Are you a better person if you have brown eyes?

This week brought many learning experiences, like it often does, and some hard things to think about. I think the biggest learning experience I got from this week was that racism is an issue and it does and will show up in schools and in our classrooms regardless of how much we try and stop it.

For my outside research this week, I wanted to learn more about Jane Elliot, the teacher who conducted the brown eye blue eye experiment. I found a YouTube video that showed a clip of her being on the Oprah Winfrey show and doing this experiment with the audience members. They were separated by eye color as they were walking through the door. The people with blue eyes became very angry and said some harsh things. Eventually, everyone realized what was going on and saw that this was an experiment to discuss racial issues. An audience member quickly spoke up and said that God made humans different and gave us all different skin color. Her response was: “God created one race, the human race, and humans created racism.” It also showed a later interview with Elliot herself and her eyes filled with tears as she spoke about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., one of the main reasons she decided to conduct the experiment in the late 60’s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NHeFgaVWs8

            My connection to the NCTCS standards this week is standard 2 which discusses diversity. I realized this week that this whole class is teaching us about standard 2. That’s awesome that they see this standard as so important that they make a whole class about it.

            My connections and learning this week really took place when I watched the videos in class and realized that innocent little children have these nasty thoughts about other people that are a different color than they are. These children are poisoned with horrible biases against people from multiple influences without even getting the chance to form their own opinion.

            In my future classroom, my goal will be to stop racism in my presence as much as possible. I want to care about my students’ future so much that I’m willing to go to extreme measures just like Jane Elliot did. Of course, I can’t conduct this experiment in today’s time, but I can care about showing my students that racism doesn’t have to exist so much that I’m willing to do anything in my power. I want to help my students learn to love one another equally.