A Class Divided Essay

On April 5 1968 Jane Elliot preformed the historical experiment in her 3rd grade classroom separating blue-eyed and brown-eyed children. After the death of Martin Luther King her students raised quiestions and she wanted to think of a way to make her students understand what minorities in the U.S feel like. Jane believed that her students would understand what it felt like to be discriminated against by separating them by their eye color. She asked her students if they wanted to be treated like a person of color for a day, judging their peers by the color of their eyes. The students went along with it and that coined the experiment that would later be known as “A Class Divided”.

A Class Divided: The students did recognize that in these United States, “black/nigger and Indian” people are not treated as their brothers. One little boy responded to the question of, “How are people who are of a different color treated” with “They don’t get everything of this world because they are a different color.”(“A Class Divided”, 1968)

This documentary was an exercise in response to the assassination of Dr King. Jane Elliot a third grade teacher from Iowa decided it was time to create a microcosm society after Martin Luther king Jr was killed. She performed this experiment in two separate places between kids in her all white Christian school and between adults at an Iowa State prison system on human relations. This came after they had made him a “heroes of the month for the month of February at the middle school which she teaches at. She tried to figure out a way to explain this scenario to her third grade student as to why Martin Luther King was assassinated. Jane Elliot decided to use the eye color experiment where she placed people with blue eye and brown eyes in separate groups and see how each group function when they’re discriminated against. The result of the experiment helped bring people closer as brothers and led people to understand how it felt to be discriminated against. Although Mrs. Elliot carried out this experiment with a different class of people, it would have been great to run this with

For the children, it was easy for them to believe anything they were taught because they were so young. Everything Mrs. Elliott told them they believed it and tried to live it in that moment. The blue-eyed children thought they were better and acted as if they were better. As the children stated, at the playground the blue-eyed children taunted the brown-eyed children all because of the labels that were taught to them. With the prison guards, it was a little harder for them to accept the things they were being taught. Whenever a blue-eyed person would get irritated with Jane Elliot, the would react in a defensive manner. In return, she used that against them saying that only blue-eyed people would act that way. I believe in the moment, for both groups the labels became true. Essentially, it demonstrates how something negative or positive can change a

The day after Martin King Jr. was shot a woman named Jane Elliot, a third grade teacher in Iowa, wanted to conduct a class experiment about racism. PBS did a documentary of this experiment and fourteen years reunited with the students to talk about their experience all on camera called, A Class Divided. Instead of lecturing these young kids about racism, Mrs. Elliot wanted her students to understand how it truly felt to be discriminated. She split the class between blue and brown eyed, students. The first day, students who were blue eye were superior and the brown eye students were worn collars and treated lesser than the blue eyes. The next day the roles were reversed so both sides could understand the importance of the experiment. Jane Elliot used her students as an example as to how empathy can be used to fight racial

Economically speaking, not all men and women are created equal within America. After reading Doubly Divided, it is clear that white people have always maintained a wealthier status above non-white groups throughout this country’s history. Even in today’s society, many Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans have high poverty rates and low valued assets when compared to whites, clearly exhibiting a racial wealth gap. However, the Federal Government has greatly contributed to this wealth gap over the last 200 years through a process I call the “take and prevent method”. For example, large amounts of land were taken from Native Americans and given to white farmers under the Homestead Act of 1862. With a major asset gone, the government prevented any further wealth accumulation by forcing Native Americans onto reservations, using corrupted trust fund accounts, and assimilating them into white culture (through the 1887 Dawes Act). As an additional example, the discontinuation of the Freedman’s Bureau and an overturned civil rights act meant that African Americans had their land and rights to ownership taken away as well. And as a measure of prevention, governmental programs such as unemployment, Social Security, and

The Rosenthal and Jacobson experiment was the study of elementary students and the effects teachers expectations have on their pupils. The result was in part what we call the Pygmalion effect, or as the book rightfully calls it "the self-fulfilling prophecy." The experiment was conduct by at the beginning of the academic year Rosenthal and Jacobson administered IQ test to the students. After the results were completed they then pick randomly one-fifth of the students tested and told their teachers they (these random students, with no consideration at all for their IQ results mind you) were special snowflakes and extraordinary in comparison to their peers. As a result the teachers behavior towards those students changed. Having the teachers now label them within the classroom setting as more intellectually curious thus granting them an edge compared to others.

She pointed out flaws of the brown-eyed group and seemingly better traits of the blue-eyed group that made her statement seem correct leading to a generalized prejudice. Elliot then made rules for the groups, including that of recess time, drinking fountain privileges, lunch privileges, and segregation on the playground, giving advantages to the superior blue-eyed group and disadvantages to the inferior brown-eyed group which is a small-scale simulation of societal and governmental oppression of minorities. The kids laughed at the “other 's” misfortune, two kids of each group got into a fight, and hateful things were said by the “good” group while a look and feel of disappointment, shame, and exclusion was shown by the “bad” group. The roles were effectively reversed on the second day by using the same methods. The brown-eyed group were more than happy to give their collars to the blue-eyed group. The situated identities of the children were changed by Jane Elliot, an authority figure, by declaring that people of one eye color were better than people of another. She pointed out flaws and supposed shortcomings that made the one group seem inferior and the other group adopted this generalized view. This turned into discriminatory rules and acts in the class and on the playground.

2. I think that the "brown-eyed/blue-eyed experiment" teaches us quite a few messages about racism. First off, the experiment is a proof that racism is simply a learned behavior. Children are very impressionable and usually learned about racism from their parents or peers at a very early age. As the video shows children are easily influenced and quite convincible. This proves that if our families taught us tolerance and acceptance from a young age, racism could be non-existent. Another fact that the video proves is that violence does not solve problems. As we see in the film, some of the boys hit the other boys to relieve their anger and

Years ago, in a classroom with so-called innocent and impressionable minds, the children in Ms. Elliot’s class were exposed to an experiment that forever altered their vision of discrimination. Unbeknownst to them at the time, the outcome of their participation would later become adopted as study material and models for workshops, for future scholars and employees. This brief exercise, originating back to 1968 and titled A Class Divided, demonstrated concepts such as bias within groups, the repercussions of discrimination, how cultural upbringing can play a role in one’s racial perceptions, and that adults can be similarly impacted by intentional bias. Such experimentation naturally brings up the matter of ethics, and begs the question whether or not such a study would be conducted in a classroom today, and if so, would one let their child participate. Controversial research and methods can be eye-opening to read about, but might have nuggets of wisdom for willing scholars.

those with blue eyes and those with brown eyes. Over the duration of the exercise, both groups take turns in being the dominant group. Initially, Elliot created this exercise as a response to her students asking her why anyone would kill Martin Luther King Jr. In the

The issue of class is a predominant topic in the world’s social discourse because in every society, there must be the rich and the poor. It is estimated that in this country, there are 38 million people living in absolute poverty. This has created a very huge disparity in the manner in which people live in the society; their lifestyles and general well being. To compound the situation further, the general norm regarding class is that the rich often get richer as days go by while the poor consistently become poorer (Mathews 13). Bell Hooks in her book “Where we stand: Class Matters,” sought to give an insight on the general concept of class as it is today. In this book, the author propagates three main ideas. To start with, Bell argues that the question of class cuts across all other dimensions of life including gender, race, religion and sexuality. Secondly, she posits that religion is has been a very instrumental tool in bridging the gap between classes. Finally, Bell observes that the proclamation that we live in a classless society is flawed in every sense of the world. This paper seeks to make an incisive elucidation of the three observations that Bell makes in her book.

The blue-eyed boy called a brown-eyed boy, “brown-eyes,” a term, or feature, that didn’t matter the previous day, was then used to hurt his friend’s feelings. One of the young girls stated that the way she was being treating made her not even want to try and learn. The test results when the children practiced the phonics card pack with the teacher was interesting as well. The children in the superior group that day, excelled, but did worse on the day they had to wear the collars. The day after the experiment, Ms. Elliot sat down with her students and asked them how they felt when they were in the inferior group and unanimously they responded with how horrible they felt. Then she asked them if the color of someone’s eyes should have anything to do with how you treat them. All the children said no. Then she asked if the color of someone’s skin should affect how you treat them, the children said no. The children had empathy after the experiment because they knew what it was like to be discriminated

Everyone is likely to experience some form of discrimination or prejudice; as is anyone capable of acting prejudiced towards others. On April 5th, 1968, a teacher in Riceville, Iowa named Jane Elliot conducted an experiment with her third grade class that dealt with the concept of discrimination; and was documented in Peters’ 1985 ‘A Class Divided’. The exercise originally took place the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated. The documentary is an eye opener to the world of racism and discrimination. Bucher (2010) describes racism as “discrimination based on the belief that one race is superior to another” (97). According to Bucher (2010) “discrimination is defined as the

The participants in this study were a university campus laboratory preschool class of 13 children, comprised of 6 girls and 8 boys. The teacher is named Ms. H. The children range in age from 2 to 4. There are 5 minority children in the class (3 girls, 2 boys), one bi-racial child (boy), and all other children are Caucasian. All the children had attended the preschool for a minimum of four months prior to observation. The focus of this observation is Child A, a three-year old Caucasian female named Kennedy. The other children are: