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.". It's cruel to white children and will cause them great psychological damage. "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. 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. Some guidelines for avoiding or reducing this effect are: In conclusion, Jane Elliotts experiment demonstrates the fragility of coexistence and cooperation. She learned that the responses from the children were negative and more generalized about what they thought about black people. 980 Words. She was 10 before the farmhouse had running water and electricity. hide caption. The basic idea was to separate the class into two halves - those with blue eyes and those with brown. 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. The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment. Keep me from judging a man until I have walked a mile in his moccasins. This is a Sioux saying. 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. Still, Elliott said the last few years have brought out America's worst racist tendencies. Elliott said that blue-eyed people were less intelligent and less clean. In the brown eyed/blue eyed experiment Jane Elliot told her third graders with blue eyes that they were better than the brown-eyed children. One key assumption is that the sample population represents an actual society. 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 . 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. [online] Today I Found Out. She slumped. She told the students that the brown-eyed children were inferior and repeated the experiment. The blue eyes brown eyes study was a study on group prejudice and discrimination conducted by Jane Elliot. That same year, Elliott was invited to the White House Conference on Children and Youth to conduct an exercise on adult educators. In the case of any doubt, it's best to consult a trusted specialist. "It's happening every day in this country, right now," she said in an interview with Morning Edition. 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 . 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. 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 . The children were not aware of the experiment, and therefore they could not give their permission of involvement. (2010). But Elliotts experiment had a more sinister impact. ", Then, the inevitable: "Hey, Mrs. Elliott, how come you're the teacher if you've got blue eyes?" Introduction. The subjects were 164 students enrolled in eight sections of an introductory elementary education course at a state university. I interviewed Julie Pasicznyk, who had been working for US West, a giant telecommunications company in Minneapolis. Nobodys standing here. ", Dean Weaver, 70, superintendent of Riceville schools from 1972 to 1979, said, "She'd just go ahead and do things. One teacher ended up displaying the same bigotry Elliott had spent the morning trying to fight. Blue-eyed students slumped in their chairs, as though . Blue-eyed people would get 5 extra minutes on the playground and blue-eyed people could not talk to brown-eyed people. But the protests happening now have given her hope. This bibliography was generated on Cite This For Me on Monday, March 7, 2016. "The browneyed people are the better people in this room," Elliott began. 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. PracticalPie.com is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program. The contents of Exploring Your Mind are for informational and educational purposes only. 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." When you read about this experiment, its hard not to question labels. "No person of any age [was] going to leave my presence with those attitudes unchallenged," Elliott said. The brown-eyed children felt suddenly that they were discriminated, while the blue eyed started seeing them as inferior. Kellen Castineiras PSY Dr. Gail C. Flanagan February 6, 2022. . 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. 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. She was hesitant to enroll in Elliotts workshop but was told that if she wanted to succeed as a manager, shed have to attend. "You have to put the exercise in the context of the rest of the year. Sadly, these conversations are still relevant today. On the morning of april 5, 1968, a Friday, Steven Armstrong stepped into Jane Elliott's third-grade classroom in Riceville, Iowa. The next day when the tables were turned, "I felt like quitting school. Melanin, she said, is what causes intelligence. 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 . She has made statements about the increase in hate crimes and racism in recent years. The following are some of her most insightful quotes on these issues. Disclaimer: SpeedyPaper.com is a custom writing service that provides online on-demand writing work for assistance purposes. Even though the response to the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise was initially negative, it made Jane Elliott a leading figure in diversity training. In the most uncomfortable moments, Elliott reminds the students of violent acts caused by racism or homophobia. Elliott separated her all-white class of students into two groups: blue-eyed children and brown-eyed children. THE ANGRY EYE , a 35-minute video, features Jane Elliott conducting her Blue Eyed/Brown Eyed exercise with college students. The next day, Elliott reversed the roles. After the exercise white college students in . Days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., she pioneered an experiment to show her all-white class of third graders what it was like to be Black in America. Professor Jane Elliott performed a group experiment with her students that they would never forget. When the blue-eyed group saw that the brown-eyed group was going to be seated first, some became upset. 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. From the University of California Press website: 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. What Lies Behind Your Urgent Need to Answer Work E Mails? The demonstration has since been taught by generations of teachers to millions of kids across the country. According to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, 2010 the experiment also violates the principle of Integrity. ", Elliott says the role of a teacher is to enhance students' moral development. How can we teach kids to be more like him? Ethical issues were 1/3 of the participants refused to take the head off the rat . She chatted about the experiment, and before she knew it was whisked off the stage. She told them that people with brown eyes were better than people with blue eyes. Having in mind that it would be difficult to explain to third graders about discrimination, she needed to be more practical so that her student could understand how discrimination and prejudice felt. Why are we still talking about this experiment over 50 years later? In the 60s, the United States was in the midst of a social race crisis. Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images She says its because racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, and ethnocentrism are mean and nasty. Open Document. "She got carried away by this possession she developed over human beings. She pointed out flaws in a student and associated it with . Although Jane Elliot's intentions were to teach the youngsters about racism, ethical issues related to the simulation were raised. Select from the 0 categories from which you would like to receive articles. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 prompted educator Jane Elliott to create the now-famous "blue eyes/brown eyes exercise.". "Would you like to come on the show?" Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Elliott was shocked by the results and decided to switch the roles the following day. From Elliot's highly controversial experiment it is clear that prejudice and discrimination can only be understood through experience. "That's what I tried to teach, and that's what drove the other teachers crazy. Subsequent research designed to gauge the efficacy of Elliotts attempt at reducing prejudice showed that many participants were shocked by the experiment, but it did nothing to address or explain the root causes of racism. 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? Copyright 20102023, The Conversation Media Group Ltd. Although actions from the experiment show lack of respect towards subjects it has widely been recognized in the study of human behavior in social and cultural context. The results are mixed. The experiment, known as Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment, is regarded as an eye-opening way for children to learn about racism and discrimination. Elliott went after Ken and Barbie all day long, drilling, accusing, ridiculing them, to make the point that whites make baseless judgments about Blacks all the time, Pasicznyk said. They felt superior and had the support of the authority figure (the teacher). When Elliott first conducted the exercise in 1968, brown-eyed students were given special privileges. 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. Unfortunately, you cant copy samples. In 2001, Jane Elliott recordedThe Angry Eye,in which she revised and updated her experiment. You can contribute to that positive change by watching the documentary. 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. To begin with, Jane Elliot's experiment involved deception in which the children were made in believing that change in eye color influence intelligence. PracticalPsychology. Consequently, the brown-eyed children started using blue-eyes as an insult. The hate and discrimination that we see in adults have their origin in their upbringing. 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. "We are repeating the blue-eyed/brown-eyed exercise on a daily basis.". All rights reserved. March 26, 1985. ", We backed out. Today, she says, it's still playing out as the U.S. reckons with racial injustice. The day after Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, Elliott had a talk with her students about diversity and racism. To most people, it seemed to suggest that racism could be reduced, even eliminated, by a one- or two-day exercise. Blue-eyed children got five extra minutes of recess. She traveled to corporations, banks, prisons, schools and military bases. Problems with this research were that it went against a lot of ethical issues. Outside, rows of corn stretched to the horizon. Elliott? Would you like to find out? Little children don't like uproar in the classroom. 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. However, in this classroom, having blue-eyes had become a condition of inferiority. 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. The May 25 killing of George Floyd set off weeks of nationwide protests over the police abuse and racism against black people, plunging the U.S. into a reckoning of racial inequality. You've still got that same sweet smile. As a journalism professor and author of a book on race that spans more than 50 years, Ive watched these developments with great concern. All the work should be used in accordance with the appropriate policies and applicable laws. 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. ", Vision and tenacity may get results, but they don't always endear a person to her neighbors. people are better than blue-eyed people. one girl asked. "Eye color, hair color and skin color are caused by a chemical," Elliott went on, writing MELANIN on the blackboard. Many of them noted that when they hear prejudice and discrimination from others, they wish they could whip out those collars and give them the experience they had as third graders. January 1, 2003. Through this study, Elliot demonstrated how easy it is for prejudice and discrimination to emerge from just a simple message that people with one eye color are superior to people with another eye color. One group consisted pupils with brown eye while the other group consisted of those with blue eyes. The students initially involved wished that everyone could participate in an exercise like this. Website. She left teaching in the mid-80s to speak publicly about the experience and the impact of prejudice and racism. I was stunned.
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