A Class Divided

A Class Divided

In 1968 Jane Elliot of Ricetown, Iowa was supposed to teach a Sioux Indian lesson to her third grade class with the prayer "Help me not judge a person until I have walked in his shoes." However, the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated, she decided her students needed a life-long lesson. As a result, her brown eyes, blue eyes experiment taught her third graders an influential lesson on discrimination.

Choose one of the following questions and write a one page typed response, citing specific examples from the program. (font size 12, double-spaced)


Click below for the video program if you need to watch it again. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/

1. What did you learn from the program? What scenes do you remember the most? Did any part of the film surprise you? Also explain how easily children (and even adults) are molded in their thinking and behavior. How did the negative and positive labels placed on the group become self-fulfilling prophecies? Be sure to discuss the children's/adults’ body language.

 2. How did Jane Elliot's discrimination create no-win situations for those placed in the inferior group? How did she selectively interpret behavior to conform the stereotypes she assigned? Explain the results.