Jane Elliott’s explore maybe a life lesson.
In 1968, following the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior, Jane Elliott attempted to discuss issues of discrimination, racism and prejudice with her third grade class in Iowa. Mrs. Elliott began a two-day "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" experiment to highlight the unfairness of discrimination and racism. A Class Divided is a follow-up of the 1970 documentary Eye of the Storm and was originally aired as an episode of PBS’s Frontline in 1985, which chronicled Jane Elliott’s experiment .
Jane Elliott divided her class into two groups: children with blue eyes and children with brown eyes. On the first day of the experiment, children with blue eyes experienced preferential treatment, superiority, and positive reinforcements over those who were brown eyed. They were allowed privileges such as taking longer recess. Meanwhile, the brown eyed children had to wear collars around their necks for the purpose of being recognized as minority and were constantly critiqued by Mrs. Elliott. On day two, the procedure was reversed, brown eyed children were the dominant group and were given favourable preferences over the blue eyed. On both the days of the experiment, phonic cards were shown to both the groups. Phonic flashcards can help children learn the letters of the alphabet, sight words and combination of letters, which makes a large part of their reading books.
The two-day course of action astonished Mrs. Elliot as well as the students. On the first day, the dominant group (blue-eyed group) that were previously affable and sympathetic, had become nasty and relished in their feelings of superiority. Conversely, the brown -eyed group performed poorly on their assignment and were discouraged due to their collars. On day two, when the roles were reversed, the blue-eyed group became servile and discriminated against their counterparts. The brown eyed group representing the minority on day one, took five and one half minutes to get through the phonic cards exercise. On day two when they were declared as the majority, it only took them two and one half minutes.
Mrs. Elliot stated, “I watched what had been marvellous, cooperative, wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating little third-graders in a space of fifteen minutes”. She realized that she had “created a microcosm of society in a third-grade classroom” . At the end of the experiment, Mrs. Elliot engaged in a conversation with her students to learn about their experiences related to discrimination, prejudice, and racism. Mrs. Elliot continued to perform this experiment every year in her classroom and orchestrated it in prisons and workshops when racism was at its peak . In the reunion of the above mentioned third -graders, they stated “once you find out what it feels like to be hurt in that discriminatory way you do not want to hurt others in that way ever again.” They felt a sense of despondency , as if they were “dogs on a leash”. These factors, “naturally” occur in our society daily.
Prejudice and discrimination are intensified by feelings of social estrangement and tremendously affects the realms of psychological, social, and political domains. The experiment is truly unconventional and needs to be implemented in institutions to break the long-term effects of racial stereotyping.
