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Jane Elliot's Classroom Experiment And The Civil Rights Movement

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It is almost unfathomable to understand that racial segregation took place for so long in
America. After the murder of Martin Luther King Jr, the civil rights movement was as big and controversial as ever. In an attempt to teach kids about racial segregation and how to stray away from racism, third-grade teacher in Iowa, Jane Elliot created a classroom experiment in which she segregated her students based on eye color. For two days, children with a specific eye color were treated inferior to the other students during the school day in an attempt to demonstrate to white children how black people are treated on a daily basis. Elliot performed this experiment several times over the years and eventually, this experiment led to her being known as …show more content…

Their rights to do things, such as play on playground equipment and get second helpings of food at lunch were taken away, and they were informed that they had to drink out of the water fountain with a paper cup. Elliot told the brown-eyed children that they were cleaner and more intelligent than blue-eyed children as well as encouraged them to cause physical harm to and belittle the others.2 This led to brown-eyed students ganging up on the children with blue eyes and beating them up, degrading them, and making comments that were conforming to the stereotypes that Elliot enforced on the children. The next day, Elliot switched the roles in the experiment and made the children with brown eyes inferior. After the experiment, children were
2 Bloom, S. G. (2022, BLUE EYES, BROWN EYES: On Race and Jane Elliott's Famous Experiment on Prejudice.
Skeptic, 27, 34-41,78. https://login.proxy.tamuc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/blue-eyes-brown-on-race-jane-elliotts -famous/docview/2719738562/se-2
1 Bloom, S. G. (2022, BLUE EYES, BROWN EYES: On Race and Jane Elliott's Famous Experiment on Prejudice.
Skeptic, 27, 34-41,78. …show more content…

This experiment picked up a lot of traction and Jane Elliot took this experiment globally.
She went around the world and taught people in prisons, universities, and even in militaries the importance of ending racism. During one of these performances with a group of adults, Elliot had the blue-eyed group wear collars while the brown-eyed group ridiculed them. She also had both groups take a fake IQ test in which the students with brown eyes outscored the students with blue eyes.3 After the experiment was over, the adults talked about it and a lot of the discriminated against adults reported feeling uncomfortable and emotionally low during the experiment.4 A TV show, books, interviews, and appearances on national and appearances on nationally famous shows were what Jane Elliot received from this experiment. Although it is successful, it is also criticized a lot due to its ethical issues. On one hand, this experiment opened up people’s eyes to the corrupt nature of racism and segregation and inflicted change on

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