Thousands of educators across the United States folded the experiment into their curriculums. Professor Jane Elliott performed a group experiment with her students that they would never forget. Scores of others did participate. Even though the response to the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise was initially negative, it made Jane Elliott a leading figure in diversity training. 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. Is your time best spent reading someone elses essay? She pointed out flaws in a student and associated it with . 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 . 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. That's not true. 10," Elliott said. 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. 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. 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. They also harassed them constantly. The people and cultures already present in a place often feel threatened by new immigrants. I was stunned. "Your son got what he deserved," the woman said. According to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, 2010 the experiment also violates the principle of Integrity. Subsequently the brown-eyed children stopped objecting, even when Miss Elliott and the blue-eyed kids chastised and bullied them. "I don't think this community was ready for what she did," he said. I have brown eyes. 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. Kellen Castineiras PSY Dr. Gail C. Flanagan February 6, 2022. . Considering all the stereotypes and prejudices that exist, what kind of damage is being done? Charity is humiliating because its exercised vertically and from above; solidarity is horizontal and implies mutual respect.. It's cruel to white children and will cause them great psychological damage. She also made the brown-eyed students put construction paper armbands on the blue-eyed students. At lunchtime, Elliott hurried to the teachers' lounge. Decent Essays. Would you like to get this essay by email? "You have to put the exercise in the context of the rest of the year. 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. Carson asked, grinning. "You better apologize to us for getting in our way because we're better than you are," one of the brownies said. You have the right color eyes!. One of the most famous experiments in education Jane Elliott's "blue eyes, brown eyes" separation of her third grade students to teach them about prejudice was very different from what the public was told, as revealed in this excerpt from the in-depth story about what really happened in that classroom. Amitai Etzioni, a sociologist at George WashingtonUniversity, says the exercise helps develop character and empathy. Yet what Elliott did continues to stir controversy. 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. These differences lead to war and hate. The nearest traffic light is 20 miles away. Given the ethical concerns, will you still rely on a quasi-experimental research design as a source of information in counselling psychology? It makes you proud. Elliott rattled off the rules for the day, saying blue-eyed kids had to use paper cups if they drank from the water fountain. "She stirs people up. "That you, Ms. One of the blue eyed even went to hit a brown eyed just for the fact that he was brown eyed. "We'll just be a couple of minutes. On April 4 1968, King was killed by the single . 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. On the "Tonight Show" Carson broke the ice by spoofing Elliott's rural roots. 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. This procedure is sometimes so subtle that no one notices it happening. Issues such as the right to know, the right to privacy, and informed consent. And what she did caused an uproar. A second look at the blue-eyes, brown-eyes experiment that taught third-graders about racism. 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. Multi-Problem Adolescents: An Increasing Problem, Professor Jane Elliott performed a group experiment, the current problems related to discrimination. The video . 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. 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. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. She was a local girl and the other teachers were intimidated by her success. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 was also an event that spurred educators to action, motivating one teacher to try out a bold experiment touted to reduce racism. ", Absolutely not. In 1968, schoolteacher Jane Elliott decided to divide her classroom into students with blue eyes and students with brown eyes. ", 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. Before proceeding with the test, she began with random questions to fully understand the children's perception of Negroes. In this article, we'll explain what happened during the experiment and discuss its consequences. "Blue-eyed people sit around and do nothing. "This here is Jane Elliott," I said. Additionally, the brown-eyed students got to sit in the front of the class, while the blue-eyed kids . "Do blue-eyed people remember what they've been taught?" This way, she successfully created two distinct groups in her classroom: The consequences of the minimal group became evident very quickly. Sign up for Politics Weekly.]. "We give our children shots to inoculate them against polio and smallpox, to protect them against the realities in the future. See Page 1. 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. Thats how it started, and thats how it went all day long. Focusing on ethics the experiment violated some of the principles and codes of conduct established by the American Psychological Association. She nodded. "How dare you try this cruel experiment out on white children," one said. According to the article is Jane Elliot's experiment to small degree effective. Jane Elliots work and experiences have made her an authority on education and anti-racism. Thats just the way blue-eyed kids were, Elliott told the students. "I think these children walked in a colored child's moccasins for a day," she was quoted as saying. What Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment? "She was an excellent school teacher, but she has a way about her," says 90-year-old Riceville native Patricia Bodenham, who has known Elliott since Jane was a baby. Their response is to create dichotomies of inferiority 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. Then a picture was taken to remember. 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.". The brown-eyed people were told to step to the front of the line. Elliott said that blue-eyed people were less intelligent and less clean. Jane Elliott at Riceville, Iowa, Elementary School in 1968. January 1, 2003. . 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 . . 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. Jane Elliott, one of the most controversial figures in U.S. education and diversity training, began her journey to international acclaim in Riceville, Iowa. Three sections were selected to be administered the simulation . Copyright 20102023, The Conversation Media Group Ltd. Elliott asked. 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 . It also documents small-town White America's reflex reaction to the . She traveled to corporations, banks, prisons, schools and military bases. More than 50 years after her famous exercise, Elliott is still fighting. The idea of white privilege is closely tied to Elliotts initial question to her students. 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 . "It would be hard to know, wouldn't it, unless we actually experienced discrimination ourselves. Many critics that the children were too young to understand the exercise. Jane Elliott's experiment. Outside, rows of corn stretched to the horizon. Some guidelines for avoiding or reducing this effect are: In conclusion, Jane Elliotts experiment demonstrates the fragility of coexistence and cooperation. Ethics + Religion; Health; Politics + Society; . Elliott's friends and family say she's tenacious, and has always had a reformer's zeal. Elliott asked her students to write about their experiences for the local newspaper. The searing story is a cautionary tale that examines power and privilege in and out of the classroom. Elliott created the blue-eyes/brown-eyes classroom exercise in 1968 to teach students about racism. Elliott turned into Americas mother of diversity training. Elliott flew to the NBC studio in New York City. Perhaps because the outcome seemed so optimistic and comforting, coverage of Elliott and the experiments alleged curative powers cropped up everywhere.

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