Brown-eyed children are idiots and worthless

An experiment that changed the lives of all involved

Jane Elliot was a teacher who showed her Grade School kids that those with blue eyes were better than those with brown eyes. The kids with brown eyes lost playground privileges and weren't allowed to look at the blue-eyed kids. In classes they were prohibited from talking. She made the brown-eyed kids wear collars to identify them.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2d78229b8eeb.jpg[/atsimg]

Watch the video and see what takes place....

Tuesday Morning

Skip to 1 minute 30 seconds...

Wednesday Morning

Class Reunion and a cool result...

Jane had tried to introduce her students to the idea of racial equality. She had even appointed Martin Luther King as the class's 'Hero of the Month', but she struggled to explain what racism was really like to the all-white class. They seemed keen to learn, but had never seen a black person in real life. After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jane tried a more direct exercise to bring the truth home about racial discrimination. It was an exercise which was to change her life.

Jane Elliot

Elliot wanted to challenge racism in particular and prejudice in general. Her efforts have made a difference to a lot of people.

I loved this experiment. I wonder if it could have been done today or would the teacher and the state be sued for big bucks. We live in such a litigious culture. Yet racism continues which is sad.

Ahh the famous "Bands" study.

Wasn't this in the 80's or something?

It was truly appaling that they did this to them, but what they sometimes don't mention is that after I believe it was 6 weeks, they reversed the roles of the children.

This just goes to show how easy children are influenced by adults or just general marketing.

Don't get me wrong however, this was a HORRIBLE IDEA. The children subjected to this sort of study would have problems in their adult lives. You are ingraining a behaviour in them.

Children's brain are a spunge. There are better ways of getting a point accross with kids as far as I am concerned.

~Keeper

[edit on 3/10/2010 by tothetenthpower]

And smokers are stupid, dirty, inconsiderate and spread disease. They need to pay more taxes than anyone else and should be denied health care they have paid for three times. Smokers should also be denied jobs, places to live, the right to socialize together in any public venue, the right to use public services like parks. They are a risk to the health of children and shouldn't be allowed to raise them.

And fat people are lazy and greedy. They eat too much and cost the health care system more than other people. They should have to pay more taxes too and be denied jobs. Fat people raise fat children and they shouldn't be allowed to raise their own children either.

And drinkers....(you get the message)


Divide and conquer - works every time doesn't it?

TIRED OF CONTROL FREAKS

If that method of teaching was performed in a school today, the teacher would be fired, disgraced, financially and emotionally ruined.


People today all have their finger on the red button. Their just itchin' to press it.

As one of the previous posters suggested "divide and conquer"...

When are we going to realise that the "rulers" have been using techniques like this for centuries?

When are we going to truly wake up and realise that our neighbours are just like us, with the same hopes and fears?

when are we going to "grow up" and learn to live in peace without this awful discriminatory behaviour?

I live in hope.

reply to post by dampnickers


Why ?
Manbird12000 said it. Because we're all to up tight. We want to have our freedom and go through lengts to protect or expand it. Only if somebody else does the same and crosses the same path they do and vice verse they feel the need to protect and are intolerant to the freedom of others.

Just my 2 cents on it >

At Op Interesting read. Thank you.

[edit on 10-3-2010 by Sinter Klaas]

reply to post by manbird12000


A teacher in the UK tried something similar quite recently - although seemingly more for the benefit of exploring emotional responses rather than culturing in-group and out-group dynamics:

She told the shocked youngsters those who were born in January, February and March had lower IQs than other children, 'due to lack of sunlight in their mother's womb', and that they had to put yellow hats on and be sent to the library.

Unfortunately, the exercise took a turn for the worse:

One angry parent, who has lodged an official complaint about the project, told how the 'barbaric' role play left children crying their eyes out in class.

Source: Daily Mail

[edit on 10/3/10 by lizziejayne]

reply to post by Kandinsky

I think I get it. After the jews in control handed out a month to every race, as an assimilative move, and tagged three holidays specifically to aidsoax™, they now want to make racial designations against the law.

Have you seen how well their meddling with circumcision and the law, in Sweden, has panned out? Not so well. In fact the thread on Malmo and not wanting jews in control there, was pulled, pulled on a conspiracy site.

I think this is insult to me since i have those eyes.

I think alot of you are missing the point about this experiment. It was meant to teach the kids about equality and discrimination, the roles were reversed so they saw the other side of the fence, if you will. Do unto others and all that.

I'd have to agree that if this was done now alot of people would complain/sue/egg the teacher etc. I'm not sure whether thats a good thing or a bad thing?

Would you try it with your children?

I remember doing this in A-level psychology, at the time I thought it was a good thing to be honest.

reply to Lizziejayne

She told the shocked youngsters those who were born in January, February and March had lower IQs than other children, 'due to lack of sunlight in their mother's womb', and that they had to put yellow hats on and be sent to the library.

Ahh, her first mistake was using IQ. She essentially called the kids dunces, even gave them a dunce cap! Although most (hopefully) would see the exercise for what it is, some would just here 'Low IQ' and 'Yellow Hat'.

Eye colour's a good one, Hair can be a bit touchy, skin colour (Don't touch that one!). Can't really think of anymore that can't be misconstrued as an insult.

Anyway, I'd say her heart was in the right place but she just chose the wrong 'stigmatism'.

EMM


[edit on 10-3-2010 by ElectroMagnetic Multivers]

Some haved missed the point and many others have not watched the video's.

The "expierment" was radical by any standards but also wildly sucessful by any standards. This showed the children how stupid we can all be when we put our prejudices and differences before getting to know a person for who they are and not what they look like. This has been done with adults in more recent times....blondes do better than brunetts and "pretty" people do better than those of us less atractive. Same thing just a prejudice in another format than straight racism.

The kids in the study are back together as adults in the last video and tell what they learned, and even what they were able to share with their families as a whole and all of it positive.

These lessons were instrumental in shaping them into the people they are today and from what I heard its a better situation than what may have come about without the lesson.

Sadly, no this is not something that could be pulled off in todays society because too many people would cry about it. Maybe some day the divide and conquer concept will fail whether it be Jewish-Christian...Muslim-Christian...Black-White....Hispanic-White....Baptist-Catholic...Russian-American...Its all the same Together We Stand...Divided We will ALL Fall.

My 4th grade teacher performed a day long version of this experiment in my class. The roles were reversed half way through the day.

It was 1990 and I was 9 years old. I have blue eyes so I had all of the privelages first. There weren't very many of us blue-eyed kids in the class. People were crying and I felt horrible. Then the tables turned. I just took it. I wasn't upset at all. I was almost indifferent and just went along without even flinching. That's because my a-hole stepfather had taught me to behave that way by years of intimidation. Then it ended. Everyone was happy.

Looking back I really wish I had the balls that I have now.

Anyway, my tacher was super hot. Mrs. Christ was her name (pronounced "krissed").

/useless story.

Well how does seperating a class based on eye color qualify as a lesson about racism? I mean real racism not the petty crap that we have today. How about making it okay for the kids with blue eyes to occasionaly lynch and kill a few of the brown eye kids. Then they could see what racism really creates.

Well it seems many of you did not watch the videos!

You are not even arguing the right points to this story!

The eye color worked in this classroom because all the kids were caucasion, and their eye color was probably pretty evenly split between brown and blue, but that is not even the point. (although try a classroom with the number very unbalanced and it might not work so well....birthday months is a better choice for this experiment IMO)

I think it was a great learning lesson for those kids and any kids. I do think parents would need to be shown a video up front of what will occur and decide for themselves if they want their child to be part of it. But, if a parent watches the whole video played out they should see the value in the lesson.

What it showed is that young children are very impressionable, but also are intelligent enough to gain valuable insight into what descrimination really is, and the fact that the children had to temporarily live through strong descrimation, both eye colored kids, taught in a way that just being told not to descrimate lacks.

reply to post by tothetenthpower

Wasn't this in the 80's or something?

No

It was truly appaling that they did this to them, but what they sometimes don't mention is that after I believe it was 6 weeks, they reversed the roles of the children.

It wasn't appalling....watch the videos!

Don't get me wrong however, this was a HORRIBLE IDEA. The children subjected to this sort of study would have problems in their adult lives. You are ingraining a behaviour in them.

The children became adults with less prejudice than their peers and admire Jane Elliot to this day. Her experiment has been repeated in many contexts since as a cognitive approach to minimising prejudice. It's in the video called 'reuinion.'

Originally posted by TiredofControlFreaks
And smokers are stupid, dirty, inconsiderate and spread disease. They need to pay more taxes than anyone else and should be denied health care they have paid for three times. Smokers should also be denied jobs, places to live, the right to socialize together in any public venue, the right to use public services like parks. They are a risk to the health of children and shouldn't be allowed to raise them.

And fat people are lazy and greedy. They eat too much and cost the health care system more than other people. They should have to pay more taxes too and be denied jobs. Fat people raise fat children and they shouldn't be allowed to raise their own children either.

And drinkers....(you get the message)


Divide and conquer - works every time doesn't it?

TIRED OF CONTROL FREAKS

You haven't watched the videos or checked a link. You've posted a BS response that's technically off-topic. I've starred you out of speechless amazement that 9 other idiots didn't watch the videos and starred a guy that hasn't even read the OP.

Originally posted by manbird12000
If that method of teaching was performed in a school today, the teacher would be fired, disgraced, financially and emotionally ruined.


People today all have their finger on the red button. Their just itchin' to press it.

But it is used today, just we don't notice it.

everything from conforming to the enviroment, our children are taught values from strangers who get told what to teach from the state.

video games to music video clips are training our youth.

given enough thought you will actually see what I mean

From a psychological viewpoint this is awesome I never knew this had taken place thankyou for bringing this to my attention.

The brown-eyed kids felt so downtrodden that they eventually didn't feel like doing anything. Sounds a lot like the situation today with different 'undesireables' in today's society. Not just when dealing with race, but also sexuality, which side of the 'tracks' you live, religion, and appearance in general.

This experiement, in my belief, reflects some of the hatred and bigotry I have seen and gives insight to what it does mentally and emotionally to an individual. Some members here should see this, in fact I think the world could learn from this. Hopefully people would start to use their frontal lobes more. S&F!

reply to post by EminenceofAeon
Thanks for the positive comment. The experiment has been used to challenge dumb prejudice successfully many times. At the conclusion...when the kids are reunited in equality, it always puts a huge smile on my face. That the adults remain unprejudiced 20 years later is testament that humans don't NEED to be so prejudiced.

If prejudice gets challenged in this way and early...it shows we can beat it.

Have a good day