It brings up immediate anger and hatred. "Brown-eyed people have more of that chemical in their eyes, so brown-eyed people are better than those with blue eyes," Elliott said. One key assumption is that the sample population represents an actual society. One student answers, since the day I was born. Throughout the entire experiment, Elliott leads frank conversations about race and discrimination. She told them that people with brown eyes were superior to those with blue eyes, for reasons she made up. BLUE EYED - Faciliator Guide - Newsreel Exercise or Experiment-- An Account of Jane Elliott's Tenacity: A Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER! 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. 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. (2010). You didnt understand the directions. Introduction. The ethical concerns arising from the experiment are consent and deception. She knew that the children weren't going to buy her pitch unless she came up with a reason, and the more scientific to these Space Age children of the 1960s, the better. "Do blue-eyed people remember what they've been taught?" In the case of any doubt, it's best to consult a trusted specialist. "Hey, Mrs. Elliott," Steven yelled as he slung his books on his desk. Could you?". "She got carried away by this possession she developed over human beings. Open Document. Grasping for a scientific explanation, she ended up claiming that melanin makes eyes darker, and makes . About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . Answer (1 of 3): My guess is that is doesn't really represent racism but classism. It's cruel to white children and will cause them great psychological damage. 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. Elliott was shocked by the results and decided to switch the roles the following day. Elliott pulled out green construction paper armbands and asked each of the blue-eyed kids to wear one. The searing story is a cautionary tale that examines power and privilege in and out of the classroom. Regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status, decision making in psychology should protect individual rights and welfare to eliminate potential biases. At the time, she was a third-grade . As a result of those divisions, you see racial discrimination or even terrorism. "If this ugly change, if this negative change can happen this quickly, why can't positive change happen that quickly? Elliott was even brought on The Tonight Show to talk about her experiences. Why Did Jane Elliott Choose Eye Color To Divide Her Students? This time, the participants werent a bunch of elementary school children they were young adults. I felt like hitting them if I wanted to. Did We Fail the Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes ExperimentOr Did It Fail Us? Ethics + Religion; Health; Politics + Society; . If you have ever heard of the self-fulfilling prophecy, these results may not come as a surprise. If you are the original author of this essay and no longer wish to have it published on the SpeedyPaper.com 2023 All rights reserved. This was intentional. They are steeped in centuries of economic deprivation and cultural appropriation. The fact that children are easy to manipulate into acting in a particular manner explains Jane's choice of sample. We walked into the principal's office at RicevilleElementary School, Elliott's old haunt. Jane Elliott, a teacher and anti-racism activist, performed a direct experiment with the students in her classroom. SYNOPSIS OF BLUE EYED. (She prefers the term "exercise.") The hate and discrimination that we see in adults have their origin in their upbringing. ", 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?". It didnt take long for the children to turn on each other. Consequently, the brown-eyed children started using blue-eyes as an insult. "Not one of them reprimanded her for that or even corrected her. Jane Elliot's Experiment - 879 Words | Bartleby Even family members can turn against each other if some authority suddenly decides that those differences are a problem. This is the phrase that inspired one of the most well-known experiments in education. That's not true. "The racists carry on, so I carry on." The lives and legacies of Dr. Jane Elliott and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are inextricably linked. hide caption. They gossiped about her in the hallway. "A Class Divided": How We Learn to Discriminate - Psychology Today 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. 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 were also relevant in the 1950s when Elliott first began this work. Elliott rattled off the rules for the day, saying blue-eyed kids had to use paper cups if they drank from the water fountain. 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. Jane Elliott - Wikipedia We Are Repeating The Discrimination Experiment Every Day, Says - KQED Given the ethical concerns, will you still rely on a quasi-experimental research design as a source of information in counselling psychology? In this article, we talk about leadership and female discrimination.. On the "Tonight Show" Carson broke the ice by spoofing Elliott's rural roots. ", Absolutely not. Theyd have to use paper cups if they drank from the water fountain. You must get the parents first. she asked the children, who were white. Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes: A Cautionary Tale of Race and Brutality One of the ways Hitler decided who went into the gas chamber was eye color, Elliott said in a later speech. Elliott asked her students to write about their experiences for the local newspaper. 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." Mental Floss, 4. 4. 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. Despite the adaptation of the experiment in psychological studies, Jane has been widely criticized for her unethical conduct and promotion of discrimination among children. It also shows how arbitrary and subjective things can turn friends, family members, and citizens against each other. 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. Elliott created the blue-eyes/brown-eyes classroom exercise in 1968 to teach students about racism. "The browneyed people are the better people in this room," Elliott began. Keep me from judging a man until I have walked a mile in his moccasins. This is a Sioux saying. You give them something nice and they just wreck it." 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. Jane Elliot and the Blue-Eyed Children Experiment. She believed that experience was the only way her students could understand how it felt like to be discriminated. 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 . The students who had blue eyes were told that they were better and smarter than their inferior brown-eyed peers. She told her students that she had made a mistake the previous day and that brown-eyed students . ", We stopped on Woodlawn Avenue, and a woman in her mid-40s approached us on the sidewalk. ", Walt Gabelmann, 83, was Riceville's mayor for 18 years beginning in 1966. The blue-eyed girl apologized. . This paradigm helps understand the current problems related to discrimination. The basic idea was to separate the class into two halves - those with blue eyes and those with brown. She would conduct the exercise for the nine more years she taught the third grade, and the next eight years she taught seventh and eighth graders before giving up teaching in Riceville, in 1985, largely to conduct the eye-color exercise for groups outside the school. Blue-eyed students suggested that the teacher use a yardstick to discipline brown-eyed students that misbehaved. Even though the response to the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise was initially negative, it made Jane Elliott a leading figure in diversity training. In Zimbardo's experiment the conditions were much more controlled for later study but the r. 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. Would you like to get this essay by email? Two Important Psychological Experiments: The Blue Eye/Brown Eye and That's what it feels like when you're discriminated against.". The latter felt discriminated against by the other brown-eyed children. Blue-eyed people. Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER! 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. The minimal group paradigm has shaped an entire methodology in social psychology. Module 2 Discussion_ Are We Still Divided_ Blue Eyes_Brown Eyes_ A 3rd The selection was based on the color of the eye for each group. Ethical issues were 1/3 of the participants refused to take the head off the rat . 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 . There is a way to avoid editing or writing from scratch! She has spoken at more than 350 colleges and universities. A second look at the blue-eyes, brown-eyes experiment that taught third-graders about racism. Brown eyes and blue eyes Racism experiment Children Session - Jane The Brown Eyed / Blue Eyed Experiment - 980 Words | Bartleby 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. January 1, 2003. Blue or Brown; A Classroom Divided | Applied Social Psychology (ASP) Proceeding with the experiment, Elliot divided the children into two groups each with nine pupils. I interviewed Julie Pasicznyk, who had been working for US West, a giant telecommunications company in Minneapolis. A Class Divided | FRONTLINE - PBS Tears formed in the corners of Elliott's eyes. But not Elliott. Abstract The effectiveness of a well-known prejudice-reduction simulation, "Blue Eyes-Brown Eyes," was assessed as a tool for changing the attitudes of ncnblack teacher eduction students toward blacks. Ms. Elliott, now 87, said she started teaching about racism on April 5, 1968 the day after the Rev. Blue Eyes vs. Brown Eyes Experiment. I have brown eyes. Although Jane Elliot's intentions were to teach the youngsters about racism, ethical issues related to the simulation were raised. 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. Elliott separated her all-white class of students into two groups: blue-eyed children and brown-eyed children. "Your son got what he deserved," the woman said. PracticalPsychology. One even wrote a lipstick message with racial slurs. Brian, the Elliotts' oldest son, got beaten up at school, and Jane called the ringleader's, mother. Blue-eyed people would get 5 extra minutes on the playground and blue-eyed people could not talk to brown-eyed people. It also documents small-town White America's reflex reaction to the . The next day when the tables were turned, "I felt like quitting school. 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. Grey eyes are also a rare eye color. One teacher ended up displaying the same bigotry Elliott had spent the morning trying to fight. In 1970, Elliott would come to national attention when ABC broadcast their Eye of the Storm documentary which filmed the experiment in action. 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. The arbitrary division among the students intensified over the course of the experiment, so much so that it actually ended in physical violence. The tallest structure in Riceville is the water tower. She says its because racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, and ethnocentrism are mean and nasty. What Was the Purpose of the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment? The test violated the principle of respect for people's rights and dignity. Their response is to create dichotomies of inferiority and superiority. Unfortunately, you cant copy samples. The first day of the experiment she convinced the children that blue-eyed people were smarter, better and would have more priorities. Amitai Etzioni, a sociologist at George WashingtonUniversity, says the exercise helps develop character and empathy. (2013). Things even got violent at recess. If this arbitrary division that Elliott enforced for a few hours created so many problems in this classroom, whats happening on a larger scale? "Maybe the way to sell the exercise would have been to invite the parents in, to talk about what she'd be doing. The test also included violation of consent in which participation of the children was made involuntarily. ", "I've never forgotten the exercise," Whisenhunt volunteered. Folks leave their cars unlocked, keys in the ignition. Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes: On Race and Jane Elliott's Famous Experiment on Zimbardocreator of the also controversial 1971 Stanford Prisoner Experiment, which was stopped after college student volunteers acting as "guards" humiliated students acting as "prisoners"says Elliott's exercise is "more compelling than many done by professional psychologists. Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise continues to be relevant. Elliot wanted to show that the same thing happens in real life with brown eyed people (minority). In this photograph from Sept. 13, 1965, Black children on their way to school in New York City pass by segregationists protesting integrated busing. "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. 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. (PDF) A Class Divided - ResearchGate Jane Elliott She said she watched and was horrified at what she saw. "Brown eyes and Blue eyes" Study | sabbaila Role Theory: Expectations, Identities, and Behaviors. Hire a professional with VAST experience! Let's just move on. ", Steve Harnack, 62, served as the elementary school principal beginning in 1977. What Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment? "I understand this is the first time you've flown?" 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 . 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. She had never met me, and she accused me in front of everyone of using my sexuality to get ahead.. "Eye color, hair color and skin color are caused by a chemical," Elliott went on, writing MELANIN on the blackboard. ", The two hugged, and Whisenhunt had tears streaming down her cheeks. Jane Elliott's experiment. When you read about this experiment, its hard not to question labels. 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. She and her husband, Darald Elliott, then a grocer, have four children, and they, too, felt a backlash. The corn grows so fast in northern Iowafrom seedling to seven-foot-high stalk in 12 weeksthat it crackles. Lasting Impact of Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment, Words are the most powerful weapon devised by humankind. They are cleaner than blue-eyed people. I got to have five minutes extra of recess." The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 prompted educator Jane Elliott to create the now-famous "blue eyes/brown eyes exercise.". Essay Sample: Ethical Concerns in Jane Elliot's Experiment. She told the kids that blue-eyed children weren't as good as brown-eyed or green-eyed ones. The roots of racism and why it continues unabated in America and other nations are complicated and gnarled. 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. Jane Elliott's blue eye brown eye case study is/isn't more ethical than Undeterred, Elliott tried to appeal to Pauls self-interest. Fourteen years later, the students featured in The Eye of the Storm reunited and discussed their experiences with Elliott. In the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Elliott developed a simple exercise that explored the nature of racism and prejudice.. Elliott's method for exploring racism in the context of an all-white classroom consisted of dividing her students into two groups on the basis of eye color, blue or brown (those with other eye colors were assigned to the group . Focusing on ethics the experiment violated some of the principles and codes of conduct established by the American Psychological Association. he asked. The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment - Studocu 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. Perhaps because the outcome seemed so optimistic and comforting, coverage of Elliott and the experiments alleged curative powers cropped up everywhere. Nevertheless, Elliott became as famous as a teacher could become in America. "Black children grow up accustomed to such behavior, but white children, there's no way they could possibly understand it. Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment Ethical? She nodded. Children with brown eyes were forced to wear armbands that made it easy for people to see that they had brown eyes. Articles and opinions on happiness, fear and other aspects of human psychology. 2012 2023 . "They are cleaner and they are smarter.". "It's Riceville 30 years ago. 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? You can contribute to that positive change by watching the documentary. Jane Elliott on The Tonight Show on May 31, 1968. Disclaimer: SpeedyPaper.com is a custom writing service that provides online on-demand writing work for assistance purposes. After recess that day, the brown-eyed children complained that they were . "He's a bluey! 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.