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What Is The Significance Of The Brown Eyes Blue Eyes Experiment

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he "Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes" experiment was conducted by Jane Elliott, a third-grade teacher in Riceville, Iowa, in 1968, the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The experiment was designed to teach her students about the effects of discrimination and racism, and how it can be used as a tool of oppression. The experiment began by dividing the class into two groups: those with brown eyes and those with blue eyes. Elliott then told the class that the blue-eyed students were superior and would be treated better than the brown-eyed students, who were deemed inferior. She gave the blue-eyed students extra privileges, such as being able to leave the room for snacks and drink water whenever they wanted, while the brown-eyed students were not allowed to do …show more content…

The blue-eyed students, who had been the oppressors the day before, were now the oppressed, and they quickly became anxious and depressed, while the brown-eyed students became more confident and performed better academically. The "Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes" experiment is a powerful example of how discrimination and racism can have a profound impact on people's lives. It shows how easily people can be conditioned to act in discriminatory ways, and how quickly they can become the victims of discrimination. The experiment also highlights the importance of treating all people with dignity and respect, regardless of their skin color, eye color, or any other physical characteristic. The experiment has been repeated by other teachers and educators over the years, but it is often met with criticisms and controversies because of the emotional distress it can cause to the children. It is important to keep in mind that the experiment is a representation of a serious issue, and it should be conducted with maturity and sensitivity, not to harm the children but to educate them about the harms of

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This is also shown in an experiment done by an elementary school teacher, called “The Brown Eyed-Blue Eyed Experiment. In this experiment, students were told by a teacher that students with blue eyes were better/smarter. When the teacher gave them a test the students with blue eyes performed much better. The next day, the teacher told the brown eyed students they were better/smarter. When they took the test they performed better than the students with blue eyes.

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Once someone knows how it feels to be put down because of their eye color, ethnicity, or how much money they have, or whatever the circumstance may be, they would not ever what to be put in that predicament again. It can be all fun and games until the person doing the discriminating gets hurt too. She also tried the experiment on adults, which showed the same behavior as the third graders. I thought that was pretty interesting, because that basically said that age doesn’t mean anything, we all can be infected with this evilness. If this was taught to people more often, I honestly think that there would be less of this problem in the world.

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In a world where image is everything, very few people take the time to look past what is on the surface. Jane Elliott happens to be one of those extraordinary people who have learned to not judge a book by its cover. According to the article “Jane Elliott,” Jane has devoted her life to combatting discrimination. She has stated on multiple occasions that the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr was the driving force in her creation of the “blue-eyed” experiment. This exercise has been performed on children and adults of all ethnicities in many different locations in an attempt to eliminate prejudice in society.

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I consider that it is outrageous that Jane Elliot continues till this day conducting the blue/ brown eyes experiment (with adults). I continue with my argument, Jane Elliot is not presenting the problem properly. At the time of racial segregation I could make an exception to understand her experiment. But what type of excuse she has now. In the video: How Racist Are You?

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Segregation, separation and discrimination are three different words that share one definition. The documentary Brown eyes-Blue eyes allows its viewers to see segregation, separation and discrimination. Although many have seen segregation displayed in older people, the prominent fact was viewers see kids discriminating one another because he/she has blue eyes or brown eyes. Jane Elliot a third grade teacher created the blue eye brown eye experiment, in hope of creating a perspective for children to view people for what lies on the inside not the pigment of their skin. The experiment cultivated many children, as shown in the film the kids actually took something away from the experience.

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Elliot used this theory to drive her experiment with the third graders in her class by separating each group into their own social

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The blue eyed – brown eyed experiment in my opinion is indeed ethical. The issue at hand with this experiment is will it cause permeant future psychological damage. Jane Elliott conducted this experiment with her third-grade students which some would say it is too harsh of an exercise for a group that young; She wanted to teach her student that discrimination is wrong which have been a topic they discussed from the first day of school but felt the student would become confused with the fact she just honored Dr. king in the month of February and now she had to explain to them that he was assassinated because of discrimination. Jane Elliott agreed that this exercise can do Psychological damage if not conducted correctly but the benefits are remarkable.

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In relation to the prevention of psychological harm, the children should have been immediately released after an allocated amount of time if no behaviour, distressed behaviour or aggressive behaviour was displayed. One of the child participants sat in the enclosure for a total of 15 minutes with no attempt of escaping (Bain et al, 1958). Therefore, if the study was to be conducted in 2016, after one minute of no activity, the child should be removed from the enclosure. Also, at the first sign of distress or discomfort the child should be immediately removed from the experiment and returned to their parents or caregiver and comforted until they are happy. Another ethical issue within the initial experiment was deception.

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She made the brown eyed kids wear collars so they could be easily identified. Elliot did multiple things that at the time society was doing to African Americans. She made the brown eyed kids not drink from the fountain, there was no going on the swing set during recess, and the brown eyed people could not go back for seconds at lunch. Elliot did a few simple tests with flashcards and timed each group of kids. The blue eyed people did significantly better than the brown eyed people.

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While arguably one of the defining psychological studies of the 20th Century, the research was not without flaws. Almost immediately the study became a subject for debate amongst psychologists who argued that the research was both ethically flawed and its lack of diversity meant it could not be generalized. Ethically, a significant critique of the experiment is that the participants actually believed they were administering serious harm to a real person, completely unaware that the learner was in fact acting. Although Milgram argued that the illusion was a necessary part of the experiment to study the participants’ reaction, they were exposed to a highly stressful situation. Many were visibly distraught throughout the duration of the test

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The documentary titled, “ A Class Divided” introduces us to the experiment made in an elementary school in Iowa by the schoolteacher named Jane Elliot. The documentary begins with Mrs. Elliot reuniting with the students who she did this experiment with the first time. The students are much older now, and they willingly want to watch the experiment that they were part of when they were elementary kids. The experiment was done days after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. Mrs. Elliot has always thought about doing the eye color experiment, but she was never sure of when to do it. She asked her third grade student if it would be interesting to see what would happen if they were judged by their eye color.

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The experiment of ‘A Class Divided’ is a lesson taught by Jane Elliot about discrimination and how it feels to be discriminated against. She first conducted this experiment in 1968 with her class of third graders, she divides people by eye colour and provides collars for them, and she then makes a group of rules separating them and observes how they’re discriminated against in a controlled environment. The experiment breached many ethical guidelines, this is because the experiment wouldn’t have worked otherwise. The rights of the participants was breached in order to achieve accurate results and so that people would feel the humiliation and cage of discrimination.

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Good Morning, Hope Germany has been going well for you so far. When you eventually get back stateside we need to hangout sometime with Derrick and Gibby. Classes and life have been going pretty well. In my Ag Economics class we had to read a book by John Steinbeck called Winter of Our Discontent, it’s like high-school all over again, here read this book and after you’ve read it let’s analyze it and talk about how it’s relevant to us. I honestly didn’t find the book to interesting and knowing you, you probably wouldn’t even finish the first chapter since the beginning was pretty confusing to try to read and make sense of.

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The Eye of the Storm Jane Elliot was a teacher for a class of eight year olds at a school in Riceville, Iowa. Racism was more of a problem in 1968 than it is today, and Jane was trying to demonstrate to her students what it felt like to be a black person in their society at that time. Her experiment was ran very successfully as her students physically felt how African Americans felt in their society during that time. She separated her class into brown eyes and blue eyes. The first day, the students with blue eyes were better than the students with brown eyes and the opposite the next day.

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The Bluest Eyes open with an anecdote of Dick and Jane to show how racism destroys the mental stability of black people. It equates whites with success and happiness while blacks with poverty and unhappiness. This traumatises the minds of Blacks and they begin to dislike their own heritage and skin colour in the white world of Dick and Jane.

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