. One even wrote a lipstick message with racial slurs. 9 Unethical Psychological Experiments That Actually Happened This way, she successfully created two distinct groups in her classroom: The consequences of the minimal group became evident very quickly. The interaction only strengthened Elliott's resolve. . The goal of the minimal group paradigm is to establish subjective differences and create a climate of favoritism. One caller complained that white children would not be able to handle . Junior high, maybe. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. On April 4 1968, King was killed by the single . She learned that the responses from the children were negative and more generalized about what they thought about black people. ", When I met Elliott in 2003, she hadn't been back to Riceville in 12 years. When Differences Matter | Facing History and Ourselves In this photograph from Sept. 13, 1965, Black children on their way to school in New York City pass by segregationists protesting integrated busing. To begin with, Jane Elliot's experiment involved deception in which the children were made in believing that change in eye color influence intelligence. However, both Mary and Zeke have brown eyes. Watch it online right now! She wanted to show her students that an arbitrarily established difference could separate them and pit them against each other. One student answers, since the day I was born. Throughout the entire experiment, Elliott leads frank conversations about race and discrimination. Not only were they fewer in numbers, but the authority figure was against them. In response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, Jane Elliott devised the controversial and startling, "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Exercise." This, now famous, exercise labels participants as inferior or superior based solely upon the color of their eyes and exposes them to the experience of . In 1970, she demonstrated it for educators at a White House Conference on Children and Youth. As a result of those divisions, you see racial discrimination or even terrorism. "No person of any age [was] going to leave my presence with those attitudes unchallenged," Elliott said. With a couple of basic and arbitrary examples, Elliott made the case that brown-eyed people were better. If this arbitrary division that Elliott enforced for a few hours created so many problems in this classroom, whats happening on a larger scale? (Byrnes & Kiger, 1992). View Module 2 Discussion_ Are We Still Divided_ Blue Eyes_Brown Eyes_ A 3rd Grade Lesson for Us All.pdf from HUMN 330 at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Select from the 0 categories from which you would like to receive articles. The day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, Jane Elliott, a teacher in a small, all-white Iowa town, divided her third-grade class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed groups and gave them a daring . Decent Essays. ", Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images, now-famous "blue eyes/brown eyes exercise, 'I See These Conversations As Protective': Talking With Kids About Race. American Psychological Association, 4. "Malinda? To understand racism, kids must empathise with its impact and The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise is now known as the inspiration for diversity training in the workplace, making Jane Elliott one of the most influential educators in recent American history. She continued to conduct the exercise with her third graders. Theyd have to use paper cups if they drank from the water fountain. The following are some of her most insightful quotes on these issues. In 1968 after Martin Luther King was assassinated the United States was in turmoil. ", Vision and tenacity may get results, but they don't always endear a person to her neighbors. There is a way to avoid editing or writing from scratch! Elliott championed the experiment as an inoculation against racism., [The Conversations Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories. The nonstop parade of sickening events such as the murder of George Floyd surely is not going to be abated by a quickie experiment led by a white person for the alleged benefit of other whites as was the case with the blue-eyed, brown eyed experiment. Undeterred, Elliott tried to appeal to Pauls self-interest. They embraced the experiments reductive message, as well as its promised potential, thereby keeping the implausible rationale of Elliotts crusade alive and well for decades, however flawed and racist it really was. Facilitators should be aware that Jane Elliott's focus on white people can lead viewers to the wrong impression that people of color are passively molded by white people's behavior when, in actuality, people of color can and do respond to racism in a variety of ways. To get her points across, Elliott hurled insults at workshop participants, particularly those who were white and had blue eyes. Could you?". Ethics + Religion; Health; Politics + Society; . Directed by William Peters, the episode profiles the Iowa schoolteacher Jane Elliott and her class of third graders, who took part in a class exercise about discrimination and prejudice in 1970 and reunited in the present day to recall the experience. You should be happy! Professor of Journalism, University of Iowa. At this point you may wish to tell the pupils that you are conducting an "experiment" to look at what prejudice is. The story was then picked up by the Associated Press. Typical of their responses was that of Debbie Hughes, who reported that "the people in Mrs. Elliott's room who had brown eyes got to discriminate against the people who had blue eyes. With this experiment she wanted to let the blue-eyed people (white people) feel how it is to be in low power position. And StanfordUniversity psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo writes in his 1979 textbook, Psychology and Life, that Elliott's "remarkable" experiment tried to show "how easily prejudiced attitudes may be formed and how arbitrary and illogical they can be." That phrase came to my mind when I watched the video, A Class Divided, about education experiment to teach stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination (Frontline, 1985 . To Kill A Mockingbird Quotes - 1072 Words | Internet Public Library "Do blue-eyed people remember what they've been taught?" These initial criticisms didnt stop Elliott. She says its because racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, and ethnocentrism are mean and nasty. Essay Sample: Ethical Concerns in Jane Elliot's Experiment - SpeedyPaper We walked into the principal's office at RicevilleElementary School, Elliott's old haunt. "You have to put the exercise in the context of the rest of the year. Thats just the way blue-eyed kids were, Elliott told the students. Copyright 20102023, The Conversation Media Group Ltd. On the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in April 1968, Jane Elliott's third graders from the small, all-white town of Riceville, Iowa, came to class . Exercise or Experiment-- An Account of Jane Elliott's Tenacity: A She was a standing-room-only speaker at hundreds of colleges and universities. Its not surprising to anyone that some social groups discriminate against others due to ethnicity, religion, or culture. In fact, most of the initial response was negative. The study also violates the American Principles of Psychologist codes of conduct making its replication or further investigation unethical. In this documentary, Jane Elliott, a third grade teacher divided her class into two groups based on their eye color; one group had blue eyes and the other had brown eyes. Jane Elliott, an educator and anti-racism activist, first conducted her blue eyes/brown eyes exercise in her third-grade classroom in Iowa in 1968. Proceeding with the experiment, Elliot divided the children into two groups each with nine pupils. At her lunch break that day in the teacher's lounge, she told her colleagues about the exercise. Hire a professional with VAST experience! ", Steve Harnack, 62, served as the elementary school principal beginning in 1977. It was the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968 that Elliott ran her first "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" exercise in her Riceville, Iowa classroom. This paradigm helps understand the current problems related to discrimination.