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I felt mad. The second day, Elliott reversed the groups. Biddle, B. J. The Blue-Eyes, Brown-Eyes Experiment. How do you think the world would change if everyone experienced the perils and setbacks that come with prejudice and discrimination? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER! But the protests happening now have given her hope. "It's the same thing over and over again," Cross says. In this article, we talk about leadership and female discrimination.. The contents of Exploring Your Mind are for informational and educational purposes only. "We are repeating the blue-eyed/brown-eyed exercise on a daily basis.". 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. Some residents were furious. From the moment the experiment begins, Jane Elliott uses a mean tone to speak to the participants. Many educators responded by holding mandatory workshops on institutional racism and implicit bias, reforming teaching methods and lesson plans and searching for ways to amplify undersung voices. The Blue Eye/Brown Eye was an experiment performed by Jane Elliot in 1968 on the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. One group consisted pupils with brown eye while the other group consisted of those with blue eyes. The kids in the bottom group became timider and kept to themselves. On the morning of april 5, 1968, a Friday, Steven Armstrong stepped into Jane Elliott's third-grade classroom in Riceville, Iowa. On the first day of the two-day experiment, Elliott told the . 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 . They wouldnt be allowed second helpings for lunch. The children were not aware of the experiment, and therefore they could not give their permission of involvement. Fourteen years later, the students featured in The Eye of the Storm reunited and discussed their experiences with Elliott. "You have to put the exercise in the context of the rest of the year. She appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show five times. ( 1985-03-26) " A Class Divided " is a 1985 episode of the PBS series Frontline. Website. But not Elliott. Articles and opinions on happiness, fear and other aspects of human psychology. 2012 2023 . Order from one of our vetted writers instead, First name should have at least 2 letters, Phone number should have at least 10 digits, Free Essay with a Response to Cross Words by UIW President Louis Agnese, How Does Donald Duk View His Chinese Heritage? The children said yes, and the exercise began. (In later versions of the exercise, children in the inferior group were given collars to wear.). 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 wanted to show that the same thing happens in real life with brown eyed people (minority). Yes, that day was tough. Two years later, a BBC documentary captured the experiment in Elliott's classroom. The experiment known as Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment is regarded as an eye-opening way for children to learn about racism and discrimination. Disclaimer: SpeedyPaper.com is a custom writing service that provides online on-demand writing work for assistance purposes. If you are the original author of this essay and no longer wish to have it published on the 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. When Sarah, the Elliotts' oldest daughter, went to the girls' bathroom in junior high, she came out of a stall to see a message scrawled in red lipstick on the mirror: "Nigger lover.". We use them to divide and destroy people., White peoples number one freedom, in the United States of America, is the freedom to be totally ignorant of those who are other than white. The secretary on duty looked up, startled, as if she had just seen a ghost. PracticalPsychology. It brings up immediate anger and hatred. To this day, at the age of 86, Jane Elliott continues this work. She decided to continue the exercise with her students after lunch. Its not surprising to anyone that some social groups discriminate against others due to ethnicity, religion, or culture. ", Elliott defends her work as a mother defends her child. Additionally, the brown-eyed students got to sit in the front of the class, while the blue-eyed kids . Amitai Etzioni, a sociologist at George WashingtonUniversity, says the exercise helps develop character and empathy. The anti-racism sessions Elliott led were intense. On the second day, the roles were reversed, and those with brown eyes received special treatment, and the blue-eyed children were made to feel inferior (A Class, 2003). Want a quality guarantee? The blue eyes brown eyes study was a study on group prejudice and discrimination conducted by Jane Elliot. "Eye color, hair color and skin color are caused by a chemical," Elliott went on, writing MELANIN on the blackboard. Part of the problem is that the blue-eyed group is exclusively white, while the brown-eyed group is predominantly non-white, so that eye colour is no longer an analogue or metaphor for race but a . "I don't think this community was ready for what she did," he said. Later, it would occur to Elliott that the blueys were much less nasty than the brown-eyed kids had been, perhaps because the blue-eyed kids had felt the sting of being ostracized and didn't want to inflict it on their former tormentors. Is it even possible today? In fact, most of the initial response was negative. The secretary said the south side of the building was closed, something about waxing the hallways. ", A former teacher, Ruth Setka, 79, said she was perhaps the only teacher who would still talk to Elliott. Stephen G. Bloom does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. At lunchtime, Elliott hurried to the teachers' lounge. The first day of the experiment she convinced the children that blue-eyed people were smarter, better and would have more priorities. 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. Jane Elliot's experiment involves cheating and intentional misinterpretation of facts. That got the other teachers angry. 980 Words. The next day, Elliott reversed the roles. The students initially involved wished that everyone could participate in an exercise like this. The smell of the crops and loam and topsoil and manure wafted though the open door. The results are mixed. Elliott flew to the NBC studio in New York City. "People of other color groups seem to understand," she said. Youve probably heard different versions of it. This was intentional. Immediately after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Professor Jane Elliott used the minimal group paradigm to perform an experiment that would teach her students about race discrimination. The students started to internalize, and accept, the characteristics they'd been arbitrarily assigned based on the color of their eyes. It was typical of Elliott's blunt styleno "Good morning," no small talk. That same year, Elliott was invited to the White House Conference on Children and Youth to conduct an exercise on adult educators. 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. Thats what it feels like when youre discriminated against., -A child participant in the Blue Eyes-Brown Eyes experiment-. She traveled to corporations, banks, prisons, schools and military bases. Sorry, but it's not possible to copy the text due to security reasons. ", That spring morning 37 years ago, the blue-eyed children were set apart from the children with brown or green eyes. The empathy she works to inspire in students with the experiment, which has been modified over the years, is necessary, she said. The fact that children are easy to manipulate into acting in a particular manner explains Jane's choice of sample. "Brown-eyed people have more of that chemical in their eyes, so brown-eyed people are better than those with blue eyes," Elliott said. Let's just move on. The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise received national attention shortly after it ended. She was hesitant to enroll in Elliotts workshop but was told that if she wanted to succeed as a manager, shed have to attend. Junior high, maybe. She wanted to show her students that an arbitrarily established difference could separate them and pit them against each other. March 26, 1985. Nevertheless, Elliott became as famous as a teacher could become in America. 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. One example that has been in place for many years is the blue-eyed/brown-eyed experiment. In this article, we'll explain what happened during the experiment and discuss its consequences. The blue-eyed participants faced discrimination for two and a half hours. Blue-eyed children got five extra minutes of recess. We walked into the principal's office at RicevilleElementary School, Elliott's old haunt. I felt like quitting school. 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. The blue-eyed girl apologized. I often think about Paul Bodensteiner. Jane Elliott's experiment of dividing an otherwise homogenous group of school kids by their eye color. For many, the experiment went horribly awry. The Hangout Bar & Grill, the Riceville Pharmacy and ATouch of Dutch, a restaurant owned by Mennonites, line Main Street. There were more brown-eyed students in the room. The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment. Two students even got into a physical altercation. "She got carried away by this possession she developed over human beings. "Blue-eyed people sit around and do nothing. The brown-eyed students also exercised a certain level of power over the blue-eyed students when they put the armbands on them. When some of the . Answer (1 of 3): My guess is that is doesn't really represent racism but classism. The brown-eyed children didnt want to play with the blue-eyes during recess. The Blue-Eyed/Brown-Eyed Experiment: Investigation. The test violated the principle of respect for people's rights and dignity. In 1970, she demonstrated it for educators at a White House Conference on Children and Youth. One student answers, since the day I was born. Throughout the entire experiment, Elliott leads frank conversations about race and discrimination. What Was the Purpose of the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment? On the first day of the experiment, she declared the brown-eyed group superior and gave them extra privileges like seconds at lunch, extra recess time, and access to the new school playground. They needed not acknowledge their privilege or reflect on it. 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. And you'll always have it. The blue eyes/brown eyes experiment, which could last one to three days, was at a glance similar to other human-potential-movement workshops of the era, including Werner Erhard's est training . She told her students that she had made a mistake the previous day and that brown-eyed students . Normally, blue-eyes isnt an insult. In 1970, Elliott would come to national attention when ABC broadcast their Eye of the Storm documentary which filmed the experiment in action. (Byrnes & Kiger, 1992). [White people] on the other hand, don't have to understand them. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Knowing that her experiment would have consequences, Jane remained committed to her course. a brown-eyed boy asked. Introduction. You should be happy! Even though the response to the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise was initially negative, it made Jane Elliott a leading figure in diversity training. After the exercise white college students in . "The racists carry on, so I carry on." The lives and legacies of Dr. Jane Elliott and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are inextricably linked. They were also relevant in the 1950s when Elliott first began this work. The 1970s and 1980s were ripe for diversity education in the private and public sectors, and Elliott would try out the experiment at workshops on tens of thousands of participants, not just in the U.S. and Canada, but in Europe, the Middle East and Australia. She then told them that the children with blue eyes were inherently inferior to the children with brown . 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. The tallest structure in Riceville is the water tower. But they returned to a better placeunlike a child of color, who gets abused every day, and never has the ability to find him or herself in a nurturing classroom environment." Locals say that drivers don't signal when they turn because everyone knows where everyone else is going. "He's a bluey! In Zimbardo's experiment the conditions were much more controlled for later study but the r. The searing story is a cautionary tale that examines power and privilege in and out of the classroom. She split the class in two categories, according to eye color, and told the children that one group was superior to the others. Basically, you establish differences between a set of subjects in order to divide them into separate groups. She has spoken at more than 350 colleges and universities. Most Riceville residents seem to have an opinion of Elliott, whether or not they've met her. Melanin, she said, is what causes intelligence. On Monday, Elliott reversed the exercise, and the brown-eyed kids were told how shifty, dumb and lazy theywere. "You better apologize to us for getting in our way because we're better than you are," one of the brownies said. One even wrote a lipstick message with racial slurs. In a similar vein, Linda Seebach, a conservative columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, wrote in 2004 that Elliott was a "disgrace" and described her exercise as "sadistic," adding, "You would think that any normal person would realize that she had done an evil thing. It also documents small-town White America's reflex reaction to the . Retrieved from https://speedypaper.com/essays/ethical-concerns-in-jane-elliots-experiment, Free essays can be submitted by anyone, so we do not vouch for their quality. Separate the class into two halves - those with blue eyes and those with brown. It occurs to me that for a teacher, the arrival of new students at the start of each school year has a lot in common with the return of crops each summer. How can we teach kids to be more like him? These are the sources and citations used to research Jane Elliott's blue eye brown eye case study is/isn't more ethical than Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment. Your Privacy Rights They were forced to sit on the back rows and had to use a . Barbie had to have a Ken, so Elliott picked from the audience a tall, handsome man and accused him of doing the same things with his female subordinates, Pasicznyk said. When Elliott walked into the teachers' lounge the next Monday, several teachers got up and walked out. The subjects were 164 students enrolled in eight sections of an introductory elementary education course at a state university. ABC broadcast a documentary about her work. They all either smiled or laughed and nodded.". American Psychological Association, 4. Charity is humiliating because its exercised vertically and from above; solidarity is horizontal and implies mutual respect.. They are cleaner than blue-eyed people. 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. ", 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. These initial criticisms didnt stop Elliott. Delivery in 6+ hours! The musical is about romance, but it integrates issues of race and discrimination (Norris, 2014), and the song is about how discrimination is taught carefully, in long term. In 1968 after Martin Luther King was assassinated the United States was in turmoil. ", Others have praised Elliott's exercise. The Associated Press followed up, quoting Elliott as saying she was "dumbfounded" by the exercise's effectiveness. ", "I've never forgotten the exercise," Whisenhunt volunteered. SYNOPSIS OF BLUE EYED. Zimbardocreator of the also controversial 1971 Stanford Prisoner Experiment, which was stopped after college student volunteers acting as "guards" humiliated students acting as "prisoners"says Elliott's exercise is "more compelling than many done by professional psychologists. The blue eyes and brown eyes experiment According to supporters of Elliott's approach, the goal is to reach people's sense of empathy and morality. ", Steve Harnack, 62, served as the elementary school principal beginning in 1977. 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 . 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 . She was a local girl and the other teachers were intimidated by her success. One of the ways Hitler decided who went into the gas chamber was eye color, Elliott said in a later speech. Theyd have to use paper cups if they drank from the water fountain. Practical Psychology began as a collection of study material for psychology students in 2016, created by a student in the field. In the 60s, the United States was in the midst of a social race crisis. The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise continues to be relevant. "I understand this is the first time you've flown?" 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 . 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 . Why'd they shoot that King?" Abstract The effectiveness of a well-known prejudice-reduction simulation, "Blue Eyes-Brown Eyes," was assessed as a tool for changing the attitudes of ncnblack teacher eduction students toward blacks. Stripping away the veneer of the experiment, what was left had nothing to do with race. The American Psychologists Principles and code of conduct state that in cases of deception, experimenters should take into consideration the potential harmful effects to participants. 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. On Thursday, April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, TN. ", Dean Weaver, 70, superintendent of Riceville schools from 1972 to 1979, said, "She'd just go ahead and do things. She described to her colleagues what she'd done, remarking how several of her slower kids with brown eyes had transformed themselves into confident leaders of the class. 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 . Yet what Elliott did continues to stir controversy. Many critics that the children were too young to understand the exercise. The publication of compositions which the children had written about the experience in the local . Jane Elliott (ne Jennison; born on November 30, 1933) is an American diversity educator.As a schoolteacher, she became known for her "Blue eyes/Brown eyes" exercise, which she first conducted with her third-grade class on April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. She then made the blue-eyed students believe that they were better and smarter than their counterparts. More than 50 years after her famous exercise, Elliott is still fighting. It's cruel to white children and will cause them great psychological damage. Elliott split her students into two groups, based on eye color. These differences lead to war and hate. One scholar asserts that it is "Orwellian" and teaches whites "self-contempt." "You can see the look on their faces. Multi-Problem Adolescents: An Increasing Problem, Professor Jane Elliott performed a group experiment, the current problems related to discrimination. In Jane Elliott's experiment she made the third graders believe that the blue eyed people were better,than the brown eyed people. Jane Elliot and the Blue-Eyed Children Experiment. However, in this classroom, having blue-eyes had become a condition of inferiority. The study also violates the American Principles of Psychologist codes of conduct making its replication or further investigation unethical. That spring morning 37 years ago, the blue-eyed children were set apart from the children with brown or green eyes. This technique allows researchers to show how many different traits are necessary to create defined groups, and then analyze the subjects behavior within their groups. Although Jane Elliot's intentions were to teach the youngsters about racism, ethical issues related to the simulation were raised. 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. Regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status, decision making in psychology should protect individual rights and welfare to eliminate potential biases. I have brown eyes. She pointed out flaws in a student and associated it with . Order original essays online. 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. I was stunned. She has . At first, she cooperated with me. Thats just the way blue-eyed kids were, Elliott told the students. Jane Elliott, a teacher and anti-racism activist, performed a direct experiment with the students in her classroom. 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. If brown-eyed children made a mistake, Elliott would call out the mistake and attribute it to the students brown eyes. The brown-eyed children began to act aggressive and mean towards the blue-eyed children. Problems with this research were that it went against a lot of ethical issues. Would you like to find out? Blue Eye/Brown Eye is an experiment performed by Jane Elliot in 1968 on the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated to demonstrate what prejudice was to her third grade class. The killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, was a seismic event, a turning point that compelled many Americans to do something and do it with urgency. The blue-eyed participants faced discrimination for two and a half hours. people are better than blue-eyed people. Elliott and I were sitting at her dining room table. Many critics that the children were too young to understand the exercise. Ethical & Pedagogical Issues 2. 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. She learned that the responses from the children were negative and more generalized about what they thought about black people. 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. He printed them under the headline "How Discrimination Feels." 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. At the time, she was a third-grade . Before she could answer, another boy piped up: "If she didn't have blue eyes, she'd be the principal or the superintendent.". The next day when the tables were turned, "I felt like quitting school. The basic idea was to separate the class into two halves, students with blue eyes and those with brown. 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. Unfortunately, you cant copy samples. Considering all the stereotypes and prejudices that exist, what kind of damage is being done? January 1, 2003. "It's happening every day in this country, right now," she said in an interview with Morning Edition. Though Jane's actions were justifiable because she was not a psychologist, her experiment cannot be replicated in the present society. The latter felt discriminated against by the other brown-eyed children. Elliott is nothing if not stubborn. "I think these children walked in a colored child's moccasins for a day," she was quoted as saying. As the morning wore on, brown-eyed kids berated their blue-eyed classmates. Words are the most powerful weapon devised by humankind. "On an airplane, it is," Elliott said to appreciative laughter from the studio audience. Thats how it started, and thats how it went all day long. Could you?". She says that its shocking how children whore normally kind, cooperative, and friendly with each other suddenly become arrogant, discriminatory, and hostile when they belong to a superior group. Questioning authority The mainstream media were complicit in advancing such a simplistic narrative. Jane Elliott has done a lot of reflection about the consequences of the minimal group experiment. One of the blue eyed even went to hit a brown eyed just for the fact that he was brown eyed. "There's a sense of renewal here that I've never seen anywhere else," Elliott says. They are more civilized than blue-eyed people. ", Vision and tenacity may get results, but they don't always endear a person to her neighbors. "She could get kids to do anything she wanted them to," he says of Elliott. . If you had a good German name, but you had brown eyes, they threw you into the gas chamber because they thought you might be a Jewish person who was trying to pass. At recess, three brown-eyed girls ganged up on her. Elliott pulled out green construction paper armbands and asked each of the blue-eyed kids to wear one. Their response is to create dichotomies of inferiority and superiority. This bibliography was generated on Cite This For Me on Monday, March 7, 2016. She also assumed that none of the children had interacted with black people and that the only place they could have seen them is on television. Role Theory: Expectations, Identities, and Behaviors. You can contribute to that positive change by watching the documentary. Racism is not genetical. "Do blue-eyed people remember what they've been taught?" On the "Tonight Show" Carson broke the ice by spoofing Elliott's rural roots.