Summary
Highlights
In 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., third-grade teacher Jane Elliott in Riceville, Iowa, felt compelled to address racism in a concrete way with her students. She decided to conduct a daring experiment to help her students understand prejudice, having previously discussed racism generally.
In August 1984, 14 years after the original experiment, a group of Jane Elliott's former third-grade students reunited to watch a documentary filmed during their two-day exercise, titled 'The Eye of the Storm'. They gathered to relive and reflect on the unique lesson in discrimination they experienced.
To teach about discrimination, Jane Elliott introduced the idea of judging people by their eye color, making blue-eyed people superior on the first day. She explained that brown-eyed people were not as good, and imposed restrictions on them, such as not being allowed to use the drinking fountain and wearing collars to distinguish them.
The brown-eyed children, labeled as inferior, experienced negative emotions and felt disheartened. Fights broke out, and some children struggled with the unfair treatment. The experiment showed how quickly even young children adopted discriminatory behaviors and how the emotional toll affected the brown-eyed group's performance and self-esteem.
On the second day, Jane Elliott revealed that she had lied the previous day and that brown-eyed people were, in fact, superior. The roles were reversed, with blue-eyed children now facing discrimination and wearing collars. This reversal allowed the blue-eyed children to experience what it felt like to be judged unfairly, highlighting the immediate and dramatic shift in behavior and capability based on perceived status.
After experiencing both sides of discrimination, the children were asked if eye color or skin color should dictate how people are treated. They unanimously responded no. The collars were removed, and the class reconciled, understanding that judging people based on superficial differences is unfair and hurtful. The teacher explained that this was a difficult but crucial lesson in understanding discrimination.
Jane Elliott explained that she first conducted this experiment in April 1968, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. She felt an urgent need to help her third-grade students comprehend the impact of racism, especially after hearing condescending comments towards black leaders on TV. She resolved to make her students walk in someone else's shoes to truly understand prejudice.