On the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in April 1968, Jane Elliott’s third graders from the small, all-white town of Riceville, Iowa, came to class confused and upset:
>They recently had made King their “Hero of the Month,” and they couldn’t understand why someone would kill him.
>So Elliott decided to teach her class a daring lesson in the meaning of discrimination.
>She wanted to show her pupils what discrimination feels like, and what it can do to people.
>Elliott divided her class by eye color — those with blue eyes and those with brown.
>On the first day, the blue-eyed children were told they were smarter, nicer, neater, and better than those with brown eyes.
>Throughout the day, Elliott praised them and allowed them privileges such as a taking a longer recess and being first in the lunch line.
>In contrast, the brown-eyed children had to wear collars around their necks and their behavior and performance were criticized and ridiculed by Elliott.
>On the second day, the roles were reversed and the blue-eyed children were made to feel inferior while the brown eyes were designated the dominant group.
>What happened over the course of the unique two-day exercise astonished both students and teacher.
>On both days, children who were designated as inferior took on the look and behavior of genuinely inferior students, performing poorly on tests and other work.
>In contrast, the “superior” students — students who had been sweet and tolerant before the exercise — became mean-spirited and seemed to like discriminating against the “inferior” group.
>“I watched what had been marvelous, cooperative, wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating little third-graders in a space of fifteen minutes,” says Elliott.
>She says she realized then that she had “created a microcosm of society in a third-grade classroom.”
>Elliott repeated the exercise with her new classes in the following year.
>The third time, in 1970, cameras were present.
>Fourteen years later, FRONTLINE’s A Class Divided chronicled a mini-reunion of that 1970 third-grade class.
>As young adults, Elliott’s former students watch themselves on film and talk about the impact Elliott’s lesson in bigotry has had on their lives and attitudes.
>It is Jane Elliott’s first chance to find out how much of her lesson her students had retained.
>“Nobody likes to be looked down upon.
>Nobody likes to be hated, teased or discriminated against,” says Verla, one of the former students.
>Another, Sandra, tells Elliott: “You hear these people talking about different people and how they’d like to have them out of the country. And sometimes I just wish I had that collar in my pocket.
>I could whip it out and put it on and say ‘Wear this, and put yourself in their place.’
>I wish they would go through what I went through, you know.”
>In the last part of A Class Divided, FRONTLINE’s cameras follow Jane Elliott as she takes her exercise to employees of the Iowa prison system.
>During a daylong workshop in human relations she teaches the same lesson to the adults.
>Their reactions to the blue-eye, brown-eye exercise are similar to those of the children.
>“After you do this exercise, when the debriefing starts, when the pain is over and they’re all back together, you find out how society could be if we really believed all this stuff that we preach, if we really acted that way, you could feel as good about one another as those kids feel about one another after this exercise is over.
>You create instant cousins,” says Elliott. “The kids said over and over, ‘We’re kind of like a family now.’
>They found out how to hurt one another and they found out how it feels to be hurt in that way and they refuse to hurt one another in that way again.”
Well that was so so many things all at once. Kinda speechless right now
thanasis87kav on
What’s she yapping about as if blue eyed people build the damn school…
thegameisafoooooot on
Was Jane Elliot shunned or ostracized or somehow punished or did she lose her job for this? She would probably have faced some backlash from the community for such an act at the time.
Independent-Story883 on
Oprah had a similar social experiment. I just loved that
Clean_Ad_1599 on
I would’ve called that one kid “You have four chances to get a blue eye and all of them are brown. Browner”
PauseAffectionate720 on
Racism and bigotry is learned. It is “nurture” not “nature”. And these character flaws are not unique to any one race. We all need to do better.
Hobo_Hungover on
Racist parents.
solved
TopEagle4012 on
You have to be taught to hate. Watch very young children of different races and skin colors playing together marvelously but over the years when their parents prejudices come forth they adopt what they see and hear at home and in their community and they start practicing it.
Racism is like when toddlers freak out over the wrong colored cup.
Charming-Gur-1901 on
Damn… hits home, doesn’t it?
Camarill0Brill0 on
Powerful for such a short edit
Guilty_One85 on
Wow I really like this!! Quite powerful!!
Monkeymom on
I am old enough to have had a teacher do this with my 5th grade class in the 70’s.
bluezinharp on
All these years later and we haven’t learned a damn thing.
In fact, I’m about the same age as these kids and our world is far more racist now than at any other point of time in my life.
Think I’m wrong?
Look what we’ve put in charge of the United States.
Regular-Schedule-168 on
She did the same experiment on college kids in the 90s. The results are even more impactful as the college whites couldn’t handle being shown their privilege. They squirmed so hard when Jane Elliot pushed them to experience the other side.
Substantial_Sea7327 on
Yeah, know what fucking sucks?
It’s the best classroom experiment because teachers back then were able to do these things and actually educate students. Any of them try this today parents would lose their fucking minds and the teacher would be fired.
donessendon on
Then on the second day the brown eyed people behaved even nastier.
michaelphenom on
They improved in the card game not because “they were superior people” but because “they felt superior to the blue eye people after previously being told they were inferior to blue eye people”. That is motivation.
Also if it was the first time they played the card game, the second time they surely did it better
lynivvinyl on
But what about the people whose eyes change colors depending on their environment?
snowisalive on
Jane Elliott is a national treasure that diesnt get the recognition she deserves.
umeboshiplumpaste on
She is still around and still as outspoken as ever.
ozneoknarf on
I like how the kids were just happy that the whole experiment was done. They were miserable.
wolfavino on
You should see the gray eyed people.
AltruisticWealth7778 on
Sad part is kids grow up hearing racist bullshit and as adults hear this shit non-stop by the likes of Stephen Miller and the NeoNazi ilk, kkk, patriot front, proud boys, generally ignorant and racist people etc…and they never hear the other side.
milwaukeesbest_beast on
Absolutely fascinating, that was eye opening.
OneSmallDeed on
That’s shameful.
Fun_Tax_3838 on
1986? I think it would be considered normal. She makes a good point, but again, this was 40 years ago
dokutarodokutaro on
We did this in my elementary school except instead of eye color they just assigned kids squares and circles they wore on their shirt.
Kids still cried. It was a disaster. I don’t think they do this anymore.
Relevant_Problem1935 on
So ask yourselves. Is this a good lesson ? It the answer is yes. Then ask yourself who is more likely to accept this form of education?
DisturbingPragmatic on
It’s us hazel fuckers y’all have to be worried about…
anbsmxms on
This shows how important Empathy is and how this is very much lacking in our world today.
Some even deny the atrocious history because they lived well during that time.
34 Comments
01 January 2003
On the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in April 1968, Jane Elliott’s third graders from the small, all-white town of Riceville, Iowa, came to class confused and upset:
>They recently had made King their “Hero of the Month,” and they couldn’t understand why someone would kill him.
>So Elliott decided to teach her class a daring lesson in the meaning of discrimination.
>She wanted to show her pupils what discrimination feels like, and what it can do to people.
>Elliott divided her class by eye color — those with blue eyes and those with brown.
>On the first day, the blue-eyed children were told they were smarter, nicer, neater, and better than those with brown eyes.
>Throughout the day, Elliott praised them and allowed them privileges such as a taking a longer recess and being first in the lunch line.
>In contrast, the brown-eyed children had to wear collars around their necks and their behavior and performance were criticized and ridiculed by Elliott.
>On the second day, the roles were reversed and the blue-eyed children were made to feel inferior while the brown eyes were designated the dominant group.
>What happened over the course of the unique two-day exercise astonished both students and teacher.
>On both days, children who were designated as inferior took on the look and behavior of genuinely inferior students, performing poorly on tests and other work.
>In contrast, the “superior” students — students who had been sweet and tolerant before the exercise — became mean-spirited and seemed to like discriminating against the “inferior” group.
>“I watched what had been marvelous, cooperative, wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating little third-graders in a space of fifteen minutes,” says Elliott.
>She says she realized then that she had “created a microcosm of society in a third-grade classroom.”
>Elliott repeated the exercise with her new classes in the following year.
>The third time, in 1970, cameras were present.
>Fourteen years later, FRONTLINE’s A Class Divided chronicled a mini-reunion of that 1970 third-grade class.
>As young adults, Elliott’s former students watch themselves on film and talk about the impact Elliott’s lesson in bigotry has had on their lives and attitudes.
>It is Jane Elliott’s first chance to find out how much of her lesson her students had retained.
>“Nobody likes to be looked down upon.
>Nobody likes to be hated, teased or discriminated against,” says Verla, one of the former students.
>Another, Sandra, tells Elliott: “You hear these people talking about different people and how they’d like to have them out of the country. And sometimes I just wish I had that collar in my pocket.
>I could whip it out and put it on and say ‘Wear this, and put yourself in their place.’
>I wish they would go through what I went through, you know.”
>In the last part of A Class Divided, FRONTLINE’s cameras follow Jane Elliott as she takes her exercise to employees of the Iowa prison system.
>During a daylong workshop in human relations she teaches the same lesson to the adults.
>Their reactions to the blue-eye, brown-eye exercise are similar to those of the children.
>“After you do this exercise, when the debriefing starts, when the pain is over and they’re all back together, you find out how society could be if we really believed all this stuff that we preach, if we really acted that way, you could feel as good about one another as those kids feel about one another after this exercise is over.
>You create instant cousins,” says Elliott. “The kids said over and over, ‘We’re kind of like a family now.’
>They found out how to hurt one another and they found out how it feels to be hurt in that way and they refuse to hurt one another in that way again.”
[Source](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/introduction-2/)
Well that was so so many things all at once. Kinda speechless right now
What’s she yapping about as if blue eyed people build the damn school…
Was Jane Elliot shunned or ostracized or somehow punished or did she lose her job for this? She would probably have faced some backlash from the community for such an act at the time.
Oprah had a similar social experiment. I just loved that
I would’ve called that one kid “You have four chances to get a blue eye and all of them are brown. Browner”
Racism and bigotry is learned. It is “nurture” not “nature”. And these character flaws are not unique to any one race. We all need to do better.
Racist parents.
solved
You have to be taught to hate. Watch very young children of different races and skin colors playing together marvelously but over the years when their parents prejudices come forth they adopt what they see and hear at home and in their community and they start practicing it.
That frontline documentary is well worth watching. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/class-divided/
Racism is like when toddlers freak out over the wrong colored cup.
Damn… hits home, doesn’t it?
Powerful for such a short edit
Wow I really like this!! Quite powerful!!
I am old enough to have had a teacher do this with my 5th grade class in the 70’s.
All these years later and we haven’t learned a damn thing.
In fact, I’m about the same age as these kids and our world is far more racist now than at any other point of time in my life.
Think I’m wrong?
Look what we’ve put in charge of the United States.
She did the same experiment on college kids in the 90s. The results are even more impactful as the college whites couldn’t handle being shown their privilege. They squirmed so hard when Jane Elliot pushed them to experience the other side.
Yeah, know what fucking sucks?
It’s the best classroom experiment because teachers back then were able to do these things and actually educate students. Any of them try this today parents would lose their fucking minds and the teacher would be fired.
Then on the second day the brown eyed people behaved even nastier.
They improved in the card game not because “they were superior people” but because “they felt superior to the blue eye people after previously being told they were inferior to blue eye people”. That is motivation.
Also if it was the first time they played the card game, the second time they surely did it better
But what about the people whose eyes change colors depending on their environment?
Jane Elliott is a national treasure that diesnt get the recognition she deserves.
She is still around and still as outspoken as ever.
I like how the kids were just happy that the whole experiment was done. They were miserable.
You should see the gray eyed people.
Sad part is kids grow up hearing racist bullshit and as adults hear this shit non-stop by the likes of Stephen Miller and the NeoNazi ilk, kkk, patriot front, proud boys, generally ignorant and racist people etc…and they never hear the other side.
Absolutely fascinating, that was eye opening.
That’s shameful.
1986? I think it would be considered normal. She makes a good point, but again, this was 40 years ago
We did this in my elementary school except instead of eye color they just assigned kids squares and circles they wore on their shirt.
Kids still cried. It was a disaster. I don’t think they do this anymore.
So ask yourselves. Is this a good lesson ? It the answer is yes. Then ask yourself who is more likely to accept this form of education?
It’s us hazel fuckers y’all have to be worried about…
This shows how important Empathy is and how this is very much lacking in our world today.
Some even deny the atrocious history because they lived well during that time.
Wait, there’s no green eyed kids?