"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. They all either smiled or laughed and nodded.". The act of treating students differently was obviously a metaphor for the social decisions made on a larger level. Given the long-term results of the experiment, the controversial study could not have taken place in today's society despite its significant insights on matters racism. The students initially involved wished that everyone could participate in an exercise like this. ", 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. Society made them believe they were better than other people for arbitrary reasons such as skin color or gender. APA principles acknowledge that individuals rights to privacy, self-determination, and confidentiality is paramount to all psychological activities. Would you like to find out? Jane Elliott's Blue-Eyed versus Brown-Eyed Students experiment was conducted to determine whether racism was a learned characteristic. And you'll always have it. ABC broadcast a documentary about her work. 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. Considering all the stereotypes and prejudices that exist, what kind of damage is being done? Additionally, the brown-eyed students got to sit in the front of the class, while the blue-eyed kids . "You know, sweetheart, you haven't changed one bit. On the morning of april 5, 1968, a Friday, Steven Armstrong stepped into Jane Elliott's third-grade classroom in Riceville, Iowa. But Elliotts experiment had a more sinister impact. "I think third grade was too young for what she did. ", When I met Elliott in 2003, she hadn't been back to Riceville in 12 years. Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. The blue eyes brown eyes study was a study on group prejudice and discrimination conducted by Jane Elliot. Elliott flew to the NBC studio in New York City. Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes experiment was a turning point in social psychology. In 2001, Jane Elliott recordedThe Angry Eye,in which she revised and updated her experiment. 5/21/2020 Topic: Module 2 Discussion: ", For years scholars have evaluated Elliott's exercise, seeking to determine if it reduces racial prejudice in participants or poses a psychological risk to them. Your Privacy Rights In the most uncomfortable moments, Elliott reminds the students of violent acts caused by racism or homophobia. ", The two hugged, and Whisenhunt had tears streaming down her cheeks. 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. ", Dean Weaver, 70, superintendent of Riceville schools from 1972 to 1979, said, "She'd just go ahead and do things. Practical Psychology began as a collection of study material for psychology students in 2016, created by a student in the field. Blue eyes, brown eyes: What Jane Elliott's famous experiment says about race 50 years on. 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). The basic idea was to separate the class into two halves, students with blue eyes and those with brown. She has appeared on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" five times. 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." Carson asked, grinning. Charity is humiliating because its exercised vertically and from above; solidarity is horizontal and implies mutual respect.. Three sections were selected to be administered the simulation . Privacy Statement Jane Elliott has done a lot of reflection about the consequences of the minimal group experiment. The exercise is "an inoculation against racism," she says. 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. "We'll just be a couple of minutes. The people and cultures already present in a place often feel threatened by new immigrants. "Things are changing, and they're going to change rapidly if we're very, very fortunate," she said. All rights reserved. Thus, the dominant group, supported by the authorities, will always have the upper hand. 4 Pages. The contents of Exploring Your Mind are for informational and educational purposes only. The next day, Jane made it known to the students that she had made a mistake and that the brown-eyed pupils were better and smarter than their counterparts. Today, she says, it's still playing out as the U.S. reckons with racial injustice. Children with brown eyes were forced to wear armbands that made it easy for people to see that they had brown eyes. 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. "That's what I tried to teach, and that's what drove the other teachers crazy. To back up my statement Bloom (2005) says Jane Elliott's blue-eyes brown-eyes exercise encouraged children to mistrust authority figures. 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. Separate the class into two halves - those with blue eyes and those with brown. In 1970, a documentary about the exercise was released. Weve been here before, with unsettling and disturbing results. In response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, Jane Elliott devised the controversial and startling, "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Exercise." This, now famous, exercise labels participants as inferior or superior based solely upon the color of their eyes and exposes them to the experience of . ", Steve Harnack, 62, served as the elementary school principal beginning in 1977. She could feel a chasm forming between the two groups of students. Elliott reminded them that the reason for the lesson was the King assassination, and she asked them to write down what they had learned. 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 . One group consisted pupils with brown eye while the other group consisted of those with blue eyes. ", We backed out. She has since refused to answer any of my inquiries. Mental Sandboxes and Their Usefulness in Today's World, The Law of Reversed Effort: When Taking Action Isn't the Best Option. They were also relevant in the 1950s when Elliott first began this work. "She got carried away by this possession she developed over human beings. 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. . In this scenario, students are told brown-eyed people . If you white folks want to be treated the way blacks are in this society, stand. She then told them that the children with blue eyes were inherently inferior to the children with brown . 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. They don't replace the diagnosis, advice, or treatment of a professional. Elliott was not. Blue-eyed people would get 5 extra minutes on the playground and blue-eyed people could not talk to brown-eyed people. One teacher ended up displaying the same bigotry Elliott had spent the morning trying to fight. The brown-eyed children didnt want to play with the blue-eyes during recess. "They shot that King yesterday. Melanin, she said, is what causes intelligence. The Blue Eyes & Brown Eyes Exercise. 10 Psychological Experiments That Could Never Happen Today. "It would be hard to know, wouldn't it, unless we actually experienced discrimination ourselves. Problems with this research were that it went against a lot of ethical issues. When Elliott first conducted the exercise in 1968, brown-eyed students were given special privileges. Blue-eyed students suggested that the teacher use a yardstick to discipline brown-eyed students that misbehaved. "People of other color groups seem to understand," she said. "We are repeating the blue-eyed/brown-eyed exercise on a daily basis.". This bibliography was generated on Cite This For Me on Monday, March 7, 2016. The video . But the protests happening now have given her hope. 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. Sorry, but it's not possible to copy the text due to security reasons. Classroom experiment. 980 Words. On April 4 1968, King was killed by the single . How do you think the world would change if everyone experienced the perils and setbacks that come with prejudice and discrimination? Some residents were furious. If you are the original author of this essay and no longer wish to have it published on the Ethics + Religion; Health; Politics + Society; . Is it even possible today? Danko, M. (2013). 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. 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. "Blue-eyed people sit around and do nothing. At recess, three brown-eyed girls ganged up on her. She told them that people with brown eyes were better than people with blue eyes. On Thursday, April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, TN. In Zimbardo's experiment the conditions were much more controlled for later study but the r. What Was the Purpose of the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment? 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. Elliot's approach to the experiment involved creativity in which the pupils' age and ability to comprehend discrimination was taken into account. New York: Elsevier Science. ", 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Why are we still talking about this experiment over 50 years later? 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. To this day, at the age of 86, Jane Elliott continues this work. This procedure is sometimes so subtle that no one notices it happening. She learned that the responses from the children were negative and more generalized about what they thought about black people. 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. I often think about Paul Bodensteiner. Elliott separated her all-white class of students into two groups: blue-eyed children and brown-eyed children. Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER! What Lies Behind Your Urgent Need to Answer Work E Mails? Her bold experiment to teach Iowa third graders about racial prejudice divided townspeople and thrust her onto the national stage. In explaining the experiment rules to the brown-eyed contestants, she addresses the people of color in the room. 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 . Pasicznyk joined 75 other employees for a training session in the companys suburban Denver headquarters in the late 1980s. she asked the children, who were white. Words are the most powerful weapon devised by humankind. After the exercise white college students in . The documentary has become a popular teaching tool among teachers, business owners, and even employees at correctional facilities. 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 . She told them that people with brown eyes were better than people with blue eyes. She has . 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. She slumped. In doing the research for my book with scores of peoples who were participants in the experiment, I reached out to Elliott. 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. "It's happening every day in this country, right now," she said in an interview with Morning Edition. The people of riceville did not exactly welcome Elliott home from New York with a hayride. The never-before-told true story of Jane Elliott and the "Blue-Eyes, Brown-Eyes Experiment" she made world-famous, using eye color to simulate racism. The smell of the crops and loam and topsoil and manure wafted though the open door. The roots of racism and why it continues unabated in America and other nations are complicated and gnarled. . Elliott started to see her own white privilege, even her own ignorance. "If this ugly change, if this negative change can happen this quickly, why can't positive change happen that quickly? . 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. Hire a professional with VAST experience! ", 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?". 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. 10," Elliott said. Subsequently the brown-eyed children stopped objecting, even when Miss Elliott and the blue-eyed kids chastised and bullied them. At first, she cooperated with me. Elliotts coworkers avoided her after her appearance on The Tonight Show. Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment Ethical? The blue-eyed girl apologized. Barbie had to have a Ken, so Elliott picked from the audience a tall, handsome man and accused him of doing the same things with his female subordinates, Pasicznyk said. 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. 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. 1. In Jane Elliott's experiment she made the third graders believe that the blue eyed people were better,than the brown eyed people. It is quite powerful to watch. Elliott's friends and family say she's tenacious, and has always had a reformer's zeal. However, both Mary and Zeke have brown eyes. Theyd have to use paper cups if they drank from the water fountain. The minimal group paradigm has shaped an entire methodology in social psychology. At points, you are likely to feel uncomfortable. The blue-eyed participants faced discrimination for two and a half hours. The idea was simple but profound. On Monday, Elliott reversed the exercise, and the brown-eyed kids were told how shifty, dumb and lazy theywere. Elliott rattled off the rules for the day, saying blue-eyed kids had to use paper cups if they drank from the water fountain. 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.". Elliott is nothing if not stubborn. A second look at the blue-eyes, brown-eyes experiment that taught third-graders about racism. She believed that experience was the only way her students could understand how it felt like to be discriminated. 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. Unfortunately, you cant copy samples. The searing story is a cautionary tale that examines power and privilege in and out of the classroom. They are steeped in centuries of economic deprivation and cultural appropriation. The publication of compositions which the children had written about the experience in the local . The idea of white privilege is closely tied to Elliotts initial question to her students. She nodded. On Friday, April 5, 1968, in Riceville, IA, a third-grade student walked . ", Elliott says the role of a teacher is to enhance students' moral development. Ethical & Pedagogical Issues 2. On the second day of the experiment, Elliott switched the childrens roles. When my grandchildren are old enough, I'd give anything if you'd try the exercise out on them. With a couple of basic and arbitrary examples, Elliott made the case that brown-eyed people were better. "There's a sense of renewal here that I've never seen anywhere else," Elliott says. A difference as simple as eye color, defined and established by the authority figure, created a rift between the students. She asked the other teachers what they were doing to bring news of the King assassination into their classrooms. She told her students that she had made a mistake the previous day and that brown-eyed students . The experiment, known as Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment, is regarded as an eye-opening way for children to learn about racism and discrimination. A smart blue-eyed girl who had never had problems with multiplication tables started making mistakes. Ethical issues were 1/3 of the participants refused to take the head off the rat . One of the main ones was the fact that their right to withdraw was taken away from them. Youve probably heard different versions of it. Jane Elliot's 'The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment' was unethical in that she created a segregated environment in a third grade classroom. Jane Elliott's brown eye/blue eye experiment starts at 03:10 of A Class Divided. There is a way to avoid editing or writing from scratch! The Blue-Eyes, Brown-Eyes Experiment. 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. How can we teach kids to be more like him? 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. That spring morning 37 years ago, the blue-eyed children were set apart from the children with brown or green eyes. ", Absolutely not. She also assumed that none of the children had interacted with black people and that the only place they could have seen them is on television. She was a standing-room-only speaker at hundreds of colleges and universities. 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." 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. It's cruel to white children and will cause them great psychological damage. If brown-eyed children made a mistake, Elliott would call out the mistake and attribute it to the students brown eyes. Answer (1 of 3): My guess is that is doesn't really represent racism but classism. Focusing on ethics the experiment violated some of the principles and codes of conduct established by the American Psychological Association. Basically, you establish differences between a set of subjects in order to divide them into separate groups. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . According to the article is Jane Elliot's experiment to small degree effective. 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 . "I don't think this community was ready for what she did," he said. Jane Elliott's experiment. 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. The demonstration has since been taught by generations of teachers to millions of kids across the country. One example that has been in place for many years is the blue-eyed/brown-eyed experiment. After recess that day, the brown-eyed children complained that they were . 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 . 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. At her lunch break that day in the teacher's lounge, she told her colleagues about the exercise. Days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Thats what it feels like when youre discriminated against., -A child participant in the Blue Eyes-Brown Eyes experiment-. You must get the parents first. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The Hangout Bar & Grill, the Riceville Pharmacy and ATouch of Dutch, a restaurant owned by Mennonites, line Main Street. The next day when the tables were turned, "I felt like quitting school. "This here is Jane Elliott," I said. When she separated the class by eye color and announced that blue-eyed children were superior, Paul Bodensteiner objected at every turn. 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. Delivery in 6+ hours! 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? ", "I've never forgotten the exercise," Whisenhunt volunteered. "They are cleaner and they are smarter.". Not only were they fewer in numbers, but the authority figure was against them. At this point you may wish to tell the pupils that you are conducting an "experiment" to look at what prejudice is. one girl asked. To most people, it seemed to suggest that racism could be reduced, even eliminated, by a one- or two-day exercise. 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. "I think these children walked in a colored child's moccasins for a day," she was quoted as saying. With this experiment she wanted to let the blue-eyed people (white people) feel how it is to be in low power position. Why'd they shoot that King?" According to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, 2010 the experiment also violates the principle of Integrity. 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. Though Jane's actions were justifiable because she was not a psychologist, her experiment cannot be replicated in the present society. Withdrawn brown-eyed kids were suddenly outgoing, some beaming with the widest smiles she had ever seen on them. The hate and discrimination that we see in adults have their origin in their upbringing. On the "Tonight Show" Carson broke the ice by spoofing Elliott's rural roots. "Let me look at you," Elliott said. They wouldnt be allowed second helpings for lunch. 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. She has made statements about the increase in hate crimes and racism in recent years. Thats how it started, and thats how it went all day long. She decided to continue the exercise with her students after lunch. 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. It was typical of Elliott's blunt styleno "Good morning," no small talk. She pointed out flaws in a student and associated it with . Folks leave their cars unlocked, keys in the ignition. She wanted them to understand what discrimination felt like. When she went downtown to do errands, she heard whispers. 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 . Jane Elliott, a teacher and anti-racism activist, performed a direct experiment with the students in her classroom. Malinda Whisenhunt? 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. Elliotts bullying rejoinder to any nonbeliever was to say that however much pain a white person felt after one or two days of made-up discrimination was nothing when compared to what Blacks endure daily. "Do blue-eyed people remember what they've been taught?" Blue-eyed children got five extra minutes of recess. 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. Exploring your mind Blog about psychology and philosophy. Jane Elliott and Dr. On April 5 1968 the day after the death of Martin Luther King Jr Elliott decided to show her students how easy it was to be influenced by racism. In this article, we'll explain what happened during the experiment and discuss its consequences. The results showed a reversal effect in which the blue-eyed students showed signs of inferiority and low self-esteem. Multi-Problem Adolescents: An Increasing Problem, Professor Jane Elliott performed a group experiment, the current problems related to discrimination. The corn grows so fast in northern Iowafrom seedling to seven-foot-high stalk in 12 weeksthat it crackles. 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. Or alternatively you may decide to keep them in ignorance of what is happening. Even though the response to the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise was initially negative, it made Jane Elliott a leading figure in diversity training. Yet what Elliott did continues to stir controversy. All rights reserved. Now 45, she had been in Elliott's third grade class in 1969. 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. 4. Nobodys standing here. "Your son got what he deserved," the woman said. The episode features with new footage of the students, who are now adults. She was 10 before the farmhouse had running water and electricity. Its not surprising to anyone that some social groups discriminate against others due to ethnicity, religion, or culture. 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. They didnt need to engage with a single Black person.