The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise received national attention shortly after it ended. 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. She slumped. Elliot wanted to show that the same thing happens in real life with brown eyed people (minority). Scores of others did participate. Two years later, a BBC documentary captured the experiment in Elliott's classroom. Sign up for Politics Weekly.]. It also shows how arbitrary and subjective things can turn friends, family members, and citizens against each other. 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. Normally, blue-eyes isnt an insult. 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. 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 . Blue or Brown; A Classroom Divided | Applied Social Psychology (ASP) "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. We have to let people find out how it feels to be on the receiving end of that which we dish out so readily.". The smell of the crops and loam and topsoil and manure wafted though the open door. She also made the brown-eyed students put construction paper armbands on the blue-eyed students. However, both Mary and Zeke have brown eyes. 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. "They can't forget me," she said, "and because of who they are, they can't forgive me. 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. "Well, what do you expect from him, Mrs. Elliott," a brown-eyed student said as a blue-eyed student got an arithmetic problem wrong. In present society, psychological experiments are guided by honesty, truthfulness, and accuracy. She gave the blue-eyed students an armband so other students could more easily identify them, and then she told her class that it was a scientific fact that people with brown eyes are smarter than those with blue because their bodies had more . "She got carried away by this possession she developed over human beings. Unfortunately, you cant copy samples. As a journalism professor and author of a book on race that spans more than 50 years, Ive watched these developments with great concern. The following are some of her most insightful quotes on these issues. Regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status, decision making in psychology should protect individual rights and welfare to eliminate potential biases. This meeting, along with other clips of the exercises impact on education, is featured in a PBS documentary called A Class Divided. It didnt take long for the children to turn on each other. It also documents small-town White America's reflex reaction to the . Traditionally, society has always treated leadership as a male issue. I got to have five minutes extra of recess." 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. 10," Elliott said. Blue eyes, brown eyes: What Jane Elliott's famous experiment says about race 50 years on. 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. (2010). Elliott flew to the NBC studio in New York City. Some people feel we can't move on when you have her out there hawking her 30-year-old experiment. The documentary has become a popular teaching tool among teachers, business owners, and even employees at correctional facilities. They are more civilized than blue-eyed people. This way, she successfully created two distinct groups in her classroom: The consequences of the minimal group became evident very quickly. On Monday, Elliott reversed the exercise, and the brown-eyed kids were told how shifty, dumb and lazy theywere. Exercise or Experiment-- An Account of Jane Elliott's Tenacity: A The secretary said the south side of the building was closed, something about waxing the hallways. 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. "Brown-eyed people have more of that chemical in their eyes, so brown-eyed people are better than those with blue eyes," Elliott said. Facilitators should be aware that Jane Elliott's focus on white people can lead viewers to the wrong impression that people of color are passively molded by white people's behavior when, in actuality, people of color can and do respond to racism in a variety of ways. Even though the response to the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise was initially negative, it made Jane Elliott a leading figure in diversity training. She has led training sessions at General Electric, Exxon, AT&T, IBM and other corporations, and has lectured to the IRS, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Department of Education and the Postal Service. ", Others have praised Elliott's exercise. And StanfordUniversity psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo writes in his 1979 textbook, Psychology and Life, that Elliott's "remarkable" experiment tried to show "how easily prejudiced attitudes may be formed and how arbitrary and illogical they can be." Jane Elliott has done a lot of reflection about the consequences of the minimal group experiment. The video . The blue-eyed girl apologized. In 1970, a documentary about the exercise was released. In 2001, Jane Elliott recordedThe Angry Eye,in which she revised and updated her experiment. 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. ", Elliott says the role of a teacher is to enhance students' moral development. 4. Would you like to get this essay by email? She was 10 before the farmhouse had running water and electricity. We walked into the principal's office at RicevilleElementary School, Elliott's old haunt. Module 2 Discussion_ Are We Still Divided_ Blue Eyes_Brown Eyes_ A 3rd Elliott was featured on nearly every national news show in America for decades. 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. . The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise continues to be relevant. The Anti-Racism Exercise That Taught Kids to Be Racist - Gizmodo Its not surprising to anyone that some social groups discriminate against others due to ethnicity, religion, or culture. Brian, the Elliotts' oldest son, got beaten up at school, and Jane called the ringleader's, mother. The episode features with new footage of the students, who are now adults. Elliott championed the experiment as an inoculation against racism., [The Conversations Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories. When she separated the class by eye color and announced that blue-eyed children were superior, Paul Bodensteiner objected at every turn. She repeated the abuse with subsequent classes, and finally turned it into a fully commercial enterprise. . Blue-eyed people would get 5 extra minutes on the playground and blue-eyed people could not talk to brown-eyed people. When you read about this experiment, its hard not to question labels. ABC broadcast a documentary about her work. When Differences Matter | Facing History and Ourselves 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. 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. More than 50 years after she first tried that exercise in her classroom, Elliott, now 87, said she sees much more work left to do to change racist attitudes. She told them that people with brown eyes were superior to those with blue eyes, for reasons she made up. In this photograph from Sept. 13, 1965, Black children on their way to school in New York City pass by segregationists protesting integrated busing. Not a day goes by without me thinking about it, Ms. Elliott. Alan Charles Kors, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, says Elliott's diversity training is "Orwellian" and singled her out as "the Torquemada of thought reform." Days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. That's what it feels like when you're discriminated against.". Malinda Whisenhunt? 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. Could you?". And the exercise continued in a similar fashion to how it was executed the day before. We Are Repeating The Discrimination Experiment Every Day, Says - NPR Carson asked, grinning. The three outcomes are: (1) virtually all of the subjects reported that the experience was 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? 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 selection was based on the color of the eye for each group. After recess that day, the brown-eyed children complained that they were . Perhaps because the outcome seemed so optimistic and comforting, coverage of Elliott and the experiments alleged curative powers cropped up everywhere. Mental Floss, 4. Jane Elliott, one of the most controversial figures in U.S. education and diversity training, began her journey to international acclaim in Riceville, Iowa. Ethical Experiments - AP Psychology-NWHS Or alternatively you may decide to keep them in ignorance of what is happening. Jane Elliott, shown here in 2009, remains an outspoken advocate against racism. Thats just the way blue-eyed kids were, Elliott told the students. The Hangout Bar & Grill, the Riceville Pharmacy and ATouch of Dutch, a restaurant owned by Mennonites, line Main Street. This procedure is sometimes so subtle that no one notices it happening. She was a standing-room-only speaker at hundreds of colleges and universities. But not Elliott. A Teacher Held a Famous Racism Exercise in 1968. She's Still at It. Why is Jane Elliot's exercise problematic for some people? I felt mad. Students in the inferior groups were more likely to get a worse score. Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Elliott, who is white, separated the students into two groupsthose with blue eyes and those with brown eyes. The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment. Theyd have to use paper cups if they drank from the water fountain. "The browneyed people are the better people in this room," Elliott began. Terms of Use 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. Hundreds of viewers wrote letters saying Elliott's work appalled them. 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. She wanted to show her students that an arbitrarily established difference could separate them and pit them against each other. If brown-eyed children made a mistake, Elliott would call out the mistake and attribute it to the students brown eyes. At recess, three brown-eyed girls ganged up on her. 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. In the early morning, dew and fog cover the acres of gently swaying stalks that surround Riceville the way water surrounds an island. Introduction. The Blue Eyes & Brown Eyes Exercise. In the 60s, the United States was in the midst of a social race crisis. Did We Fail the Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes ExperimentOr Did It Fail Us? 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 . "No person of any age [was] going to leave my presence with those attitudes unchallenged," Elliott said. They felt superior and had the support of the authority figure (the teacher). The answer, in a word, was nothing. "There's a sense of renewal here that I've never seen anywhere else," Elliott says. Children with brown eyes were forced to wear armbands that made it easy for people to see that they had brown eyes. She also made the brown-eyed students put construction paper armbands on the blue-eyed students. 10 Psychological Experiments That Could Never Happen Today. Elliott shared the essays with her mother, who showed them to the editor of the weekly Riceville Recorder. She could feel a chasm forming between the two groups of students. "People of other color groups seem to understand," she said. 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 . Want a quality guarantee? 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. A second look at the blue-eyes, brown-eyes experiment that taught third How can we teach kids to be more like him? 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. Jane Elliott's experiment of dividing an otherwise homogenous group of school kids by their eye color. I'm tired of hearing about her and her experiment and how everyone here is a racist. 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. The next day, Elliott reversed the roles. The brown-eyed children began to act aggressive and mean towards the blue-eyed children. Yet what Elliott did continues to stir controversy. She and Darald split their time between a converted schoolhouse in Osage, Iowa, a town 18 miles from Riceville, and a home near Riverside, California. PDF Sociology. PUB DATE Withdrawn brown-eyed kids were suddenly outgoing, some beaming with the widest smiles she had ever seen on them. They also harassed them constantly. She was a local girl and the other teachers were intimidated by her success. Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes experiment was a turning point in social psychology. Open Document. The blue-eyed children were told not to do their homework because, even if they answered all the questions, theyd probably forget to bring the assignment back to class. ", Walt Gabelmann, 83, was Riceville's mayor for 18 years beginning in 1966. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Did we fail the blue eyes/brown eyes experiment or did it fail us? 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. APA principles acknowledge that individuals rights to privacy, self-determination, and confidentiality is paramount to all psychological activities. Elliott instructed the blue-eyed kids not to play on the jungle gym or swings. "Maybe the way to sell the exercise would have been to invite the parents in, to talk about what she'd be doing. 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. The anti-racism sessions Elliott led were intense. Did they know what it was like to be discriminated against? Biddle, B. J. One scholar asserts that it is "Orwellian" and teaches whites "self-contempt." ", Elliott replied, "Why are we so worried about the fragile egos of white children who experience a couple of hours of made-up racism one day when blacks experience real racism every day of their lives?". Blue Eyed vs Brown Eyed Experiment by Bree Elliott - Prezi 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. The empathy she works to inspire in students with the experiment, which has been modified over the years, is necessary, she said.