Jane would get invited to go to Timbuktu to give a speech. 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. 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 . The contents of Exploring Your Mind are for informational and educational purposes only. Hire a professional with VAST experience! This procedure is sometimes so subtle that no one notices it happening. "Brown-eyed people have more of that chemical in their eyes, so brown-eyed people are better than those with blue eyes," Elliott said. Blue-eyed children got five extra minutes of recess. They wouldnt be allowed second helpings for lunch. Not everyone appreciated Elliotts exercise. In Building Moral Intelligence: The Seven Essential Virtues That Teach Kids to Do the Right Things, educational psychologist Michele Borda says it "teaches our children to counter stereotypes before they become full-fledged, lasting prejudices and to recognize that every human being has the right to be treated with respect." Would you like to find out? Sorry, but it's not possible to copy the text due to security reasons. She was hesitant to enroll in Elliotts workshop but was told that if she wanted to succeed as a manager, shed have to attend. The results are mixed. 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. Multi-Problem Adolescents: An Increasing Problem, Professor Jane Elliott performed a group experiment, the current problems related to discrimination. Advertising Notice Your Privacy Rights It also shows how arbitrary and subjective things can turn friends, family members, and citizens against each other. She told the students that the brown-eyed children were inferior and repeated the experiment. ", 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. Little children don't like uproar in the classroom. For many, the experiment went horribly awry. ", Elliott defends her work as a mother defends her child. ", 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images The brown-eyed children didnt want to play with the blue-eyes during recess. ", Then, the inevitable: "Hey, Mrs. Elliott, how come you're the teacher if you've got blue eyes?" The Blue-Eyes, Brown-Eyes Experiment. Cookie Settings, Kids Start Forgetting Early Childhood Around Age 7, Archaeologists Discover Wooden Spikes Described by Julius Caesar, Artificial Sweetener Tied to Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke, Study Finds, Rare Jurassic-Era Insect Discovered at Arkansas Walmart. It was typical of Elliott's blunt styleno "Good morning," no small talk. How can put those little children through that exercise for a day? And they seem unable to relate the sympathy that theyre feeling for these little white children for a day to what happens to children of color in this society for a lifetime or to the fact that they are doing this to children based on skin color every day. It has everything to do with power.. . Weve been here before, with unsettling and disturbing results. She was 10 before the farmhouse had running water and electricity. See Page 1. hide caption. They all either smiled or laughed and nodded.". One student answers, since the day I was born. Throughout the entire experiment, Elliott leads frank conversations about race and discrimination. Thousands of educators across the United States folded the experiment into their curriculums. These differences lead to war and hate. The corn grows so fast in northern Iowafrom seedling to seven-foot-high stalk in 12 weeksthat it crackles. One of the main ones was the fact that their right to withdraw was taken away from them. From the moment the experiment begins, Jane Elliott uses a mean tone to speak to the participants. Subsequently the brown-eyed children stopped objecting, even when Miss Elliott and the blue-eyed kids chastised and bullied them. The "invisible knapsack" is an analogy for a set of invisible and not widely talked about privileges that white people possess in the society. 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 students who had blue eyes were told that they were better and smarter than their inferior brown-eyed peers. Sign up for Politics Weekly.]. The latter felt discriminated against by the other brown-eyed children. Grasping for a scientific explanation, she ended up claiming that melanin makes eyes darker, and makes . 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. Elliot's approach to the experiment involved creativity in which the pupils' age and ability to comprehend discrimination was taken into account. We walked into the principal's office at RicevilleElementary School, Elliott's old haunt. In the documentary, she said that she conducted the original blue-eyes, brown-eyes experiment to make a positive change. 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 . I felt like quitting school. Elliot wanted to show that the same thing happens in real life with brown eyed people (minority). The searing story is a cautionary tale that examines power and privilege in and out of the classroom. According to role theorist Erving Goffman, emotional and cognitive experiences in such experiments as the Blue-Eyed versus the Brown-Eyed can have a long-term influence on behaviors and attitudes of participants especially when they are made to play the role of a stigmatized group (Biddle, 2013). Nobodys standing here. At the time, she was a third-grade . "We give our children shots to inoculate them against polio and smallpox, to protect them against the realities in the future. Ethics + Religion; Health; Politics + Society; . 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. But not Elliott. Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment Ethical? As the morning wore on, brown-eyed kids berated their blue-eyed classmates. The idea was simple but profound. Scores of others did participate. Elliott had hoped that this experiment would help the children to better understand the feelings of discrimination that certain groups feel on a daily basis, but what she didn . Mental Sandboxes and Their Usefulness in Today's World, The Law of Reversed Effort: When Taking Action Isn't the Best Option. In the early morning, dew and fog cover the acres of gently swaying stalks that surround Riceville the way water surrounds an island. She has appeared on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" five times. 980 Words. The experiment known as Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment is regarded as an eye-opening way for children to learn about racism and discrimination. Essay Example, Essay Example on Racism Towards Black People, Essay Sample about Developing a Campaign for School Intimidation, Essay Example on Therapist-Client Relationship Boundaries, Islamic Perspective on Euthanasia, Free Essay Sample. Brian, the Elliotts' oldest son, got beaten up at school, and Jane called the ringleader's, mother. Before she could answer, another boy piped up: "If she didn't have blue eyes, she'd be the principal or the superintendent.". She has . 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 . Privacy Statement This was intentional. she asked the children, who were white. Its not true and its not fair no matter what you say! he responded. She then told them that the children with blue eyes were inherently inferior to the children with brown . Perhaps because the outcome seemed so optimistic and comforting, coverage of Elliott and the experiments alleged curative powers cropped up everywhere. Jane Elliott, a teacher and anti-racism activist, performed a direct experiment with the students in her classroom. She had never met me, and she accused me in front of everyone of using my sexuality to get ahead.. 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. Elliott asked. "Not one of them reprimanded her for that or even corrected her. 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. She believed that experience was the only way her students could understand how it felt like to be discriminated. The Hangout Bar & Grill, the Riceville Pharmacy and ATouch of Dutch, a restaurant owned by Mennonites, line Main Street. The next day, Elliott reversed the roles. Within a few hours of starting the exercise, Elliott noticed big differences in the childrens behavior and how they treated each other. Thats just the way blue-eyed kids were, Elliott told the students. . (Byrnes & Kiger, 1992). ", We stopped on Woodlawn Avenue, and a woman in her mid-40s approached us on the sidewalk. 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. "The browneyed people are the better people in this room," Elliott began. The subjects were 164 students enrolled in eight sections of an introductory elementary education course at a state university. With a couple of basic and arbitrary examples, Elliott made the case that brown-eyed people were better. ", The two hugged, and Whisenhunt had tears streaming down her cheeks. ", A former teacher, Ruth Setka, 79, said she was perhaps the only teacher who would still talk to Elliott. "They can't forget me," she said, "and because of who they are, they can't forgive me. ", Others have praised Elliott's 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 Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise continues to be relevant. Jane Elliott has done a lot of reflection about the consequences of the minimal group experiment. They are cleaner than blue-eyed people. Order from one of our vetted writers instead. The test also included violation of consent in which participation of the children was made involuntarily. She wanted to show her students that an arbitrarily established difference could separate them and pit them against each other. Today, she says, it's still playing out as the U.S. reckons with racial injustice. people are better than blue-eyed people. Charity is humiliating because its exercised vertically and from above; solidarity is horizontal and implies mutual respect.. Thus, the dominant group, supported by the authorities, will always have the upper hand. Two years later, a BBC documentary captured the experiment in Elliott's classroom. "I know who she is. Why was the Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment considered unethical in psychology? That's what it feels like when you're discriminated against.". 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. Articles and opinions on happiness, fear and other aspects of human psychology. 2012 2023 . Traditionally, society has always treated leadership as a male issue. 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. One caller complained that white children would not be able to handle the exercise and would be seriously damaged by the exercise. ", Elliott says the role of a teacher is to enhance students' moral development. Elliott was featured on nearly every national news show in America for decades. 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. 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. One caller complained that white children would not be able to handle . Professor of Journalism, University of Iowa. 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 act of treating students differently was obviously a metaphor for the social decisions made on a larger level. This bibliography was generated on Cite This For Me on Monday, March 7, 2016. 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 . She asks them if they have ever faced treatment like the type that blue-eyed people would experience in the following two and a half hours. This paradigm helps understand the current problems related to discrimination. Nevertheless, Elliott became as famous as a teacher could become in America. She says its because racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, and ethnocentrism are mean and nasty. It has since evolved into an online blog and YouTube channel providing mental health advice, tools, and academic support to individuals from all backgrounds. One group consisted pupils with brown eye while the other group consisted of those with blue eyes. She also made the brown-eyed students put construction paper armbands on the blue-eyed students. This way, she successfully created two distinct groups in her classroom: The consequences of the minimal group became evident very quickly. Youve probably heard different versions of it. 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. Withdrawn brown-eyed kids were suddenly outgoing, some beaming with the widest smiles she had ever seen on them. On the "Tonight Show" Carson broke the ice by spoofing Elliott's rural roots. Brown-eyed people, she told the students, are smarter, more civilized and better than blue-eyed people. The first day of the experiment she convinced the children that blue-eyed people were smarter, better and would have more priorities. "Malinda? 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. When some of the . Jane Elliot's experiment involves cheating and intentional misinterpretation of facts. Unfortunately, you cant copy samples. Essay Sample: Ethical Concerns in Jane Elliot's Experiment. Blue Eyes vs. Brown Eyes Experiment. Jane Elliot and the Blue-Eyed Children Experiment. When Elliott first conducted the exercise in 1968, brown-eyed students were given special privileges. 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 . Many critics that the children were too young to understand the exercise. School ought to be about developing character, but most teachers won't touch that with a ten-foot pole.". Some people feel we can't move on when you have her out there hawking her 30-year-old experiment. The smell of the crops and loam and topsoil and manure wafted though the open door. Despite the adaptation of the experiment in psychological studies, Jane has been widely criticized for her unethical conduct and promotion of discrimination among children. 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. In this article, we talk about leadership and female discrimination.. Jane Elliott was a third grade teacher in Riceville, Iowa when she developed the Blue Eyed/ Brown Eyed exercise to teach the effects of racism. Elliott instructed the blue-eyed kids not to play on the jungle gym or swings. In her article, Peggy McIntosh compares the "white privilege" to an invisible set of unearned rewards and . Kellen Castineiras PSY Dr. Gail C. Flanagan February 6, 2022. . 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. To most people, it seemed to suggest that racism could be reduced, even eliminated, by a one- or two-day exercise. 10 Psychological Experiments That Could Never Happen Today. 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). 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. She told them that people with brown eyes were superior to those with blue eyes, for reasons she made up. She also made the brown-eyed students put construction paper armbands on the blue-eyed students. "Mention two wordsJane Elliottand you get a flood of emotions from people," says Jim Cross, the Riceville Recorder's editor these days. The basic idea was to separate the class into two halves - those with blue eyes and those with brown. "Maybe the way to sell the exercise would have been to invite the parents in, to talk about what she'd be doing. The day after Kings murder, Jane Elliott, a white third-grade teacher in rural Riceville, Iowa, sought to make her students feel the brutality of racism. . The experiment is to help the children to understand about prejudice and discrimination. Elliott began the exercise by dividing her students by eye color. Professor Jane Elliott performed a group experiment with her students that they would never forget. 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. To begin with, Jane Elliot's experiment involved deception in which the children were made in believing that change in eye color influence intelligence. 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 Jane Elliott's experiment she made the third graders believe that the blue eyed people were better,than the brown eyed people. Role Theory: Expectations, Identities, and Behaviors. She began this work in Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes offers an intimate portrait of the insular community where Elliott grew up and conducted the experiment on the town's children for more than a decade. Blue-eyed students slumped in their chairs, as though . When Elliott walked into the teachers' lounge the next Monday, several teachers got up and walked out. Ms. Elliott, now 87, said she started teaching about racism on April 5, 1968 the day after the Rev. The Brown Eyed / Blue Eyed Experiment. She told them that people with brown eyes were better than people with blue eyes. Elliott was not. Today, increased migration means more opportunities for people from different backgrounds to interact with each other, which is often a source of conflict. 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. I'm tired of hearing about her and her experiment and how everyone here is a racist. The answer, in a word, was nothing. 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. They killed hundreds of thousands of people based on eye color alone, thats the reason I used eye color for my determining factor that day., Elliott divided the class into children with blue eyes and children with brown eyes. Everyone looked at Mrs. Elliott. Elliott split her students into two groups, based on eye color. "Because we might catch something," a brown-eyed boy said. Jane Elliott, one of the most controversial figures in U.S. education and diversity training, began her journey to international acclaim in Riceville, Iowa. The ethical concerns arising from the experiment are consent and deception. On the other hand, privileged members of the community are treated as in-groups which earn them undue respect and capacity to abuse the less advantaged. . 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. one girl asked. They didnt need to engage with a single Black person. And the exercise continued in a similar fashion to how it was executed the day before. Danko, M. (2013). "If this ugly change, if this negative change can happen this quickly, why can't positive change happen that quickly? SpeedyPaper website, please click below to request its removal: Liked this essay sample but need an original one? Solve your problem differently! In the most uncomfortable moments, Elliott reminds the students of violent acts caused by racism or homophobia. Looking back, I think part of the problem was that, like the residents of other small midwestern towns I've covered, many in Riceville felt that calling attention to oneself was poor manners, and that Elliott had shone a bright light not just on herself but on Riceville; people all over the United States would think Riceville was full of bigots. Copyright 20102023, The Conversation Media Group Ltd. January 1, 2003. The students initially involved wished that everyone could participate in an exercise like this. 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. In this scenario, students are told brown-eyed people . ", Vision and tenacity may get results, but they don't always endear a person to her neighbors. After recess that day, the brown-eyed children complained that they were . (In later versions of the exercise, children in the inferior group were given collars to wear.). The brown-eyed children began to act aggressive and mean towards the blue-eyed children. Answer (1 of 3): My guess is that is doesn't really represent racism but classism. In the 60s, the United States was in the midst of a social race crisis. Hundreds of viewers wrote letters saying Elliott's work appalled them. Elliott started to see her own white privilege, even her own ignorance. Elliott? 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 . I felt like hitting them if I wanted to. Elliott rattled off the rules for the day, saying blue-eyed kids had to use paper cups if they drank from the water fountain. The interaction only strengthened Elliott's resolve. You have the right color eyes!. Why'd they shoot that King?" 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. They are steeped in centuries of economic deprivation and cultural appropriation. With this experiment she wanted to let the blue-eyed people (white people) feel how it is to be in low power position. When the exercise ended, some of the kids hugged, some cried. Decent Essays. It seemed to evince that all white people had to do to learn about racism was restrain themselves from an impulse to engage in made-up cruelty. It's the Jane Elliott machine. Yes, that day was tough. 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 could get kids to do anything she wanted them to," he says of Elliott. She told the kids that blue-eyed children weren't as good as brown-eyed or green-eyed ones. Much like the Zimbardo's Stanford Prison experiment where students were divided by either being the jailer or the jailed. Elliott, who is white, separated the students into two groupsthose with blue eyes and those with brown eyes. Delivery in 6+ hours! In fact, most of the initial response was negative. I was stunned. On the morning of april 5, 1968, a Friday, Steven Armstrong stepped into Jane Elliott's third-grade classroom in Riceville, Iowa. At points, you are likely to feel uncomfortable. The brown-eyed students also exercised a certain level of power over the blue-eyed students when they put the armbands on them. Blue-eyed people would get 5 extra minutes on the playground and blue-eyed people could not talk to brown-eyed people. On the second day of the experiment, Elliott switched the childrens roles. 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. PracticalPie.com is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program. New York: Elsevier Science. 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. "Do blue-eyed people remember what they've been taught?" And what she did caused an uproar. Separate the class into two halves - those with blue eyes and those with brown. Some residents were furious. In a grassy front yard down the block is a hand-lettered sign: "Glads for Sale, 3 for $1." 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. Normally, blue-eyes isnt an insult. She noticed that student relationships had changed; even if students were friendly outside of the exercise, they treated each other with arrogance or bossiness once the roles were assigned.
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