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Jane divided the class into 9 brown eyes and 9 blue eyes. Elliott's friends and family say she's tenacious, and has always had a reformer's zeal. The blue-eyed students, when told they were superior and offered privileges such as extra recess time, changed their behavior dramatically and their attitudes toward the children with brown eyes. Advertising Notice Elliott was even brought on The Tonight Show to talk about her experiences. She pointed out flaws in a student and associated it with . 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 . They were also relevant in the 1950s when Elliott first began this work. Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes by Stephen G. Bloom - Hardcover - University of 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 . Lesson of a Lifetime | Science| Smithsonian Magazine ", When I met Elliott in 2003, she hadn't been back to Riceville in 12 years. We Are Repeating The Discrimination Experiment Every Day, Says - NPR She told the kids that blue-eyed children weren't as good as brown-eyed or green-eyed ones. The first day of the experiment she convinced the children that blue-eyed people were smarter, better and would have more priorities. Grasping for a scientific explanation, she ended up claiming that melanin makes eyes darker, and makes . If brown-eyed children made a mistake, Elliott would call out the mistake and attribute it to the students brown eyes. She told them that people with brown eyes were better than people with blue eyes. ", "I've never forgotten the exercise," Whisenhunt volunteered. ", Elliott says the role of a teacher is to enhance students' moral development. ", Others have praised Elliott's exercise. You've still got that same sweet smile. Yet what Elliott did continues to stir controversy. "Brown-eyed people have more of that chemical in their eyes, so brown-eyed people are better than those with blue eyes," Elliott said. ", 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?". Solve your problem differently! Jane Elliot's Famous Classroom Experiment: How Eye Color - Thriveworks The roots of racism and why it continues unabated in America and other nations are complicated and gnarled. 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. "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. one girl asked. When she separated the class by eye color and announced that blue-eyed children were superior, Paul Bodensteiner objected at every turn. The blue eye brown eye experiment. Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes: The Jane At her lunch break that day in the teacher's lounge, she told her colleagues about the exercise. Module 2 Discussion_ Are We Still Divided_ Blue Eyes_Brown Eyes_ A 3rd The Hangout Bar & Grill, the Riceville Pharmacy and ATouch of Dutch, a restaurant owned by Mennonites, line Main Street. Blue-eyed students suggested that the teacher use a yardstick to discipline brown-eyed students that misbehaved. On the "Tonight Show" Carson broke the ice by spoofing Elliott's rural roots. 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. 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. 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. Dick DeMarsico/New York World-Telegram & the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection/PhotoQuest/Getty Images, Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images, Committee Member - MNF Research Advisory Committee, PhD Scholarship - Uncle Isaac Brown Indigenous Scholarship. (2010). Order from one of our vetted writers instead. ABC broadcast a documentary about her work. "On an airplane, it is," Elliott said to appreciative laughter from the studio audience. The results showed a . Researchers later concluded that there was evidence that the students became less prejudiced after the study and that it was inconclusive as to whether or not the potential harm outweighed the benefits of the exercise. We walked into the principal's office at RicevilleElementary School, Elliott's old haunt. 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. Ethical Principles of Psychologists & Code of Conduct - StudyMode "That you, Ms. Jane Elliot's 'The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment' was unethical in that she created a segregated environment in a third grade classroom. ", Elliott defends her work as a mother defends her child. Many critics that the children were too young to understand the exercise. Or alternatively you may decide to keep them in ignorance of what is happening. Elliott was featured on nearly every national news show in America for decades. The subjects were 164 students enrolled in eight sections of an introductory elementary education course at a state university. Perhaps because the outcome seemed so optimistic and comforting, coverage of Elliott and the experiments alleged curative powers cropped up everywhere. 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. Withdrawn brown-eyed kids were suddenly outgoing, some beaming with the widest smiles she had ever seen on them. 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. In doing the research for my book with scores of peoples who were participants in the experiment, I reached out to Elliott. "If this ugly change, if this negative change can happen this quickly, why can't positive change happen that quickly? That's what it feels like when you're discriminated against.". 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. As Elliott recalls, she engineered the "blue eyes/brown eyes exercise" in 1968 after watching the late-night news cycle announce the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Rather than be deterred by possible 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. One caller complained that white children would not be able to handle . We use them to divide and destroy people., On Understanding The Different Ways We Treat Other Races, Philip Zimbardo (Biography + Experiments). 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 . She asked her students, who were all white, whether or not they knew what it felt like to be judged by the color of their skin. She has appeared on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" five times. The goal of the minimal group paradigm is to establish subjective differences and create a climate of favoritism. Elliott was shocked by the results and decided to switch the roles the following day. What Lies Behind Your Urgent Need to Answer Work E Mails? Elliott and I were sitting at her dining room table. I felt like hitting them if I wanted to. 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. She continued to conduct the exercise with her third graders. When Elliott walked into the teachers' lounge the next Monday, several teachers got up and walked out. Outside, rows of corn stretched to the horizon. She learned that the responses from the children were negative and more generalized about what they thought about black people. Elliott said that blue-eyed people were less intelligent and less clean. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 prompted educator Jane Elliott to create the now-famous "blue eyes/brown eyes exercise.". 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 . They don't replace the diagnosis, advice, or treatment of a professional. Written and verified by the psychologist Francisco Roballo. ", We stopped on Woodlawn Avenue, and a woman in her mid-40s approached us on the sidewalk. 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. Ethical & Pedagogical Issues 2. On the first day, the blue-eyed students were informed that they were genetically inferior to the brown-eyed students. On the second day of the experiment, Elliott switched the childrens roles. School ought to be about developing character, but most teachers won't touch that with a ten-foot pole.". The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise continues to be relevant. The fourth of five children, Elliott was born on her family's farm in Riceville in 1933, and was delivered by her Irish-American father himself. Its goal was to demonstrate what prejudice was to her third grade class. Biddle, B. J. Elliott pulled out green construction paper armbands and asked each of the blue-eyed kids to wear one. Thats how it started, and thats how it went all day long. Elliott, who is white, separated the students into two groupsthose with blue eyes and those with brown eyes. Its not true and its not fair no matter what you say! he responded. "Not one of them reprimanded her for that or even corrected her. 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 teacher ended up displaying the same bigotry Elliott had spent the morning trying to fight. Tears formed in the corners of Elliott's eyes. The study also violates the American Principles of Psychologist codes of conduct making its replication or further investigation unethical. "It's happening every day in this country, right now," she said in an interview with Morning Edition. The interaction only strengthened Elliott's resolve. The experiment is to help the children to understand about prejudice and discrimination. The video . Kors writes that Elliott's exercise taught "blood-guilt and self-contempt to whites," adding that "in her view, nothing has changed in America since the collapse of Reconstruction." . Strong, Effective and Ethical Lessons | Applied Social Psychology (ASP) 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. Little children don't like uproar in the classroom. 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 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. When my grandchildren are old enough, I'd give anything if you'd try the exercise out on them. The nearest traffic light is 20 miles away. She decided to continue the exercise with her students after lunch. ", Vision and tenacity may get results, but they don't always endear a person to her neighbors. 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. Elliott split her students into two groups, based on eye color. . Racism is not genetical. To back up my statement Bloom (2005) says Jane Elliott's blue-eyes brown-eyes exercise encouraged children to mistrust authority figures. APA principles acknowledge that individuals rights to privacy, self-determination, and confidentiality is paramount to all psychological activities. In the documentary, she said that she conducted the original blue-eyes, brown-eyes experiment to make a positive change. A smart blue-eyed girl who had never had problems with multiplication tables started making mistakes. She was a local girl and the other teachers were intimidated by her success. Jane would get invited to go to Timbuktu to give a speech. 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. In 1970, she demonstrated it for educators at a White House Conference on Children and Youth. She told them that people with brown eyes were better than people with blue eyes. The blue-eyed girl apologized. After recess that day, the brown-eyed children complained that they were . 5/21/2020 Topic: Module 2 Discussion: "It would be hard to know, wouldn't it, unless we actually experienced discrimination ourselves. A second look at the blue-eyes, brown-eyes experiment that taught third-graders about racism. The Blue-Eyed/Brown-Eyed Experiment: Investigation. Though Jane's actions were justifiable because she was not a psychologist, her experiment cannot be replicated in the present society. Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes: Jane Elliott's controversial classroom experiment Select from the 0 categories from which you would like to receive articles. "A Class Divided": How We Learn to Discriminate - Psychology Today Mental Floss, 4. When Differences Matter | Facing History and Ourselves Back in the classroom, Elliott's experiment had taken on a life of its own. 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.