To back up my statement Bloom (2005) says Jane Elliott's blue-eyes brown-eyes exercise encouraged children to mistrust authority figures. Terms of Use Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER! 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. If you have ever heard of the self-fulfilling prophecy, these results may not come as a surprise. You give them something nice and they just wreck it." When Elliott conducted the exercise the next year, she added something extra to collect data. When Elliott walked into the teachers' lounge the next Monday, several teachers got up and walked out. Separate the class into two halves - those with blue eyes and those with brown. She told them that people with brown eyes were superior to those with blue eyes, for reasons she made up. Within a few hours of starting the exercise, Elliott noticed big differences in the childrens behavior and how they treated each other. The demonstration has since been taught by generations of teachers to millions of kids across the country. 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. Why Did Jane Elliott Choose Eye Color To Divide Her Students? 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. She wanted to show her students that an arbitrarily established difference could separate them and pit them against each other. Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images On the second day, the roles were reversed, and those with brown eyes received special treatment, and the blue-eyed children were made to feel inferior (A Class, 2003). Introduction. All rights reserved. "Would you like to come on the show?" If you had a good German name, but you had brown eyes, they threw you into the gas chamber because they thought you might be a Jewish person who was trying to pass. "We are repeating the blue-eyed/brown-eyed exercise on a daily basis.". She told them brown-eyed . Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment Ethical? 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. 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. American Psychological Association, 4. The experiment known as Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment is regarded as an eye-opening way for children to learn about racism and discrimination. And the exercise continued in a similar fashion to how it was executed the day before. The Hangout Bar & Grill, the Riceville Pharmacy and ATouch of Dutch, a restaurant owned by Mennonites, line Main Street. Want a quality guarantee? The people of riceville did not exactly welcome Elliott home from New York with a hayride. Elliott instructed the blue-eyed kids not to play on the jungle gym or swings. Elliott championed the experiment as an inoculation against racism., [The Conversations Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories. The students were surprised, but they didnt argue. Mary and Zeke have three children, all of whom have blue eyes. those with brown eyes (or hazel eyes). Is your time best spent reading someone elses essay? "She taught in this school for 18 years." In the most uncomfortable moments, Elliott reminds the students of violent acts caused by racism or homophobia. 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. It's cruel to white children and will cause them great psychological damage. Solve your problem differently! Fourteen years later, the students featured in The Eye of the Storm reunited and discussed their experiences with Elliott. These are the sources and citations used to research Jane Elliott's blue eye brown eye case study is/isn't more ethical than Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment. As a result of those divisions, you see racial discrimination or even terrorism. Would you? As a journalism professor and author of a book on race that spans more than 50 years, Ive watched these developments with great concern. ", "I've never forgotten the exercise," Whisenhunt volunteered. A second look at the blue-eyes, brown-eyes experiment that taught third-graders about racism. Why are we still talking about this experiment over 50 years later? The blue-eyed girl apologized. All rights reserved. ", Elliott defends her work as a mother defends her child. Everyone looked at Mrs. Elliott. The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise received national attention shortly after it ended. Problems with this research were that it went against a lot of ethical issues. One key assumption is that the sample population represents an actual society. Their response is to create dichotomies of inferiority and superiority. Elliotts coworkers avoided her after her appearance on The Tonight Show. 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? According to the article is Jane Elliot's experiment to small degree effective. Below, . She said she watched and was horrified at what she saw. 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. Consequently, the brown-eyed children started using blue-eyes as an insult. She told them that people with brown eyes were better than people with blue eyes. 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. 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 . This is the phrase that inspired one of the most well-known experiments in education. SpeedyPaper website, please click below to request its removal: Liked this essay sample but need an original one? She wanted them to understand what discrimination felt like. She told the kids that blue-eyed children weren't as good as brown-eyed or green-eyed ones. She believed that experience was the only way her students could understand how it felt like to be discriminated. We have to let people find out how it feels to be on the receiving end of that which we dish out so readily.". See Page 1. 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 Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise continues to be relevant. The Blue Eye/Brown Eye was an experiment performed by Jane Elliot in 1968 on the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. "On an airplane, it is," Elliott said to appreciative laughter from the studio audience. In 1970, Elliott would come to national attention when ABC broadcast their Eye of the Storm documentary which filmed the experiment in action. Nevertheless, Elliott became as famous as a teacher could become in America. Most Riceville residents seem to have an opinion of Elliott, whether or not they've met her. Hundreds of viewers wrote letters saying Elliott's work appalled them. It also documents small-town White America's reflex reaction to the . ", Dean Weaver, 70, superintendent of Riceville schools from 1972 to 1979, said, "She'd just go ahead and do things. 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. ", Walt Gabelmann, 83, was Riceville's mayor for 18 years beginning in 1966. "If this ugly change, if this negative change can happen this quickly, why can't positive change happen that quickly? In explaining the experiment rules to the brown-eyed contestants, she addresses the people of color in the room. 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." You should be happy! As for the criticism that the exercise encourages children to distrust authority figuresthe teacher lies, then recants the lies and maintains they were justified because of a greater goodshe says she worked hard to rebuild her students' trust. She had never met me, and she accused me in front of everyone of using my sexuality to get ahead.. Elliott flew to the NBC studio in New York City. In 1968 after Martin Luther King was assassinated the United States was in turmoil. 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. Melanin, she said, is what causes intelligence. SpeedyPaper.com 2023 All rights reserved. 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. In the documentary, she said that she conducted the original blue-eyes, brown-eyes experiment to make a positive change. The Brown Eyed / Blue Eyed Experiment. Still, Elliott said the last few years have brought out America's worst racist tendencies. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . She compromised the APA's Code of Conduct and Ethical Standard because she lied, after that she recanted the lies and kept as they were justified because of her greater purpose. To this day, at the age of 86, Jane Elliott continues this work. Folks leave their cars unlocked, keys in the ignition. 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. I often think about Paul Bodensteiner. ", When I met Elliott in 2003, she hadn't been back to Riceville in 12 years. Its goal was to demonstrate what prejudice was to her third grade class. She then told them that the children with blue eyes were inherently inferior to the children with brown . 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. She split the class in two categories, according to eye color, and told the children that one group was superior to the others. Jane Elliott at Riceville, Iowa, Elementary School in 1968. ISBN 9780520382268. The students who had blue eyes were told that they were better and smarter than their inferior brown-eyed peers. 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. 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. Copyright 20102023, The Conversation Media Group Ltd. The tallest structure in Riceville is the water tower. Many critics that the children were too young to understand the exercise. She left teaching in the mid-80s to speak publicly about the experience and the impact of prejudice and racism. Locals say that drivers don't signal when they turn because everyone knows where everyone else is going. 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. One example that has been in place for many years is the blue-eyed/brown-eyed experiment. They wouldnt be allowed second helpings for lunch. Some guidelines for avoiding or reducing this effect are: In conclusion, Jane Elliotts experiment demonstrates the fragility of coexistence and cooperation. Not only were they fewer in numbers, but the authority figure was against them. 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. 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. "I think third grade was too young for what she did. One teacher ended up displaying the same bigotry Elliott had spent the morning trying to fight. Why do researchers use correlational studies? "You better apologize to us for getting in our way because we're better than you are," one of the brownies said. . In a grassy front yard down the block is a hand-lettered sign: "Glads for Sale, 3 for $1." "Why?" Privacy Statement 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. One even wrote a lipstick message with racial slurs. After the exercise white college students in . The Blue-Eyed/Brown-Eyed Experiment: Investigation. The act of treating students differently was obviously a metaphor for the social decisions made on a larger level. Three sections were selected to be administered the simulation . "That you, Ms. 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. That says very plainly that you know whats happening, you know you dont want it for you. The episode features with new footage of the students, who are now adults. On Friday, April 5, 1968, in Riceville, IA, a third-grade student walked . I interviewed Julie Pasicznyk, who had been working for US West, a giant telecommunications company in Minneapolis. The brown-eyed children felt suddenly that they were discriminated, while the blue eyed started seeing them as inferior. In the case of any doubt, it's best to consult a trusted specialist. Or alternatively you may decide to keep them in ignorance of what is happening. If you are the original author of this essay and no longer wish to have it published on the Mental Floss, 4. 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. These differences lead to war and hate. 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. Select from the 0 categories from which you would like to receive articles. Thus, the dominant group, supported by the authorities, will always have the upper hand. ", Jane shielded her eyes from the morning sun. That spring morning 37 years ago, the blue-eyed children were set apart from the children with brown or green eyes. There are risks to those inoculations, too, but we determine that those risks are worth taking. That's not true. "We want to see Room No. ", That spring morning 37 years ago, the blue-eyed children were set apart from the children with brown or green eyes. Biddle, B. J. The brown-eyed children began to act aggressive and mean towards the blue-eyed children. On April 4 1968, King was killed by the single . 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. Lasting Impact of Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment, Words are the most powerful weapon devised by humankind. a brown-eyed boy asked. Unfortunately, you cant copy samples. "You can see the look on their faces. They are steeped in centuries of economic deprivation and cultural appropriation. You have the right color eyes!. I'm tired of hearing about her and her experiment and how everyone here is a racist. Elliott asked her students to write about their experiences for the local newspaper. ", 2023 Smithsonian Magazine 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. On the first day of the experiment, Elliott told the children who had blue eyes that they were superior to the children with brown eyes; that they were better, nicer and smarter. But Paul, one of eight siblings and the son of a dairy farmer, didnt buy Elliotts mollification. Elliott is nothing if not stubborn. However, both Mary and Zeke have brown eyes. What Lies Behind Your Urgent Need to Answer Work E Mails? Before she could answer, another boy piped up: "If she didn't have blue eyes, she'd be the principal or the superintendent.". And Im only doing this as an exercise that every child knows is an exercise and every child knows is going to end at the end of the day., We learn to be racist, therefore we can learn not to be racist. The corn grows so fast in northern Iowafrom seedling to seven-foot-high stalk in 12 weeksthat it crackles. "Let me look at you," Elliott said. Elliot's approach to the experiment involved creativity in which the pupils' age and ability to comprehend discrimination was taken into account. It also shows how arbitrary and subjective things can turn friends, family members, and citizens against each other. If you white folks want to be treated the way blacks are in this society, stand. The basic idea was to separate the class into two halves, students with blue eyes and those with brown. 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. Written and verified by the psychologist Francisco Roballo. The first day of the experiment she convinced the children that blue-eyed people were smarter, better and would have more priorities. Immediately after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Professor Jane Elliott used the minimal group paradigm to perform an experiment that would teach her students about race discrimination. "It would be hard to know, wouldn't it, unless we actually experienced discrimination ourselves. In this documentary, Jane Elliott, a third grade teacher divided her class into two groups based on their eye color; one group had blue eyes and the other had brown eyes. 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. ", A chorus of "Yeahs" went up, and so began one of the most astonishing exercises ever conducted in an American classroom. Children often fight, argue, and sometimes hit each other, but this time they were motivated by eye color. She appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show five times. Considering all the stereotypes and prejudices that exist, what kind of damage is being done? PracticalPie.com is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program. Normally, blue-eyes isnt an insult. Youve probably heard different versions of it. Jane Elliott's Blue-Eyed versus Brown-Eyed Students experiment was conducted to determine whether racism was a learned characteristic. Kellen Castineiras PSY Dr. Gail C. Flanagan February 6, 2022. . Professor Jane Elliott performed a group experiment with her students that they would never forget. There is a way to avoid editing or writing from scratch! Elliott was even brought on The Tonight Show to talk about her experiences. Not everyone appreciated Elliotts exercise. "Things are changing, and they're going to change rapidly if we're very, very fortunate," she said. ", Then, the inevitable: "Hey, Mrs. Elliott, how come you're the teacher if you've got blue eyes?" On the first day of the two-day experiment, Elliott told the . At recess, three brown-eyed girls ganged up on her. [online] Today I Found Out. That might have been the end of it, but a month later, Elliott says, Johnny Carson called her. Elliot wanted to show that the same thing happens in real life with brown eyed people (minority). The story was then picked up by the Associated Press. Two education professors in England, Ivor F. Goodson and Pat Sikes, suggest that Elliott's experiment was unethical because the participants weren't informed of its real purpose beforehand. Jane Elliott, a teacher and anti-racism activist, performed a direct experiment with the students in her classroom. A smart blue-eyed girl who had never had problems with multiplication tables started making mistakes. 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. 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. One caller complained that white children would not be able to handle the exercise and would be seriously damaged by the exercise. 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. Right off the bat, she picked me out of the room and called me Barbie, Pasicznyk told me. Elliott and I were sitting at her dining room table. 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 says that its shocking how children whore normally kind, cooperative, and friendly with each other suddenly become arrogant, discriminatory, and hostile when they belong to a superior group. (Byrnes & Kiger, 1992). Subsequently the brown-eyed children stopped objecting, even when Miss Elliott and the blue-eyed kids chastised and bullied them. 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. 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. She also made the brown-eyed students put construction paper armbands on the blue-eyed students. Blue-eyed students suggested that the teacher use a yardstick to discipline brown-eyed students that misbehaved. "Well, what do you expect from him, Mrs. Elliott," a brown-eyed student said as a blue-eyed student got an arithmetic problem wrong. one girl asked. The secretary on duty looked up, startled, as if she had just seen a ghost. 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. 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 . Perhaps because the outcome seemed so optimistic and comforting, coverage of Elliott and the experiments alleged curative powers cropped up everywhere. 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. They were forced to sit on the back rows and had to use a . But not Elliott. Elliott turned into Americas mother of diversity training. I felt mad. You must get the parents first. Elliott, who is white, separated the students into two groupsthose with blue eyes and those with brown eyes. She attended a oneroom rural schoolhouse.Today, at 72, Elliott, who has short white hair, a penetrating gaze and no-nonsense demeanor, shows no signs of slowing. . Ms. Elliott, now 87, said she started teaching about racism on April 5, 1968 the day after the Rev. Given the ethical concerns, will you still rely on a quasi-experimental research design as a source of information in counselling psychology? If this arbitrary division that Elliott enforced for a few hours created so many problems in this classroom, whats happening on a larger scale? Blue Eyes vs. Brown Eyes Experiment. Blue-eyed people would get 5 extra minutes on the playground and blue-eyed people could not talk to brown-eyed people. The students initially involved wished that everyone could participate in an exercise like this. Is your time best spent reading someone elses essay? How do you think the world would change if everyone experienced the perils and setbacks that come with prejudice and discrimination? "I don't think this community was ready for what she did," he said. To begin with, Jane Elliot's experiment involved deception in which the children were made in believing that change in eye color influence intelligence. Brown-eyed people. Practical Psychology began as a collection of study material for psychology students in 2016, created by a student in the field. In 1970, she demonstrated it for educators at a White House Conference on Children and Youth. Jane would get invited to go to Timbuktu to give a speech. Blue-eyed people. The idea was simple but profound. 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. 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 . The ethical concerns arising from the experiment are consent and deception. "I know who she is. On the first day, the blue-eyed students were informed that they were genetically inferior to the brown-eyed students. Ethics + Religion; Health; Politics + Society; . Scores of others did participate. "That's what I tried to teach, and that's what drove the other teachers crazy. That's what it feels like when you're discriminated against.". 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. "Your son got what he deserved," the woman said. The "invisible knapsack" is an analogy for a set of invisible and not widely talked about privileges that white people possess in the society. And what she did caused an uproar. The experiment is to help the children to understand about prejudice and discrimination. She told the students that the brown-eyed children were inferior and repeated the experiment.