Discrimination blue eyes and brown eyes
In 1968, a time when
racism and discrimination was spread around the United States and right after
the death of a great man Martin Luther King; a 2nd grade teacher
from Iowa, named Jane Elliot made an experiment on her students to teach them
about discrimination, and she taped it on video camera.
Elliot made the blue eyed and brown eyed experiment for
three days. In day one she divided her class students into two groups, those
with the blue eyes and those with the brown eyes. She started with favoring the
blue eyed and herself, being blue eyed, over the brown eyed children in
class. She gave the blue eyed extra time at recess and having to leave first
for lunch, before the brown eyed. She even made the brown eyed children wear
blue collars around their neck to recognize them from a distance. She also kept
referring to them as brown eyed for any slack at work and treated them
differently. At the end of the first day you can clearly see that the blue eyed
felt superior over the brown eyed children.
The next day Elliot gave the brown eyed a privilege over the
blue eyed. And the effects from the first day appeared almost the same but in
reverse! The blue eyed felt inferior this time, their score
dropped and they were slower in solving problems. Jane Elliot wanted to show
both students how it feels to be discriminated against.
The experiment showed that children were willing to
discriminate against their own classmates and even their friends. 15
years after the experiment Elliot made a reunion with the same students to show
them the video and to talk about the experiment and their experience of it; the
students said that it helped them to be less prejudiced as teens and young
adults because they know the feeling.
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