Jane Elliot Experiment

672 Words3 Pages
Jane Elliott was a third grade elementary school teacher. After Martin Luther King Jr.'s assignation, she came to the realization that she had to teach her students more then what what they talked about when covering discrimination. She wanted her class to truly get to feel what it was like to live in a world where you were told this type of person was better then the other so, she divided her class into children who have brown eyes and children who have blue eyes. On Day One, she told the blue-eyed children how they would Go to the playground first and none of the brown eyed people could play or talk to them. She also told them how much smarter they were then the brown eyed people, and how they had better manners. The blue-eyed children visibly…show more content…
She had spoken to the brown eyed group alone without any of the blue eyed and told them about the experiment, telling the group of adults to follow along with the statement that "brown eyed people were better then blue eyed." Throughout the workshop Jane Elliot make numerous statements by calling out blue eyes individuals and saying how lazy or dumb they were to be unprepared and rude, all while having the brown eyed people follow along and agree with her. Although by the end of the workshop the adults understood the concept and what happened, I believe that the experiment worked better with the group of younger children. Working with adults you have to know straight away that they already have been living their lifestyle and believe in their certain beliefs for a long time, making it harder to change ones perspective on a topic. But when you work with small children who are still learning, it is easier to get them to understand and change their perspective on certain things. I do feel that similar workshops should be used today to help children understand certain problems we face in today's society. By using the blue eyed and brown eyed concept, it's a harmless and easily understandable way to get the attention and participation of younger students and would in the end benefit them greatly while transiting into
Open Document