As I watched the method in which Elliot taught the children the lesson of discrimination over a few days period, I was filled with so many different emotions. Seeing the shame, lack of confidence and hurt they were experiencing while being discriminated against changed my reaction from angry to feeling thankful. Thankful that at least there was one teacher in an all white town that dared to even address the issue. When the sad little faces of these young children were captured because they were feeling discriminated against, I couldn’t help but feel sad and excited for
This caused a change in behavior with children with brown eyes. They became sad. While children with blue eyes were still quite happy. The next day, Jane told her class that she had lied to them and, in fact, children with brown eyes were children better. To his surprise, the children with brown eyes started to be mean to children with blue eyes.
This caused the children to see differences within each other, which would cause them to become exposed to the real world’s problem of racism. Miss Elliott began to openly tell both groups of children that blued eyes children are smarter than brown eyed children. This kind of verbal abuse would continue for days, poisoning the children’s minds. Miss Elliott made best friends become moral enemies within minutes. The brown eyed children began to feel frustrated and upset because of the names they were being called by the blue eyed children.
Whenever people heard Augusta High School, what came to peoples mind was ghetto, unsuccessful, and troublemakers. It feels like most students at this school focus more on their friends and situations outside of school other than academics. Another problem a couple of years ago was the clothing students were wearing. Most of the students would wear unsuitable clothing; either something was too small or there was inappropriate writing on a shirt. Also there was countless number of bullying reports because of clothing.
Also be effected intellectually involves the teaching or schooling this certain person receives. If their teachers are racist and treat students off a different race not the same as others, a student academics could in fact be interrupted. An example of this mistreatment would be that of; “On Monday, September 23, 1957, Melba and the other black students go to school. They are again greeted by a mob of angry white people.” This is also an example of how the book uses literature to provide a sense of cultural awareness. At the point in time people were very harsh and unfair to those of a different race just because they were not the same color as the majority.
“Bullying is a big problem that effects millions of students, and it has everyone worried, not just the kids on it’s receiving end” (Lyness 1). Bullying does not just affect kids, but the parents too. It affects the parents because a lot of their children begin to be afraid attending school. In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda was affected by being bullied lead her to think about suicide, scared of coming to school, and victims like Melinda begin to not care about school and fail. Melinda was affected by being bullied and led to many things and one of them is thinking about suicide.
Readers could argue that Twain’s main point of the novel was to be offensive. But either way, he did just that. Times have changed and that word has no longer become an acceptable word for people to use. Most African American students grew up being taught that it was a horribly offensive word, and to never use it. So with that being said, many students could feel uncomfortable hearing it at school.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Jane Elliot’s experiment first indicated that the students with blue eyes have superiority in intelligence, and that students with brown eyes were inferior. The next day she reversed this saying her statement was untrue and that the reverse situation now prevailed. The students that thought they were in the superior category oppressed the students in the inferior category, and the students in the inferior category exhibited negative self-worth and fear. Jane Elliot’s experiment exhibits prejudice because of the negative evaluations of the groups with different color eyes, and the members of these groups were not considered individuals. She based her judgments of them solely based on the physical characteristic of their eye color.
One of the children in the bunch yelled, "You're just ugly why are you even alive!" I was appalled, I too know how it feels to look different and have you peers judge you. Even though that was so many years ago, it felt like yesterday as I watched this innocent girl cry. Starting middle school isn't easy for any child coming out of elementary school. It's almost a step closer into being a teenager and not everyone is always ready.
On the second day the brown eyed children were the better group and had all the advantages instead of the blue eyed children. The children reacted very strongly to the experiment. The children put each other down because of their eye colour and if they fought each other. When tests were carried out the children in the better group did well but the children in the second group did badly. The children’s self-image and self-esteem were affected by the experiment because of the discrimination they had experienced.