Jane Elliot Reflection

In the 1970’s, a teacher at an elementary school in Riceville, Iowa began to teach a valuable lesson to her students. Later, after the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination, the impact of her lessons became somewhat of an experiment as well. In Riceville, a small farming town that consisted of only white Christian people, the students of Jane Elliot’s class were learning the impact of racism. Jane Elliot devised and began teaching a lesson plan so that her students would understand how it felt to be on the receiving end of discrimination. Over the course of two days, her third graders would be separated into two groups, the “brown-eyed” and the “blue-eyed” students. Ms. Elliot told the students on the first day that the blue-eyed students …show more content…
Elliot taught her students a valuable lesson about why they shouldn’t be racist or prejudice. The moral of her teachings was that one ethnic group is not better or lesser than another. Their Caucasian racial category is not better than those in Mongoloid or Negroid categories. The microcosm of society that Jane Elliot created in her classroom was a great representation of society. Her students learned from her to judge others based on a physical characteristic, just as some of us are taught to do so by our family and/or peers. They experienced the consequences of discrimination, especially as it applied to society in their segregation era. Not being able to play with students who had a different eye-color on the playground was similar to the way that the public separated their social circles based on race. The students had a first-hand understanding of what it was like to be categorized and judged based on appearance …show more content…
Jane Elliot taught her students about an important and very present aspect in society during the 1970’s and 1980’s. However, in or de-segregated society of today, this issue is still struggled with. It would be a valuable lesson to teach students today as well. Prejudices taught at home carry to other aspects of our lives, whether they reach a conscious level or not. Bringing those inner struggles and racist perspectives to the forefront to address them head-on might be more productive today than ever. The majority of Whites and Hispanics report that they feel race relations in the United States are generally good, as opposed to a minority of Blacks. Obviously, despite the legislative guidelines saying that races should be treated equally, this is not taking place in society today. Racism, and prejudice are problems that need to be addressed until they are not dominating to a point that any group feels discriminated against. As Ms. Jane Elliot was obviously aware, our elementary schools are a great place to begin teaching that