Topic > Jane Elliott's Experiment in "A Class Divided": Summary

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated and many people were shocked. "A Class Divided", a video, tells what happened the day after this sad day. Because of this, third graders living in a small, all-white town, Riceville, Iowa, were as sad and confused as many people around the world. Those kids want to know why someone killed this great person and their teacher, Jane Elliott wants to answer this difficult question by doing an experiment to show her young pupils the horrible effect of discrimination and what it could do to individuals. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay "Discrimination is the behavior or actions, usually negative, against an individual or group of people, especially on the basis of sex/race/social class, etc." To begin, he separates his students into two groups depending on the color of their eyes. He puts the blue-eyed students in the first group and the brown-eyed students in the second group. Next, he told the students with blue eyes that they are smarter, prettier, and taller than students with brown eye color. During the day, it allowed them to take longer breaks and be first in line for lunch. Instead, he asked his brown-eyed students to put collars around their necks and began criticizing and ridiculing their performances. The next day, he reversed roles by telling the brown-eyed students that they are the best and criticizing and ridiculing the blue-eyed students. Consequently, what happened during these two days of exercise amazed the students and Elliott because students rated as unskillful behaved like inferior students, but students rated as intelligent and kind behaved like discriminating students. negative effect on performance due to the presence of others". Analyzing the results of Elliott's practice, we can clearly see the strong impact of “social facilitation” on these young students. Sometimes, social facilitation had a positive effect on students, sometimes it affected them negatively, and it all depends on the situation in which those students lived. For example, when Elliott supports his students by telling them that they are intelligent, they do their best to prove this opinion, but when he ridicules them, they do not fare well. ”. By doing this experiment Jane Elliott tells us that we can easily create a racist people if we teach our children wrong things like vanity because of our race and color. This video shows us how to create racism. It starts when someone convinces us that we are distinct by race or culture, etc. It started from childhood and will grow day by day until it becomes like a disease. Because Elliott wants to be sure of the result she got from this amazing experiment, she did the same practice for her new students and got the same results. Additionally, he grilled Iowa prison employees about whether adults behave differently, but the adults' reaction is identical and the result is matching. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay As a result, Elliott was able to teach her students how to respect each other by showing them the negative effects that occur due to the vanity and ridicule of others. It tells how those guys feel about each other. He said: “The boys have, 26(5), 678-693.