Discrimination

Jane Elliott - a great school teacher, an anti-racism activist and educator. One day she had a class discussion with pupils about racism in general. To show her class how racial discrimination worked, she organized an exercise.

So, Jane divided her all-white children into two groups based on eye color. She told the blue-eyed children that they were superior to their brown-eyed classmates, and she told the brown-eyed, who had to wear identifying collars, that they were less intelligent and poorly behaved. The result, according to her, was that blue-eyed children began to behave arrogantly and, after a short while, the brown-eyed  began to accept their lower position.

The following day, Elliott told the children that she had made a mistake, and that it was really brown-eyed people who are “superior”, and that blue-eyed people are actually the inferior ones.

On both days, the children from  the "inferior" group become confused and frustrated. Their body language was defensive, their former friends tormented them and their academic performance dropped.

 The students assigned to the "superior" group, who were kind and tolerant before the experiment, became mean and appeared to enjoy discriminating against the "inferior" group. Their jokes and actions became focused on the "inferior" students.

 At the end of the experiment, Elliott spent days discussing with her students what it felt like to be one of those labeled "inferior." The kids described their anger. They talked about their pain and loneliness as the "superior" students were treated better and given extra privileges.

In a very smart way Jane showed to her pupils that here is no difference between all the people. She taught them about equality and respect.