blue eyes brown eyes experiment ethical issues blue eyes brown eyes experiment ethical issues

The latter felt discriminated against by the other brown-eyed children. Melanin, she said, is what causes intelligence. She gave all of the students simple spelling and math tests two weeks before the exercise, on the days of the exercise, and after the exercise. On the morning of april 5, 1968, a Friday, Steven Armstrong stepped into Jane Elliott's third-grade classroom in Riceville, Iowa. I often think about Paul Bodensteiner. Biddle, B. J. 980 Words. The more melanin, the darker the person's eyesand the smarter the person. "Your son got what he deserved," the woman said. Jane Elliot, a third-grade teacher from Lowa town, became troubled with the turn of events and knew that something had to be done about racial discrimination (Danko, 2013). In the early morning, dew and fog cover the acres of gently swaying stalks that surround Riceville the way water surrounds an island. Three sections were selected to be administered the simulation . She also made the brown-eyed students put construction paper armbands on the blue-eyed students. 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. Jane Elliott, a teacher and anti-racism activist, performed a direct experiment with the students in her classroom. The students were surprised, but they didnt argue. The results showed a reversal effect in which the blue-eyed students showed signs of inferiority and low self-esteem. The selection was based on the color of the eye for each group. Almost immediately, it was apparent that she had created segregation and prejudice given that the blue-eyed students began exhibiting signs of dominion and superiority. Jane Elliott's experiment. In doing the research for my book with scores of peoples who were participants in the experiment, I reached out to Elliott. That got the other teachers angry. To get her points across, Elliott hurled insults at workshop participants, particularly those who were white and had blue eyes. They are steeped in centuries of economic deprivation and cultural appropriation. She said she watched and was horrified at what she saw. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . According to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, 2010 the experiment also violates the principle of Integrity. I'm tired of hearing about her and her experiment and how everyone here is a racist. Mental Floss, 4. Additionally, the brown-eyed students got to sit in the front of the class, while the blue-eyed kids . The blue-eyed students, when told they were superior and offered privileges such as extra recess time, changed their behavior dramatically and their attitudes toward the children with brown eyes. Before she could answer, another boy piped up: "If she didn't have blue eyes, she'd be the principal or the superintendent.". Elliotts coworkers avoided her after her appearance on The Tonight Show. Having in mind that it would be difficult to explain to third graders about discrimination, she needed to be more practical so that her student could understand how discrimination and prejudice felt. Her class, She pointed out flaws in a student and associated it with . "I think these children walked in a colored child's moccasins for a day," she was quoted as saying. However, in this classroom, having blue-eyes had become a condition of inferiority. "You have to put the exercise in the context of the rest of the year. She chatted about the experiment, and before she knew it was whisked off the stage. Many educators responded by holding mandatory workshops on institutional racism and implicit bias, reforming teaching methods and lesson plans and searching for ways to amplify undersung voices. The documentary has become a popular teaching tool among teachers, business owners, and even employees at correctional facilities. Malinda Whisenhunt? Today, she says, it's still playing out as the U.S. reckons with racial injustice. The nonstop parade of sickening events such as the murder of George Floyd surely is not going to be abated by a quickie experiment led by a white person for the alleged benefit of other whites as was the case with the blue-eyed, brown eyed experiment. PracticalPsychology. The hate and discrimination that we see in adults have their origin in their upbringing. The subjects were 164 students enrolled in eight sections of an introductory elementary education course at a state university. This meeting, along with other clips of the exercises impact on education, is featured in a PBS documentary called A Class Divided. On the second day, the roles were reversed, and those with brown eyes received special treatment, and the blue-eyed children were made to feel inferior (A Class, 2003). She slumped. Role Theory: Expectations, Identities, and Behaviors. The three outcomes are: (1) virtually all of the subjects reported that the experience was SpeedyPaper website, please click below to request its removal: Liked this essay sample but need an original one? 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. We have to let people find out how it feels to be on the receiving end of that which we dish out so readily.". APA principles acknowledge that individuals rights to privacy, self-determination, and confidentiality is paramount to all psychological activities. Jane Elliot's 'The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment' was unethical in that she created a segregated environment in a third grade classroom. Jane Elliots work and experiences have made her an authority on education and anti-racism. 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. January 1, 2003. Order from one of our vetted writers instead, First name should have at least 2 letters, Phone number should have at least 10 digits, Free Essay with a Response to Cross Words by UIW President Louis Agnese, How Does Donald Duk View His Chinese Heritage? This procedure is sometimes so subtle that no one notices it happening. When she separated the class by eye color and announced that blue-eyed children were superior, Paul Bodensteiner objected at every turn. [online] Today I Found Out. In 1968, schoolteacher Jane Elliott decided to divide her classroom into students with blue eyes and students with brown eyes. On April 4 1968, King was killed by the single . It is quite powerful to watch. 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. Cookie Policy 4. It's the Jane Elliott machine. Its not surprising to anyone that some social groups discriminate against others due to ethnicity, religion, or culture. See Page 1. In this photograph from Sept. 13, 1965, Black children on their way to school in New York City pass by segregationists protesting integrated busing. The searing story is a cautionary tale that examines power and privilege in and out of the classroom. Copyright 20102023, The Conversation Media Group Ltd. (In later versions of the exercise, children in the inferior group were given collars to wear.). It was the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968 that Elliott ran her first "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" exercise in her Riceville, Iowa classroom. The next day, Elliott reversed the roles. But Paul, one of eight siblings and the son of a dairy farmer, didnt buy Elliotts mollification. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 prompted educator Jane Elliott to create the now-famous "blue eyes/brown eyes exercise.". Part of the problem is that the blue-eyed group is exclusively white, while the brown-eyed group is predominantly non-white, so that eye colour is no longer an analogue or metaphor for race but a . Jane Elliot's experiment involves cheating and intentional misinterpretation of facts. Elliott? The Blue-Eyed/Brown-Eyed Experiment: Investigation. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. The next day, Jane made it known to the students that she had made a mistake and that the brown-eyed pupils were better and smarter than their counterparts. There are risks to those inoculations, too, but we determine that those risks are worth taking. That same year, Elliott was invited to the White House Conference on Children and Youth to conduct an exercise on adult educators. Stephen G. Bloom does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. "Not one of them reprimanded her for that or even corrected her. "It's Riceville 30 years ago. That says very plainly that you know whats happening, you know you dont want it for you. Students in the inferior groups were more likely to get a worse score. That's not true. Elliott shared the essays with her mother, who showed them to the editor of the weekly Riceville Recorder. New York: Elsevier Science. Elliott separated her all-white class of students into two groups: blue-eyed children and brown-eyed children. ABC broadcast a documentary about her work. "How do you think it would feel to be a Negro boy or girl?" It also shows how arbitrary and subjective things can turn friends, family members, and citizens against each other. I want to know why youre so willing to accept it or to allow it to happen for others., The first reaction I get from teachers, who see this film or from hearing, hear me discuss what I do say to me How can you do that to these little children? Jane Elliott, Creator of the "Blue/Brown Eyes" Experiment, Says Racism Is Easy To Fix. At this point you may wish to tell the pupils that you are conducting an "experiment" to look at what prejudice is. The brown-eyed children felt suddenly that they were discriminated, while the blue eyed started seeing them as inferior. One of the main ones was the fact that their right to withdraw was taken away from them. Abstract The effectiveness of a well-known prejudice-reduction simulation, "Blue Eyes-Brown Eyes," was assessed as a tool for changing the attitudes of ncnblack teacher eduction students toward blacks. Hire a professional with VAST experience! ", Vision and tenacity may get results, but they don't always endear a person to her neighbors. ", When I met Elliott in 2003, she hadn't been back to Riceville in 12 years. The brown-eyed children didnt want to play with the blue-eyes during recess. The idea was simple but profound. He printed them under the headline "How Discrimination Feels." She and her husband, Darald Elliott, then a grocer, have four children, and they, too, felt a backlash. If this arbitrary division that Elliott enforced for a few hours created so many problems in this classroom, whats happening on a larger scale?