All it took was 30 minutes and Jane Elliot’s third graders were nasty, vicious and discriminatory. She had just informed her class that blue-eyes were superior to brown-eyed.
Then she divided the class.
On Tuesday, Oct. 11, Elliot will present a two-hour presentation titled, The Anatomy of Prejudice. She will highlight the problems of prejudice, racism, sexism, ageism and homophobia.
Two sessions will be held: a morning session that begins at 10:00 a.m. to noon in Building 12 Frederick Smith Auditorium. And an evening session that begins at 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in Building 12 The Great Hall.
Both sessions are free and open to the public.
During her experiment in the 60s, blue-eyed children were smarter, better, faster and gained five extra minutes of recess. Brown eyed children could not play with the blue-eyed children. They also couldn’t drink at the fountain but had to use a paper cup with their name written on the outside.
Then she put a collar around the necks of the children that had brown eyes.
Her reasoning she said was so that everyone within a distance would know what color eyes a certain child had.
On day two, she then had the class switch roles. The brown-eyed children were now superior.
She said the purpose of the experiment was to give the children the experience to know how it feels to walk in somebody else’s moccasins.
“It is important for the college to have an opportunity to hear different perspectives of diversity and how it impacts us as individuals, as a community and as a college,” according to Gwen Jones diversity officer. “We live in a global world and Jane Elliot’s case – she started her project in the 60s after Martin Luther King’s death because she was appalled at people’s reactions toward his death.”
She decided it was time to educate people about prejudice, hatred and discrimination. She felt that it was vital to start at the third grade level because the lesson would stick with them throughout their lives, according to Jones.
Elliot was invited to Sinclair under the Cultural Diversity grant in collaboration with Southwestern Ohio Counsel for Higher Education. SOCHE’s goal is to bring colleges together to hear from various presenters on different topics of higher education.
“I’m excited because I think that it is an honor for Jane to come to Sinclair. It is a really great opportunity to have her on the campus,” Jones said.
To continue teaching others about diversity, Elliot has trained Marcella Balin, an adjunct faculty for nursing at Sinclair. She will then present a workshop in November sharing the knowledge and wisdom she said she has gained from mentorship with Elliott. Balin said she is excited to be able to enrich the experience of people with the experience of learning these concepts first hand.
Balin was in the first group to be trained from Elliot herself, which Jones said is another honor for the college and for Balin because she was chosen to be able to do that.
“Marcella saw a tremendous need to have Jane share her vision and her perspective with our campus and to create that opportunity to continuing dialogue around prejudice and racism,” Jones said. “It will challenge all of our perspectives.”