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The smell of the crops and loam and topsoil and manure wafted though the open door. The answer, in a word, was nothing. 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. 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. This bibliography was generated on Cite This For Me on Monday, March 7, 2016. She wanted to show her students that an arbitrarily established difference could separate them and pit them against each other. More than 50 years after her famous exercise, Elliott is still fighting. Sign up for Politics Weekly.]. New York: Elsevier Science. ", Vision and tenacity may get results, but they don't always endear a person to her neighbors. SpeedyPaper.com 2023 All rights reserved. They don't replace the diagnosis, advice, or treatment of a professional. Shermer and Bloom discuss: "Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes" Jane Elliott famous racism experiment reactions to it (in the classroom, locally, nationally, internationally) whether the "experiment" was really more of a demonstration public interest, from Johnny Carson to Oprah Winfrey the questionable ethics of the experiment what it reveals about tribalism, racism . Elliott asked her students to write about their experiences for the local newspaper. It's cruel to white children and will cause them great psychological damage. 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. Terms of Use The goal of the minimal group paradigm is to establish subjective differences and create a climate of favoritism. Not only were they fewer in numbers, but the authority figure was against them. You've still got that same sweet smile. In Zimbardo's experiment the conditions were much more controlled for later study but the r. The next day when the tables were turned, "I felt like quitting school. This was intentional. What Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment? She left teaching in the mid-80s to speak publicly about the experience and the impact of prejudice and racism. Today, increased migration means more opportunities for people from different backgrounds to interact with each other, which is often a source of conflict. When Elliott walked into the teachers' lounge the next Monday, several teachers got up and walked out. The children were not aware of the experiment, and therefore they could not give their permission of involvement. 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. 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. Focusing on ethics the experiment violated some of the principles and codes of conduct established by the American Psychological Association. Subsequently the brown-eyed children stopped objecting, even when Miss Elliott and the blue-eyed kids chastised and bullied them. The test also included violation of consent in which participation of the children was made involuntarily. Weve been here before, with unsettling and disturbing results. "Let me look at you," Elliott said. Junior high, maybe. The demonstration has since been taught by generations of teachers to millions of kids across the country. The brown-eyed children began to act aggressive and mean towards the blue-eyed children. Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images On the morning of april 5, 1968, a Friday, Steven Armstrong stepped into Jane Elliott's third-grade classroom in Riceville, Iowa. Two students even got into a physical altercation. I felt like hitting them if I wanted to. Scores of others did participate. Elliott began the exercise by dividing her students by eye color. They wouldnt be allowed second helpings for lunch. The more melanin, the darker the person's eyesand the smarter the person. 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. These initial criticisms didnt stop Elliott. One student answers, since the day I was born. Throughout the entire experiment, Elliott leads frank conversations about race and discrimination. Kellen Castineiras PSY Dr. Gail C. Flanagan February 6, 2022. . The Blue Eyes & Brown Eyes Exercise. The secretary said the south side of the building was closed, something about waxing the hallways. Issues such as the right to know, the right to privacy, and informed consent. . The brown-eyed students also exercised a certain level of power over the blue-eyed students when they put the armbands on them. You didnt understand the directions. Copyright 20102023, The Conversation Media Group Ltd. Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER! The experiment, known as Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment, is regarded as an eye-opening way for children to learn about racism and discrimination. One of the ways Hitler decided who went into the gas chamber was eye color, Elliott said in a later speech. Or alternatively you may decide to keep them in ignorance of what is happening. The students who had blue eyes were told that they were better and smarter than their inferior brown-eyed peers. She has appeared on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" five times. They are more civilized than blue-eyed people. 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. Everyone's tired of her. 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. He printed them under the headline "How Discrimination Feels." At points, you are likely to feel uncomfortable. This procedure is sometimes so subtle that no one notices it happening. Let's just move on. "Would you like to come on the show?" Jane Elliott is 84 years old, a tiny woman with white hair, wire-rim glasses and little patience. Blue-eyed people would get 5 extra minutes on the playground and blue-eyed people could not talk to brown-eyed people. On the other hand, privileged members of the community are treated as in-groups which earn them undue respect and capacity to abuse the less advantaged. But not Elliott. See Page 1. They are steeped in centuries of economic deprivation and cultural appropriation. The same experiment was also used a couple of years later with adults. "On an airplane, it is," Elliott said to appreciative laughter from the studio audience. One scholar asserts that it is "Orwellian" and teaches whites "self-contempt." 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. "It's happening every day in this country, right now," she said in an interview with Morning Edition. Written and verified by the psychologist Francisco Roballo. 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. It is a must . 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. Their response is to create dichotomies of inferiority and superiority. On April 4 1968, King was killed by the single . Withdrawn brown-eyed kids were suddenly outgoing, some beaming with the widest smiles she had ever seen on them. Therefore when she gave the blue eyed people more freedom than the brown eyed people, the blue eyed people started feeling like kings because they thought they were better, and were treated better. Elliott had hoped that this experiment would help the children to better understand the feelings of discrimination that certain groups feel on a daily basis, but what she didn . In fact, most of the initial response was negative. Even though some of the children said yes, Elliott pushed back. Sorry, but it's not possible to copy the text due to security reasons. She chatted about the experiment, and before she knew it was whisked off the stage. At this point you may wish to tell the pupils that you are conducting an "experiment" to look at what prejudice is. PracticalPie.com is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program. However, the study shows some bias in the sample size and race of participants. "I think these children walked in a colored child's moccasins for a day," she was quoted as saying. Jane Elliott, a teacher and anti-racism activist, performed a direct experiment with the students in her classroom. Jane Elliot and the Blue-Eyed Children Experiment. 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. Later, it would occur to Elliott that the blueys were much less nasty than the brown-eyed kids had been, perhaps because the blue-eyed kids had felt the sting of being ostracized and didn't want to inflict it on their former tormentors. Blue-eyed people. Elliot wanted to show that the same thing happens in real life with brown eyed people (minority). But they returned to a better placeunlike a child of color, who gets abused every day, and never has the ability to find him or herself in a nurturing classroom environment." "Why?" Outside, rows of corn stretched to the horizon. The anti-racism sessions Elliott led were intense. The idea was simple but profound. A difference as simple as eye color, defined and established by the authority figure, created a rift between the students. One of the main ones was the fact that their right to withdraw was taken away from them. "You have to put the exercise in the context of the rest of the year. She continued to conduct the exercise with her third graders. Children with brown eyes were forced to wear armbands that made it easy for people to see that they had brown eyes. ", 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. "She stirs people up. [White people] on the other hand, don't have to understand them. Many critics that the children were too young to understand the exercise. In this photograph from Sept. 13, 1965, Black children on their way to school in New York City pass by segregationists protesting integrated busing. ", Dean Weaver, 70, superintendent of Riceville schools from 1972 to 1979, said, "She'd just go ahead and do things. While Jane Elliot's experiment makes several assumptions, it also has some ethical concerns. The episode features with new footage of the students, who are now adults. On Thursday, April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, TN. The day after Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, Elliott had a talk with her students about diversity and racism. She asked the other teachers what they were doing to bring news of the King assassination into their classrooms. Open Document. Within a few hours of starting the exercise, Elliott noticed big differences in the childrens behavior and how they treated each other. She has led training sessions at General Electric, Exxon, AT&T, IBM and other corporations, and has lectured to the IRS, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Department of Education and the Postal Service. The experiment is to help the children to understand about prejudice and discrimination. Yet what Elliott did continues to stir controversy. We use them to divide and destroy people., On Understanding The Different Ways We Treat Other Races, Philip Zimbardo (Biography + Experiments). Elliott asked. She told the kids that blue-eyed children weren't as good as brown-eyed or green-eyed ones. 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. They needed not acknowledge their privilege or reflect on it. Throughout the day, Elliott continued to give the children with blue eyes special treatment. Tears formed in the corners of Elliott's eyes. It didnt take long for the children to turn on each other. ", Steve Harnack, 62, served as the elementary school principal beginning in 1977. one girl asked. And the exercise continued in a similar fashion to how it was executed the day before. This time, the participants werent a bunch of elementary school children they were young adults. 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. Would you like to get this essay by email? To most people, it seemed to suggest that racism could be reduced, even eliminated, by a one- or two-day exercise. American Psychological Association, 4. [online] Today I Found Out. This is the phrase that inspired one of the most well-known experiments in education. 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. On the first day of the two-day experiment, Elliott told the . The students were surprised, but they didnt argue. The results were the same. The nearest traffic light is 20 miles away. The people and cultures already present in a place often feel threatened by new immigrants. Hundreds of viewers wrote letters saying Elliott's work appalled them. 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 . ABC broadcast a documentary about her work. "They shot that King yesterday. How do you think the world would change if everyone experienced the perils and setbacks that come with prejudice and discrimination? 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. "Because we might catch something," a brown-eyed boy said. The killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, was a seismic event, a turning point that compelled many Americans to do something and do it with urgency. She told them that people with brown eyes were better than people with blue eyes. In doing the research for my book with scores of peoples who were participants in the experiment, I reached out to Elliott. The brown-eyed children felt suddenly that they were discriminated, while the blue eyed started seeing them as inferior. ", That spring morning 37 years ago, the blue-eyed children were set apart from the children with brown or green eyes. The blue-eyed participants faced discrimination for two and a half hours. Grasping for a scientific explanation, she ended up claiming that melanin makes eyes darker, and makes . Articles and opinions on happiness, fear and other aspects of human psychology. 2012 2023 . The people of riceville did not exactly welcome Elliott home from New York with a hayride. Grey eyes are also a rare eye color. Kids on top would tease the children who were deemed as the inferior group. You can contribute to that positive change by watching the documentary. Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment Ethical? From Elliot's highly controversial experiment it is clear that prejudice and discrimination can only be understood through experience. 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." They also harassed them constantly. 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. 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. Not everyone appreciated Elliotts exercise. 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. She appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show five times. Questioning authority The mainstream media were complicit in advancing such a simplistic narrative. Elliott created the blue-eyes/brown-eyes classroom exercise in 1968 to teach students about racism. "Do blue-eyed people remember what they've been taught?" She also made the brown-eyed students put construction paper armbands on the blue-eyed students. (2010). "It's the same thing over and over again," Cross says. She learned that the responses from the children were negative and more generalized about what they thought about black people. Decent Essays. Much like the Zimbardo's Stanford Prison experiment where students were divided by either being the jailer or the jailed. The interaction only strengthened Elliott's resolve. Back in the classroom, Elliott's experiment had taken on a life of its own. In 2001, she was still trying to make a change. Many of them noted that when they hear prejudice and discrimination from others, they wish they could whip out those collars and give them the experience they had as third graders. 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. Its not surprising to anyone that some social groups discriminate against others due to ethnicity, religion, or culture. Elliott separated her all-white class of students into two groups: blue-eyed children and brown-eyed children. Why do researchers use correlational studies? Exploring your mind Blog about psychology and philosophy. Did they know what it was like to be discriminated against? They gossiped about her in the hallway. Little children don't like uproar in the classroom. You should be happy! Words are the most powerful weapon devised by humankind. As a result of those divisions, you see racial discrimination or even terrorism. 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. "She taught in this school for 18 years." 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? 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). That got the other teachers angry. "Not one of them reprimanded her for that or even corrected her. 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. The latter felt discriminated against by the other brown-eyed children. The fact that children are easy to manipulate into acting in a particular manner explains Jane's choice of sample. 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. In a grassy front yard down the block is a hand-lettered sign: "Glads for Sale, 3 for $1." . Initial Reaction to the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Exercise. 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.

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