What is A Class Divided?

A few weeks ago I recieved a comment about a study done about stereotypes. This study is called A Class Divided. In 1968, Jane Elliot, a third grade teacher in Iowa, came up with this experiment. One day after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered, she knew she had to do something, so she thought she would teach her third graders about discrimination. She started out dividing the class into two groups, one with blue eyes, and one with brown eyes.
The first day of the experiment she convinced the children everyone with blue eyes was superior. She told the class blue eyed people were better and smarter than brown eyes. She gave the blue eyes more time at recess and much more encouragement than the other students. She treated the brown eyes like they were stupid and nobody cared about them. The brown eyed children weren't allowed to use the drinking fountains or to play with the blue eyed children. Jane started noticing the changes of behavior in her students. The great, cooperative children started calling eachother names and fighting.
The second day she did the same thing except, she told the class that she had make a big mistake and really the brown eyes were better. So the children went through the day with opposite treatment as the day before.
Jane talked to her children after the experiment to see what they thought. Those students came into the classroom discriminating people because of color, but after this experiment, they were totally against discrimination. Jane had a reunion with those same students fourteen years later to show how much it affected them all. She went on giving those classes to all age groups.


I found a really good site with a video about the study.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/etc/view.html