Effects Of Jane Elliott's Experiment

She told her students that the blue-eyed students were superior to their brown-eyed friends. Within minutes, the way the two groups of students acted towards one another changed. Ms. Elliot, their teacher, started calling the blue-eyed division of the group “better and smarter” than their brown-eyed equivalents. She continued this by giving them more opportunities than the brown-eyed students. For example, they recieved seconds at lunch, as well as, extra time at recess. A blue-eyed student also went on to say, “You better keep the art stick close, [Ms. Elliot] in case you need to use it.” He meant to use it to punish a brown-eyed classmate. Once the teacher changed her views, the students did too. The students did not want to be different, so they followed their leader's example. Even though this part of the experiment only took place for a day, it seemed like it had occurred for a while. This is a great example of how once a leader changes his/her point of view, it’s followers will do the same, so they will not be seen as different or an

She wanted to give each student a clear understating how it feels on both sides of the pole. The students immediately turned on their friends, both days, when they were told one eye color group was better than the other. Eliot’s experiment showed how kids are taught racism and how it only took 24hours. She gave them pre-test and post-test that showed that on the days the students with the superior eye color were treated better they scored higher while the secondary students tested poorly. The results were the same for both days. According to Matthew E. Lemberger and Tamiko Lemberger-Truelove, authors of Using the Transcultural Adlerian Conceptualization and Therapy (TACT) Model to Depict the Influence of Race-Based Trauma (2016) they agree with Courtney Heldreth et al., University of California, Los Angeles (2016), on their point that racism causes medical and mental issues on person wellbeing. Lemberger and True-lover notes racism can be seen as traumatic for a person and their growth (Lemberger and True-love, 2016 p.3) whereas Courtney Heldreth et al. claims that postpartum depression symptoms were partially mediated by everyday experience with racism (Heldreth et al, 2016 p.3).

In a powerful experiment we were able to see through the eyes of a kindergarten children prejudice dynamics. In a famous experience by Jane Elliot she separated her class between blue-eyed and brown-eyed students. Professor Elliot had separated her students by making one eye group inferior to the other making them have certain benefits and better treatment than the other group of students. Eventually, the students were switched the following day. This experiment have showed this group of kindergarten students how colors and discrimination affected the minority population. After this successful experiment with the kindergarten student’s professor Jane Elliot had done many other experiments using adults using the a similar technique blue-eyed

The blue-eyed members are subjected to pseudo-scientific explanations of their inferiority, culturally biased IQ tests and blatant discrimination. When the inevitable resistance by a blue-eyes surfaces, Elliot cites the outburst as an example of

Racial discrimination has a great impact on people of various races. Throughout the past generations, many people have faced discrimination because of the way that they look. People have been hated, beaten, killed and made fun of. Many people have been put down because of the way that they look. Adults, teens and even children began thinking less of themselves after the incidents. Many African Americans started considering themselves inferior to whites, which lead them to perform worse in school and daily activities. Looking at the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the video experiment Brown Eyes and Blue Eyes performed by Jane Elliott, it is evident that African Americans faced discrimination for hundreds of years, which lead them to consider themselves inferior amongst all other people.

Mrs. Elliot divided her all white elementary class by eye color. There was a “brown eyes” and “blue eyes” group, which made each group superior or inferior to each other. Mrs. Elliot performed the experiment, because she wanted to teach her students about racism and discrimination that was going on in the county, which was a major responded to the shooting of Martin Luther King in April 1968.Since Mrs. Elliot already divided her student by eye color. I think another way she could’ve divided her class is by hair color and

“A Class Divided”: When asked the question, “do you think you know how it feels to be judged by the color of your skin”, a few felt that they did. Initially the children were excited to participate in the blue-eyed/brown-eyed experiment, until they realized they would be the people being judged. Once the teacher announced that the blue-eyed people are the “better people” than the brown-eyed children, immediately voiced their disagreement. One blue-eyed boy stated, “My dad has brown eyes and he’s not stupid.”

First off, people with blue eyes were considered “superior” to the brown-eyed people. When they were separated by eye color, there were often times were the blue-eyed people would make fun of the brown-eyed people. Due to the separation, they also treated each other very poorly just because of their eye color. When it came to academics, the brown-eyed people were always behind and not as smart even though this might not have been the case. Just because they were brown-eyed, they were dumb and wouldn’t be able to succeed academically.

On April 5, 1968 Jane Elliott changed the lives of her third grade class. She was attempting to simply teach the children about racial prejudice, however a much greater impact was made. In her exercise called the Brown Eye Blue Eye experiment, the children in her classroom with blue eyes were given armbands to wear to signify their eye color while the brown-eyed children remained normal. Then the children were told that everyone with brown eyes was better, and that “they were cleaner and smarter.” Soon enough, the children with brown eyes were degrading the blue-eyed children for no other reason than they were told since they have brown eyes they were better.

One of the most thought-provoking issues raised in The New Jim Crow is the concept of colorblindness, and how Martin Luther King’s call to create a society where people are not "judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" has been badly distorted by

Jane’s special project sparked when she told her young class of eight and nine year olds that blue-eyed people were smarter and were better than brown-eyed people. Blue-eyed children were allowed an extra five minutes at recess, could have extras at lunch, got to sit in the front of the classroom, and were greatly applauded for their successes. On the opposite spectrum, brown-eyed students were forced to wear navy fabric collars in order to be easily identified. The groups were forced into segregation and were not allowed to play with one another out on the playground. Even when a brown-eyed student is tormented, the exercise continues; it is all a part of the experiment. The next day, the children switched roles, allowing them to all comprehend the degrading and humiliating emotional aspects of being an “outsider”.

In the movie A Class Divided directed by William Peters, a teacher decides to a daring experiment where she decided to treat children with blue eyes as superior to children with brown eyes. Blue eyed children were allow privileges that the brown eyed children were not allowed. The blue eyed children took upon their power to become a mean-spirited and discriminate the brown eyed children. Having power changes a person, making them selfish and cruel to other people below them. In the play The Tragedy of Macbeth written by William Shakespeare, Macbeth is given a prophecy where he becomes king.

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

From here, we witness some of superior blue eyed kids began to act arrogant and bossy to the inferior brown eyed kids. Blue eyed Russell was taunting John at recess, calling him ‘brown eyes’ and John retaliated by hitting him. After the two boys fought at recess the teacher asked if responding with violence made him feel better, he replied no. His answer goes to show that responding with violence is ineffective and a waste of time and energy. They compared it to someone calling a black man the N-word.

During the second day of the experiment, the roles were reversed. The brown-eyed children being told and treated like they were the superior group (1985). The results of this experiment proved interesting as it revealed how quick and easily groups can be discriminated against based on differences alone. Not only did the in-groups and the out-groups start treating each other terribly, but the kids who were in the out-group developed low self-esteem which caused them to do worse on their class assignments, get temperamental, defensive and fought with the other group. The results during role reversal were the same. Jane Elliot later commented during the experiment she "… watched what had been marvelous, cooperative, wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating, little third-graders in a space of fifteen minutes” (1985). The children’s academic performance greatly