Jane Elliot's False Stereotypes

Making a first impression is akin to a scientific process, albeit a biased one, in which one is put under personal microscopes and scrutinizing eyes frantically searching for a taxonomic stereotype: “black” and “white, “rich” and “poor”, “smart” and “simple”. In fact, one cannot go through a single day without being pushed and squeezed into these one-word adjectives - as if they could totally encompass the depth of an individual. In Deborah Tannen’s There Is No Unmarked Woman, women are “marked”, or judged, through such adjectives based on both the choices that they take and don’t take: from their attire, their hairstyles, their shoes, and even their relationship status. Whereas Tannen claims that women don’t have the freedom to be unmarked like men, Brent Staples’ conflict with his identity as a black man, described in his essay Just Walk on By, reveal a critical point of disagreement in which black men, like women, are also predominantly viewed as members of a stereotype; in which one realizes that - regardless of race, gender, nationality, or any other category - there is not one individual that is a stranger to being marked.

On April 5 1968 Jane Elliot preformed the historical experiment in her 3rd grade classroom separating blue-eyed and brown-eyed children. After the death of Martin Luther King her students raised quiestions and she wanted to think of a way to make her students understand what minorities in the U.S feel like. Jane believed that her students would understand what it felt like to be discriminated against by separating them by their eye color. She asked her students if they wanted to be treated like a person of color for a day, judging their peers by the color of their eyes. The students went along with it and that coined the experiment that would later be known as “A Class Divided”.

Jane’s special project sparked when she told her young class of eight and nine year olds that blue-eyed people were smarter and were better than brown-eyed people. Blue-eyed children were allowed an extra five minutes at recess, could have extras at lunch, got to sit in the front of the classroom, and were greatly applauded for their successes. On the opposite spectrum, brown-eyed students were forced to wear navy fabric collars in order to be easily identified. The groups were forced into segregation and were not allowed to play with one another out on the playground. Even when a brown-eyed student is tormented, the exercise continues; it is all a part of the experiment. The next day, the children switched roles, allowing them to all comprehend the degrading and humiliating emotional aspects of being an “outsider”.

If I were a participant if one of Jane Elliott’s exercises, I would have expressed a variety of emotions. I would have felt frustrated by the way she belittled us and with the rules that she enforced. She enforced rules so that the blue eyed people would fail and for the brown eyed people to succeed. I would have also felt humiliated by the way she mocked the blue eyed people. I would have felt angry with her too for treating and talking to me as iI would have benefitted from participating in a similar activity, because of the lessons that were taught in it. The most important lesson is to treat others fairly and to not be ignorant. She makes this very clear when she says that she won’t feel sympathetic towards the blue eyed people, because there are people in this world who face this kind of treatment on a day-to-day basis.

Mrs. Elliot divided her all white elementary class by eye color. There was a “brown eyes” and “blue eyes” group, which made each group superior or inferior to each other. Mrs. Elliot performed the experiment, because she wanted to teach her students about racism and discrimination that was going on in the county, which was a major responded to the shooting of Martin Luther King in April 1968.Since Mrs. Elliot already divided her student by eye color. I think another way she could’ve divided her class is by hair color and

Jane Elliott, international famous teachers, lecturers, diversity coach, as well as the national mental health association outstanding awards winner, exposed the bias and prejudice, it is an irrational class system based on pure random factors. If you think that doesn't apply to you. ... You're in a rude awakening. In response to the assassination of Martin Luther King jr., 30 years ago, Jane Elliott designed the controversial blue eyes/brown eyes campaign. This is now famous, according to the participants' eye color, to refer to participants as inferior or outstanding, and to expose them to the experience of a few. Every person who touches on Jane Elliott's work, whether through lectures, seminars or video, has been dramatically affected.

As it comes to the essentialists, race is very important when it comes to identity. It consists on the history and society that are involved in a big part in determining one’s identity, for all that experiences of races are different as they put them. Unfortunately, it comes from our past to when people used to think that the whitest people were the purist of all against the darkest people who were seeing as worst of all kind. As an illustration to that, historical trends take part into it, one horrifying example is slavery, when Africans were brought to the American colonies for the first time. Africans were taught to be categorized as completely different from us, used as things and property because they were black. In addition, they had

In the article, “ Blue eyes, brown eyes: What Jane Elliott’s famous exercise says about race 50 years on” Karina Bland talks about Jane Elliott’s steps toward ending racial discrimination amongst people. According to Bland one of Elliotts ways was, “She divided the children [in her class], who were all white, by eye color, and then she told the children that people with brown eyes were smarter, faster, and better than those with blue eyes.” Bland later stated that, “ The change was instant, Elliott said. The children with brown eyes were suddenly more confident - and condescending. They hurled nasty insults at the blue-eyed kids.”

The experiment that she conducted was to show her third grade class about discrimation. She conducted an experiment telling her students with blue eyes were smart, better, then the brown eyes. Second day brown eyes were better than blue eyes. It has accomplished that when Elliott told the blue eyes students that they were better, they started making fun of the brown eye students. In a matter of minutes, who the person was before didn’t matter; all that matter was the color of their eyes. It was a surprise because they were all friends at first, then when the teacher told them how blue eyes are better, the blue eyes started making fun of them and they also started becoming more enemies.

Martin Luther King have to die”. Jane Elliott did not know exactly how to explain that to an 8 year old. That is when Jane Elliott had came up with the “Class Divided” experiment.The purpose of the “Class divided” experiment was to teach children about racism. Jane Elliott was convinced that the best way to tackle the problem was to divide her class into two groups. One group was just with blue eyed children and the other group was with brown eyed children. When it was the brown eyes childrens turn Jane Elliott told the brown eyes that they can take their colors off and put it on whichever blue eye

The video was a very effective introduction to the experiences of prejudice. Jane Elliot's approach allowed the students, who had been friends, to put each other into a category. The children began to turn on one another because of their eye color and in the long run this resulted in one child hitting another, bad attitudes, and hurt feelings. Once the experiment was over the children and adults had realized that discrimmination is real and it can affect every aspect of someones life.

Using the persuasive method of authority, a writer can influence their audience into believing what they say is true. People are more willing to listen to a teacher, doctor, or a police officer because they are credible in their field. Moreover, doing research is important because it establishes a trust bond between the reader and writer. As a respiratory therapy student, training and school will increase my knowledge and credibility of the field. When writing a paper, you should be more equipped to listen to someone who is far more credible than a bias blogger who feels strongly about

The Blue-Eyed, Brown-Eyed exercise was an experiment within Jane Elliott’s third grade class to show what segregation would be like. Since, none of the students was colored she used their eye color to demonstrate. The purpose of this exercise was to put the kids in the same predicament as the colored and the people that is not colored. In the experiment the Blue-Eyed was considered as the whites and was treated better than the Brown-Eyed who was considered the African-Americans. Some things that children demonstrated was the class was separated into two groups superior and inferior, inferior group had to wear collards around their necks, and the two groups as swapped around.

An experiment done by Jane Elliott (1968) demonstrated stereotyping towards group of individuals which created racist remarks when labelled. She introduced prejudice to her class of nine year old's by labelling the blue eyed children as more intelligent than the brown eyed children. Elliott (1968) purposely applied strict rules such as that the brown eyed children were to drink from a paper cup and have less time in recess. With in a short period of time she witnessed how much the children's attitude changed from being sweet and innocent to what she described as 'nasty, vicious and discriminatory' behaviour towards the brown eyed children. In her study, she also noticed how much the blue eyed children did better in their education whereas the brown eyed people dropped scores below their average. When Elliott reversed roles, she observed the same behaviour. Controversies (Rhodes, 2013).

She pointed out flaws of the brown-eyed group and seemingly better traits of the blue-eyed group that made her statement seem correct leading to a generalized prejudice. Elliot then made rules for the groups, including that of recess time, drinking fountain privileges, lunch privileges, and segregation on the playground, giving advantages to the superior blue-eyed group and disadvantages to the inferior brown-eyed group which is a small-scale simulation of societal and governmental oppression of minorities. The kids laughed at the “other 's” misfortune, two kids of each group got into a fight, and hateful things were said by the “good” group while a look and feel of disappointment, shame, and exclusion was shown by the “bad” group. The roles were effectively reversed on the second day by using the same methods. The brown-eyed group were more than happy to give their collars to the blue-eyed group. The situated identities of the children were changed by Jane Elliot, an authority figure, by declaring that people of one eye color were better than people of another. She pointed out flaws and supposed shortcomings that made the one group seem inferior and the other group adopted this generalized view. This turned into discriminatory rules and acts in the class and on the playground.