Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Exercise Creator Jane Elliott Visits Clarkson University
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http://www.clarkson.edu/admissions/
Jane Elliott is an outspoken anti-racism activist, feminist and LGBT activist, but if you ask her, she simply says, "I prefer to be called an educator."
Jane Elliott is famous for creating the "blue-eye/brown-eye" exercise, which she developed the day after Martin Luther King's assassination. That day back in 1968, she was going to teach her third-grade class about Native Americans and the Sioux prayer that goes "Oh Great Spirit, keep me from ever judging a man until I have walked a mile in his moccasins." However, after she learned about King's assassination she defied convention.
She divided her class according to each child's eye color. The children with blue eyes would be superior to the children with brown eyes. All class privileges would be taken away from the children with brown eyes and given to the children with blue eyes. She would encourage the blue-eyed children to play only with other children with blue eyes while the children with brown eyes were denied the privilege of using the playground. The following day she reversed the roles.
The result of the exercise was a group of children with a new view of diversity and acceptance. Jane also experienced a life-changing moment that would lead her to a new life of teaching others about the meaning of acceptance and a new identification as the "foremother" diversity training.
https://www.clarkson.edu
http://www.clarkson.edu/admissions/
Jane Elliott is an outspoken anti-racism activist, feminist and LGBT activist, but if you ask her, she simply says, “I prefer to be called an educator.”
Jane Elliott is famous for creating the “blue-eye/brown-eye” exercise, which she developed the day after Martin Luther King’s assassination. That day back in 1968, she was going to teach her third-grade class about Native Americans and the Sioux prayer that goes “Oh Great Spirit, keep me from ever judging a man until I have walked a mile in his moccasins.” However, after she learned about King’s assassination she defied convention.
She divided her class according to each child’s eye color. The children with blue eyes would be superior to the children with brown eyes. All class privileges would be taken away from the children with brown eyes and given to the children with blue eyes. She would encourage the blue-eyed children to play only with other children with blue eyes while the children with brown eyes were denied the privilege of using the playground. The following day she reversed the roles.
The result of the exercise was a group of children with a new view of diversity and acceptance. Jane also experienced a life-changing moment that would lead her to a new life of teaching others about the meaning of acceptance and a new identification as the “foremother” diversity training.
