From Elliot's highly controversial experiment it is clear that prejudice and discrimination can only be understood through experience. To this day, at the age of 86, Jane Elliott continues this work. ", 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. She traveled to corporations, banks, prisons, schools and military bases. One key assumption is that the sample population represents an actual society. Subsequently the brown-eyed children stopped objecting, even when Miss Elliott and the blue-eyed kids chastised and bullied them. "It's Riceville 30 years ago. She was a local girl and the other teachers were intimidated by her success. Would you like to get this essay by email? She was a standing-room-only speaker at hundreds of colleges and universities. ", Dean Weaver, 70, superintendent of Riceville schools from 1972 to 1979, said, "She'd just go ahead and do things. 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. In present society, psychological experiments are guided by honesty, truthfulness, and accuracy. Biddle, B. J. In 1968 after Martin Luther King was assassinated the United States was in turmoil. Researchers later concluded that there was evidence that the students became less prejudiced after the study and that it was inconclusive as to whether or not the potential harm outweighed the benefits of the exercise. Even though the response to the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise was initially negative, it made Jane Elliott a leading figure in diversity training. However, both Mary and Zeke have brown eyes. She and her husband, Darald Elliott, then a grocer, have four children, and they, too, felt a backlash. In 1970, a documentary about the exercise was released. SpeedyPaper.com 2023 All rights reserved. "We give our children shots to inoculate them against polio and smallpox, to protect them against the realities in the future. We use them to divide and destroy people., On Understanding The Different Ways We Treat Other Races, Philip Zimbardo (Biography + Experiments). Now, almost four decades later, Elliott's experiment still mattersto the grown children with whom she experimented, to the people of Riceville, population 840, who all but ran her out of town, and to thousands of people around the world who have also participated in an exercise based on the experiment. Jane Elliott's experiment. 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 . Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images The latter felt discriminated against by the other brown-eyed children. Two education professors in England, Ivor F. Goodson and Pat Sikes, suggest that Elliott's experiment was unethical because the participants weren't informed of its real purpose beforehand. . (Byrnes & Kiger, 1992). Elliott flew to the NBC studio in New York City. Blue Eyes vs. Brown Eyes Experiment. And what she did caused an uproar. I want to know why youre so willing to accept it or to allow it to happen for others., The first reaction I get from teachers, who see this film or from hearing, hear me discuss what I do say to me How can you do that to these little children? Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes 1968 - Jane Elliot, grade school teacher in Iowa conducted a classroom experiment to test whether racism was a learned characteristic Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes - an experiment to "create racism" Jane Elliot divided her 4th grade class into two groups based on eye color The Brown eyed group were told they were superior due . "Eye color, hair color and skin color are caused by a chemical," Elliott went on, writing MELANIN on the blackboard. Locals say that drivers don't signal when they turn because everyone knows where everyone else is going. She also made the brown-eyed students put construction paper armbands on the blue-eyed students. And Im only doing this as an exercise that every child knows is an exercise and every child knows is going to end at the end of the day., We learn to be racist, therefore we can learn not to be racist. Elliott is nothing if not stubborn. 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. 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. A difference as simple as eye color, defined and established by the authority figure, created a rift between the students. She would conduct the exercise for the nine more years she taught the third grade, and the next eight years she taught seventh and eighth graders before giving up teaching in Riceville, in 1985, largely to conduct the eye-color exercise for groups outside the school. Jane Elliott is 84 years old, a tiny woman with white hair, wire-rim glasses and little patience. But Paul, one of eight siblings and the son of a dairy farmer, didnt buy Elliotts mollification. She told them that people with brown eyes were superior to those with blue eyes, for reasons she made up. Throughout the investigation, the classroom represented a real-life scenario in which the unprivileged and minority members of the society are treated as out-groups making them susceptible to discrimination. "She stirs people up. Scores of others did participate. She told them brown-eyed . The idea of white privilege is closely tied to Elliotts initial question to her students. [White people] on the other hand, don't have to understand them. ", That spring morning 37 years ago, the blue-eyed children were set apart from the children with brown or green eyes. Students in the inferior groups were more likely to get a worse score. Today, she says, it's still playing out as the U.S. reckons with racial injustice. One of the ways Hitler decided who went into the gas chamber was eye color, Elliott said in a later speech. Elliott was shocked by the results and decided to switch the roles the following day. Shermer and Bloom discuss: "Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes" Jane Elliott famous racism experiment reactions to it (in the classroom, locally, nationally, internationally) whether the "experiment" was really more of a demonstration public interest, from Johnny Carson to Oprah Winfrey the questionable ethics of the experiment what it reveals about tribalism, racism . When the blue-eyed group saw that the brown-eyed group was going to be seated first, some became upset. 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. That spring morning 37 years ago, the blue-eyed children were set apart from the children with brown or green eyes. Elliott asked. The experiment was to be a division of eye colour starting with blue eyed student having superiority and then the following day, the roles would be reversed. THE ANGRY EYE , a 35-minute video, features Jane Elliott conducting her Blue Eyed/Brown Eyed exercise with college students. Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER! "I don't think this community was ready for what she did," he said. ", Others have praised Elliott's exercise. ", We backed out. The interaction only strengthened Elliott's resolve. The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise continues to be relevant. "The browneyed people are the better people in this room," Elliott began. That's what it feels like when you're discriminated against.". According to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, 2010 the experiment also violates the principle of Integrity. Thousands of educators across the United States folded the experiment into their curriculums. If brown-eyed children made a mistake, Elliott would call out the mistake and attribute it to the students brown eyes. At first, she cooperated with me. When my grandchildren are old enough, I'd give anything if you'd try the exercise out on them. On the first day, the blue-eyed students were informed that they were genetically inferior to the brown-eyed students. Almost immediately, it was apparent that she had created segregation and prejudice given that the blue-eyed students began exhibiting signs of dominion and superiority. Everyone's tired of her. The brown-eyed children could take off their armbands and give them to the blue-eyed children, who were now taught that they were inferior to the brown-eyed children. Elliott turned into Americas mother of diversity training. Jane Elliots work and experiences have made her an authority on education and anti-racism. The selection was based on the color of the eye for each group. Back when she introduced the experiment to her Iowa students more than five decades ago, at least one student had the audacity to challenge Elliotts premise, according to those who were in the classroom at the time. She gave all of the students simple spelling and math tests two weeks before the exercise, on the days of the exercise, and after the exercise. "There's a sense of renewal here that I've never seen anywhere else," Elliott says. The experiment is to help the children to understand about prejudice and discrimination. Their 12-year-old daughter, Mary, came home from school one day in tears, sobbing that her sixth-grade classmates had surrounded her in the school hallway and taunted her by saying her mother would soon be sleeping with black men. 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. Its not surprising to anyone that some social groups discriminate against others due to ethnicity, religion, or culture. This bibliography was generated on Cite This For Me on Monday, March 7, 2016. "If this ugly change, if this negative change can happen this quickly, why can't positive change happen that quickly? "It's the same thing over and over again," Cross says. The students were surprised, but they didnt argue. Disclaimer: SpeedyPaper.com is a custom writing service that provides online on-demand writing work for assistance purposes. If this arbitrary division that Elliott enforced for a few hours created so many problems in this classroom, whats happening on a larger scale? 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 . The arbitrary division among the students intensified over the course of the experiment, so much so that it actually ended in physical violence. I have brown eyes. Ethical & Pedagogical Issues 2. The test violated the principle of respect for people's rights and dignity. She also made the brown-eyed students put construction paper armbands on the blue-eyed students. Youve probably heard different versions of it. These initial criticisms didnt stop Elliott. After the local newspaper published a story on Elliott and the experiment, she was flown to New York to appear on May 31, 1968, on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, where she extolled the experiments effectiveness in cluing in her 8-year-old white students on what it was like to be Black in America. When you read about this experiment, its hard not to question labels. And they are smarter than blue-eyed people." The brown-eyed children got to sit in the front of the room, to go to lunch first, and to have more time at recess. Jane Elliott, a teacher and anti-racism activist, performed a direct experiment with the students in her classroom. Let's just move on. . "How dare you try this cruel experiment out on white children," one said. When she separated the class by eye color and announced that blue-eyed children were superior, Paul Bodensteiner objected at every turn. Copyright 20102023, The Conversation Media Group Ltd. With over 2 million YouTube subscribers, over 500 articles, and an annual reach of almost 12 million students, it has become one of the most popular sources of psychological information. She then made the blue-eyed students believe that they were better and smarter than their counterparts. Would you? . Therefore when she gave the blue eyed people more freedom than the brown eyed people, the blue eyed people started feeling like kings because they thought they were better, and were treated better. I often think about Paul Bodensteiner. She was hesitant to enroll in Elliotts workshop but was told that if she wanted to succeed as a manager, shed have to attend. "This here is Jane Elliott," I said. To begin with, Jane Elliot's experiment involved deception in which the children were made in believing that change in eye color influence intelligence. ", Vision and tenacity may get results, but they don't always endear a person to her neighbors. Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes experiment was a turning point in social psychology. There were more brown-eyed students in the room. In the 60th year beyond Brown vs. Board of Education, Frontline is making available their classic 1985 documentary, " A Class Divided ," about the experiment and what happened later. SpeedyPaper website, please click below to request its removal: Liked this essay sample but need an original one? Elliott began the exercise by dividing her students by eye color. However, the study shows some bias in the sample size and race of participants. You should be happy! Brian, the Elliotts' oldest son, got beaten up at school, and Jane called the ringleader's, mother. Fourteen years later, the students featured in The Eye of the Storm reunited and discussed their experiences with Elliott. She said she watched and was horrified at what she saw. In 2001, Jane Elliott recordedThe Angry Eye,in which she revised and updated her experiment. "Let me look at you," Elliott said. Jane Elliott's brown eye/blue eye experiment starts at 03:10 of A Class Divided. Perhaps because the outcome seemed so optimistic and comforting, coverage of Elliott and the experiments alleged curative powers cropped up everywhere. She decided to continue the exercise with her students after lunch. I was stunned. Nevertheless, Elliott became as famous as a teacher could become in America. As for the criticism that the exercise encourages children to distrust authority figuresthe teacher lies, then recants the lies and maintains they were justified because of a greater goodshe says she worked hard to rebuild her students' trust. "How do you think it would feel to be a Negro boy or girl?" The textbook publisher McGraw-Hill has listed her on a timeline of key educators, along with Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Horace Mann, Booker T. Washington, Maria Montessori and 23 others. ", Then, the inevitable: "Hey, Mrs. Elliott, how come you're the teacher if you've got blue eyes?" The brown-eyed students also exercised a certain level of power over the blue-eyed students when they put the armbands on them. At lunchtime, Elliott hurried to the teachers' lounge. I felt mad. "We'll just be a couple of minutes. She told them that people with brown eyes were better than people with blue eyes. She told the students that the brown-eyed children were inferior and repeated the experiment. Blue Eyed versus Brown Eyed Students Jane Elliott was not a psychologist, but she developed one of the most famously controversial exercises in 1968 by dividing students into a blue-eyed group and . It's cruel to white children and will cause them great psychological damage. 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. It also documents small-town White America's reflex reaction to the . Almost immediately, it was apparent that she had created segregation and prejudice given that the blue-eyed students began exhibiting signs of dominion and superiority. Elliot said that when the children were given the test on the same day that they were in the superior group, they tended to get the highest scores. At her lunch break that day in the teacher's lounge, she told her colleagues about the exercise. I think it can. But in reality, I found in researching for my book Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes that the experiment was a sadistic exhibition of power and authority levers controlled by Elliott. Then tell them that . I felt like quitting school. Provide your email for sample delivery, You agree to receive our emails and consent to our Terms & Conditions, Order an essay on this subject and get a 100% original paper. But when she discovered that I was asking pointed questions of scores of her former students, as well as others subjected to the experiment, she made an about-face and said she no longer would cooperate with me. And our number two freedom is the freedom to deny that were ignorant., I want every white person in this room who would be happy to be treated as this society in general treats our citizens, our black citizens, if you, as a white person, would be happy to receive the same treatment that our black citizens do in this society, please stand. But not Elliott. Jane Elliott, one of the most controversial figures in U.S. education and diversity training, began her journey to international acclaim in Riceville, Iowa. See Page 1. Once indoors, the brown-eyed group was then treated to coffee and doughnuts, while the blue-eyed group could only stand around and wait. The next day, Elliott reversed the roles. In this article, we talk about leadership and female discrimination.. Thus, the dominant group, supported by the authorities, will always have the upper hand. The story was then picked up by the Associated Press. Blue eyes, brown eyes: What Jane Elliott's famous experiment says about race 50 years on. She began this work in The brown-eyed children felt suddenly that they were discriminated, while the blue eyed started seeing them as inferior. Elliotts coworkers avoided her after her appearance on The Tonight Show. It is quite powerful to watch. Before proceeding with the test, she began with random questions to fully understand the children's perception of Negroes. The Blue Eyes & Brown Eyes Exercise. The day after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination in 1968, Jane Elliott, a schoolteacher in rural Iowa, introduced to her all-white third-grade class a shocking experiment to demonstrate . How do you think the world would change if everyone experienced the perils and setbacks that come with prejudice and discrimination? You've still got that same sweet smile. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 prompted educator Jane Elliott to create the now-famous "blue eyes/brown eyes exercise ." As a school teacher in the small town of Riceville, Iowa, Elliott first conducted the anti-racism experiment on her all-white third-grade classroom, the day after the civil rights leader was killed. The fact that children are easy to manipulate into acting in a particular manner explains Jane's choice of sample. The students initially involved wished that everyone could participate in an exercise like this. The demonstration has since been taught by generations of teachers to millions of kids across the country. Below, . Back in the classroom, Elliott's experiment had taken on a life of its own. Thats just the way blue-eyed kids were, Elliott told the students. Today, increased migration means more opportunities for people from different backgrounds to interact with each other, which is often a source of conflict. Within a few hours of starting the exercise, Elliott noticed big differences in the childrens behavior and how they treated each other. Grey eyes are also a rare eye color. The Blue-Eyes, Brown-Eyes Experiment. "We want to see Room No. "You better apologize to us for getting in our way because we're better than you are," one of the brownies said. You can start from that point in Activity 2, or you can play the video from the beginning (00:00) so that your students can see civil rights era footage following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as Elliott's students returning to Iowa . ", "I've never forgotten the exercise," Whisenhunt volunteered. This is the phrase that inspired one of the most well-known experiments in education. What Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment? Though Jane's actions were justifiable because she was not a psychologist, her experiment cannot be replicated in the present society. That might have been the end of it, but a month later, Elliott says, Johnny Carson called her. Brown-eyed people. The blue-eyed participants faced discrimination for two and a half hours. Blue-eyed students suggested that the teacher use a yardstick to discipline brown-eyed students that misbehaved. The blue-eyed students, when told they were superior and offered privileges such as extra recess time, changed their behavior dramatically and their attitudes toward the children with brown eyes. The subjects were 164 students enrolled in eight sections of an introductory elementary education course at a state university. Focusing on ethics the experiment violated some of the principles and codes of conduct established by the American Psychological Association. She chatted about the experiment, and before she knew it was whisked off the stage. Elliott was even brought on The Tonight Show to talk about her experiences. "Would you like to come on the show?" "That's what I tried to teach, and that's what drove the other teachers crazy. Not only were they fewer in numbers, but the authority figure was against them. Junior high, maybe. "She got carried away by this possession she developed over human beings. Before she could answer, another boy piped up: "If she didn't have blue eyes, she'd be the principal or the superintendent.". On April 4 1968, King was killed by the single . All rights reserved. Right off the bat, she picked me out of the room and called me Barbie, Pasicznyk told me. Elliott continues, "Just when you think that the fertile soil can sprout no more, another season comes round, and you see another year of bountiful crops, tall and straight. Blue Eyed vs Brown Eyed Study Conducted by Jane Elliott Presentation by Bree Elliott Ethics Background The Results In 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated, Jane Elliott was the teacher of a third grade class in the town of Riceville, Iowa. Jane divided the class into 9 brown eyes and 9 blue eyes. Watch it online right now! She left teaching in the mid-80s to speak publicly about the experience and the impact of prejudice and racism. She compromised the APA's Code of Conduct and Ethical Standard because she lied, after that she recanted the lies and kept as they were justified because of her greater purpose. This procedure is sometimes so subtle that no one notices it happening. Elliott pulled out green construction paper armbands and asked each of the blue . She split the class in two categories, according to eye color, and told the children that one group was superior to the others. When Elliott conducted the exercise the next year, she added something extra to collect data. 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. Given the long-term results of the experiment, the controversial study could not have taken place in today's society despite its significant insights on matters racism. She knew that the children weren't going to buy her pitch unless she came up with a reason, and the more scientific to these Space Age children of the 1960s, the better. "They can't forget me," she said, "and because of who they are, they can't forgive me. She had never met me, and she accused me in front of everyone of using my sexuality to get ahead.. . Much like the Zimbardo's Stanford Prison experiment where students were divided by either being the jailer or the jailed. On the first day, she told the children with blue eyes they were superior: smarter and more well-behaved than the children with brown eyes. Jane Elliot's experiment explains the reasons for discrimination to a small extent. Blue-eyed people would get 5 extra minutes on the playground and blue-eyed people could not talk to brown-eyed people. This way, she successfully created two distinct groups in her classroom: The consequences of the minimal group became evident very quickly. When Elliott first conducted the exercise in 1968, brown-eyed students were given special privileges.