It is quite powerful to watch. The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment. Right off the bat, she picked me out of the room and called me Barbie, Pasicznyk told me. Privacy Statement Retrieved from https://speedypaper.com/essays/ethical-concerns-in-jane-elliots-experiment, Free essays can be submitted by anyone, so we do not vouch for their quality. "It changed my life. Normally, blue-eyes isnt an insult. 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 shielded her eyes from the morning sun. ", "I've never forgotten the exercise," Whisenhunt volunteered. Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment Ethical? Cookie Policy On April 4 1968, King was killed by the single . To begin with, Jane Elliot's experiment involved deception in which the children were made in believing that change in eye color influence intelligence. The people and cultures already present in a place often feel threatened by new immigrants. 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. 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." We have to let people find out how it feels to be on the receiving end of that which we dish out so readily.". ", The two hugged, and Whisenhunt had tears streaming down her cheeks. Elliott pulled out green construction paper armbands and asked each of the blue-eyed kids to wear one. The idea of white privilege is closely tied to Elliotts initial question to her students. Decent Essays. That says very plainly that you know whats happening, you know you dont want it for you. Elliott? Professor of Journalism, University of Iowa. These differences lead to war and hate. She told them that people with brown eyes were better than people with blue eyes. 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. All the work should be used in accordance with the appropriate policies and applicable laws. She and her husband, Darald Elliott, then a grocer, have four children, and they, too, felt a backlash. In 1970, a documentary about the exercise was released. 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. Why Did Jane Elliott Choose Eye Color To Divide Her Students? Three sections were selected to be administered the simulation . Jane Elliot and the Blue-Eyed Children Experiment. Dick DeMarsico/New York World-Telegram & the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection/PhotoQuest/Getty Images, Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images, Committee Member - MNF Research Advisory Committee, PhD Scholarship - Uncle Isaac Brown Indigenous Scholarship. Ms. Elliott, now 87, said she started teaching about racism on April 5, 1968 the day after the Rev. 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 . 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. ", When I met Elliott in 2003, she hadn't been back to Riceville in 12 years. Multi-Problem Adolescents: An Increasing Problem, Professor Jane Elliott performed a group experiment, the current problems related to discrimination. Sign up for Politics Weekly.]. In present society, psychological experiments are guided by honesty, truthfulness, and accuracy. "Because we might catch something," a brown-eyed boy said. The story was then picked up by the Associated Press. On the first day, the blue-eyed students were informed that they were genetically inferior to the brown-eyed students. 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. From the University of California Press website: 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. January 1, 2003. Many critics that the children were too young to understand the exercise. Undeterred, Elliott tried to appeal to Pauls self-interest. "They can't forget me," she said, "and because of who they are, they can't forgive me. Ethical issues were 1/3 of the participants refused to take the head off the rat . 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 . Elliott rattled off the rules for the day, saying blue-eyed kids had to use paper cups if they drank from the water fountain. But Paul, one of eight siblings and the son of a dairy farmer, didnt buy Elliotts mollification. On the second day of the experiment, Elliott switched the childrens roles. In the early morning, dew and fog cover the acres of gently swaying stalks that surround Riceville the way water surrounds an island. 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. The day after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination in 1968, Jane Elliott, a schoolteacher in rural Iowa, introduced to her all-white third-grade class a shocking . Children often fight, argue, and sometimes hit each other, but this time they were motivated by eye color. The exercise is "an inoculation against racism," she says. Elliot said that when the children were given the test on the same day that they were in the superior group, they tended to get the highest scores. She told them that people with brown eyes were superior to those with blue eyes, for reasons she made up. It has since evolved into an online blog and YouTube channel providing mental health advice, tools, and academic support to individuals from all backgrounds. "You better apologize to us for getting in our way because we're better than you are," one of the brownies said. "That you, Ms. She nodded. You must get the parents first. She told them that people with brown eyes were superior to those with blue eyes, for reasons she made up. 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. I often think about Paul Bodensteiner. 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. Exploring your mind Blog about psychology and philosophy. "We give our children shots to inoculate them against polio and smallpox, to protect them against the realities in the future. "People of other color groups seem to understand," she said. ", Then, the inevitable: "Hey, Mrs. Elliott, how come you're the teacher if you've got blue eyes?" She was hesitant to enroll in Elliotts workshop but was told that if she wanted to succeed as a manager, shed have to attend. At the time, she was a third-grade . Provide your email for sample delivery, You agree to receive our emails and consent to our Terms & Conditions, Order an essay on this subject and get a 100% original paper. "It would be hard to know, wouldn't it, unless we actually experienced discrimination ourselves. In Building Moral Intelligence: The Seven Essential Virtues That Teach Kids to Do the Right Things, educational psychologist Michele Borda says it "teaches our children to counter stereotypes before they become full-fledged, lasting prejudices and to recognize that every human being has the right to be treated with respect." "Do blue-eyed people remember what they've been taught?" 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. On the "Tonight Show" Carson broke the ice by spoofing Elliott's rural roots. 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. Below, . In fact, most of the initial response was negative. ", 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. Is your time best spent reading someone elses essay? The brown-eyed people were told to step to the front of the line. These initial criticisms didnt stop Elliott. If you are the original author of this essay and no longer wish to have it published on the Then a picture was taken to remember. ", That spring morning 37 years ago, the blue-eyed children were set apart from the children with brown or green eyes. 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. Order original essays online. The brown-eyed children didnt want to play with the blue-eyes during recess. When Elliott first conducted the exercise in 1968, brown-eyed students were given special privileges. Subsequently the brown-eyed children stopped objecting, even when Miss Elliott and the blue-eyed kids chastised and bullied them. Why do researchers use correlational studies? "Hey, Mrs. Elliott," Steven yelled as he slung his books on his desk. Jane Elliots work and experiences have made her an authority on education and anti-racism. We dont have to learn about those who are other than white. 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 . Lasting Impact of Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment, Words are the most powerful weapon devised by humankind. The empathy she works to inspire in students with the experiment, which has been modified over the years, is necessary, she said. One of the main ones was the fact that their right to withdraw was taken away from them. I felt like hitting them if I wanted to. It makes you proud. Jane Elliott's brown eye/blue eye experiment starts at 03:10 of A Class Divided. Its goal was to demonstrate what prejudice was to her third grade class. Elliott created the blue-eyes/brown-eyes classroom exercise in 1968 to teach students about racism. "How dare you try this cruel experiment out on white children," one said. 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. 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