Jane Elliott
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Jane Elliott is an American former teacher and now anti-racism activist who, in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., developed a famous simple, yet revealing, exercise that explored the nature of racism and prejudice.
Elliott's method for exploring racism in the context of an all-white classroom consisted of dividing her students into two groups on the basis of eye color, blue or brown (those with other eye colors were excluded from direct participation in the exercise.)
On the first day, Elliott told her students that possessing blue eyes indicated superiority in intelligence and conferred extra classroom privileges while having brown eyes indicated inferiority. Quickly, the students of the "superior" color began to oppress those of the "inferior" color, while those of the "inferior" color exhibited negative feelings of self-loathing and fear.
The next day, Elliott reversed the experiment, telling the students that her statements the previous day were untrue, and that the reverse situation now prevailed. The same children who had been oppressed only the day before quickly took on the oppressing role, and vice versa.
In 1970, a half-hour documentary film about the experience was produced by ABC News, entitled "The Eye of the Storm." PBS's Frontline also produced a one-hour documentary called "A Class Divded" that showed, in addition to the 3rd grade experiment, the method applied to correctional facility employees.
Elliott has gone on to lead students and employees of corporations in her blue eyes/brown eyes exercise.
See also
External links
- "Horizon Magazine: The Eyes of Jane Elliot (http://www.horizonmag.com/4/jane-elliott.asp)", by Brigitta Kral. (September 2000)
- Jane Elliott (http://www.admireentertainment.com/jane_elliott.php) page at Admire Entertainment (contains links to available videos.)