In this article, we talk about leadership and female discrimination.. "Would you like to come on the show?" "We'll just be a couple of minutes. They are more civilized than blue-eyed people. Then a picture was taken to remember. Open Document. (In later versions of the exercise, children in the inferior group were given collars to wear.). It was typical of Elliott's blunt styleno "Good morning," no small talk. Scores of others did participate. 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. ISBN 9780520382268. The study also violates the American Principles of Psychologist codes of conduct making its replication or further investigation unethical. Racism is not genetical. The people and cultures already present in a place often feel threatened by new immigrants. Having in mind that it would be difficult to explain to third graders about discrimination, she needed to be more practical so that her student could understand how discrimination and prejudice felt. "How do you think it would feel to be a Negro boy or girl?" She was hesitant to enroll in Elliotts workshop but was told that if she wanted to succeed as a manager, shed have to attend. Elliott pulled out green construction paper armbands and asked each of the blue . PracticalPsychology. Right off the bat, she picked me out of the room and called me Barbie, Pasicznyk told me. There is a way to avoid editing or writing from scratch! 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. Cookie Policy 4 Pages. Through this study, Elliot demonstrated how easy it is for prejudice and discrimination to emerge from just a simple message that people with one eye color are superior to people with another eye color. "Probably because they have been taught how they're treated in this country that they have to understand us. The three outcomes are: (1) virtually all of the subjects reported that the experience was The test also included violation of consent in which participation of the children was made involuntarily. Jane Elliott's brown eye/blue eye experiment starts at 03:10 of A Class Divided. ", Elliott says the role of a teacher is to enhance students' moral development. 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. While controversial, the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise continues to be one of the most well-known and praised learning exercises in the world of educational psychology. "They can't forget me," she said, "and because of who they are, they can't forgive me. 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. She had never met me, and she accused me in front of everyone of using my sexuality to get ahead.. Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images On the first day of the two-day experiment, Elliott told the . When she separated the class by eye color and announced that blue-eyed children were superior, Paul Bodensteiner objected at every turn. I felt mad. According to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, 2010 the experiment also violates the principle of Integrity. She also made the brown-eyed students put construction paper armbands on the blue-eyed students. When she went downtown to do errands, she heard whispers. All 28 children found their desks, and Elliott said she had something special for them to do, to begin to understand the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. the day before. 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 The more melanin, the darker the person's eyesand the smarter the person. Your Privacy Rights "That you, Ms. In 1970, she demonstrated it for educators at a White House Conference on Children and Youth. Jane Elliott, Creator of the "Blue/Brown Eyes" Experiment, Says Racism Is Easy To Fix. It didnt take long for the children to turn on each other. Questioning authority The mainstream media were complicit in advancing such a simplistic narrative. 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. Elliott and I were sitting at her dining room table. Elliott shared the essays with her mother, who showed them to the editor of the weekly Riceville Recorder. ", Walt Gabelmann, 83, was Riceville's mayor for 18 years beginning in 1966. "We give our children shots to inoculate them against polio and smallpox, to protect them against the realities in the future. "Do blue-eyed people remember what they've been taught?" Students in the inferior groups were more likely to get a worse score. Elliott split her students into two groups, based on eye color. Elliott turned into Americas mother of diversity training. 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). At points, you are likely to feel uncomfortable. They were also relevant in the 1950s when Elliott first began this work. The corn grows so fast in northern Iowafrom seedling to seven-foot-high stalk in 12 weeksthat it crackles. 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 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. "She could get kids to do anything she wanted them to," he says of Elliott. 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. Blue-eyed children got five extra minutes of recess. Back in the classroom, Elliott's experiment had taken on a life of its own. Biddle, B. J. ", The two hugged, and Whisenhunt had tears streaming down her cheeks. She traveled to corporations, banks, prisons, schools and military bases. hide caption. That spring morning 37 years ago, the blue-eyed children were set apart from the children with brown or green eyes. . Many educators responded by holding mandatory workshops on institutional racism and implicit bias, reforming teaching methods and lesson plans and searching for ways to amplify undersung voices. 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. "You know, sweetheart, you haven't changed one bit. "Your son got what he deserved," the woman said. This paradigm helps understand the current problems related to discrimination. Yes, that day was tough. This is the phrase that inspired one of the most well-known experiments in education. On the second day of the experiment, Elliott switched the childrens roles. I often think about Paul Bodensteiner. The goal of the minimal group paradigm is to establish subjective differences and create a climate of favoritism. In a grassy front yard down the block is a hand-lettered sign: "Glads for Sale, 3 for $1." ( 1985-03-26) " A Class Divided " is a 1985 episode of the PBS series Frontline. She told her students that she had made a mistake the previous day and that brown-eyed students . We dont have to learn about those who are other than white. Withdrawn brown-eyed kids were suddenly outgoing, some beaming with the widest smiles she had ever seen on them. Society made them believe they were better than other people for arbitrary reasons such as skin color or gender. In the most uncomfortable moments, Elliott reminds the students of violent acts caused by racism or homophobia. She told the kids that blue-eyed children weren't as good as brown-eyed or green-eyed ones. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 prompted educator Jane Elliott to create the now-famous "blue eyes/brown eyes exercise.". She has since refused to answer any of my inquiries. "She taught in this school for 18 years." Her class, March 26, 1985. ", Vision and tenacity may get results, but they don't always endear a person to her neighbors. At first, she cooperated with me. Or alternatively you may decide to keep them in ignorance of what is happening. Professor of Journalism, University of Iowa. This meeting, along with other clips of the exercises impact on education, is featured in a PBS documentary called A Class Divided. 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. In 2001, Jane Elliott recordedThe Angry Eye,in which she revised and updated her experiment. But Paul, one of eight siblings and the son of a dairy farmer, didnt buy Elliotts mollification. However, in this classroom, having blue-eyes had become a condition of inferiority. Website. Lasting Impact of Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment, Words are the most powerful weapon devised by humankind. The Blue Eyes & Brown Eyes Exercise. In the case of any doubt, it's best to consult a trusted specialist. Now 45, she had been in Elliott's third grade class in 1969. The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment. The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise is now known as the inspiration for diversity training in the workplace, making Jane Elliott one of the most influential educators in recent American history. She says its because racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, and ethnocentrism are mean and nasty. 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. Sorry, but it's not possible to copy the text due to security reasons. It is sometimes cited as a landmark of social science. Introduction. Still, Elliott said the last few years have brought out America's worst racist tendencies. What Lies Behind Your Urgent Need to Answer Work E Mails? 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. Advertising Notice She said she watched and was horrified at what she saw. 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. 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. The children said yes, and the exercise began. "It changed my life. These initial criticisms didnt stop Elliott. She then told them that the children with blue eyes were inherently inferior to the children with brown . 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. 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 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. Many critics that the children were too young to understand the exercise. In 1970, Elliott would come to national attention when ABC broadcast their Eye of the Storm documentary which filmed the experiment in action. Considering all the stereotypes and prejudices that exist, what kind of damage is being done? When Elliott conducted the exercise the next year, she added something extra to collect data. I was stunned. All rights reserved. Back when she introduced the experiment to her Iowa students more than five decades ago, at least one student had the audacity to challenge Elliotts premise, according to those who were in the classroom at the time. 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. According to the article is Jane Elliot's experiment to small degree effective. Some people feel we can't move on when you have her out there hawking her 30-year-old experiment. Multi-Problem Adolescents: An Increasing Problem, Professor Jane Elliott performed a group experiment, the current problems related to discrimination. "You can see the look on their faces. One even wrote a lipstick message with racial slurs. Mary and Zeke have three children, all of whom have blue eyes. You can start from that point in Activity 2, or you can play the video from the beginning (00:00) so that your students can see civil rights era footage following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as Elliott's students returning to Iowa . "Not one of them reprimanded her for that or even corrected her. 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. The anti-racism sessions Elliott led were intense. I got to have five minutes extra of recess."