The blue-eyed/brown-eyed experiment that Jane Elliot conducted in 1968 is extremely controversial. I think that if you look at the ethics of this experiment, you have to realize that it isn’t right to make school children feel this way. These kids were intentionally treated differently to see what it was like to be a black kid in school. When it comes to schooling in this day and age, teachers are required to treat students equally which I completely agree with. It could definitely scar an elementary school kid if they are being treated differently by someone they trust, their teacher. I guess the purpose of the experiment makes sense and the kids learned a valuable lesson, to not treat people differently no matter the color but I think it could have been conducted with older participants and not young kids in their school.
I find this experiment very interesting and its crazy how Jane Elliot one day treated the blue-eyed students to everything they wanted and the brown-eyed the exact opposite and the next day had the students switch roles. I think that in this scenario the ends didn’t justify the means because the students were so young and it may have even affected them in a negative way by putting them through the experiment. It wasn’t necessarily a cruel experiment from what I’ve read because there wasn’t any physical abuse and the only mental abuse you can say that was present in the experiment came when Jane Elliot praised the students with the right eye color for the day.
I think you made a lot of good points and I liked that you stuck with what you believe in and explained why you think the means do not justify the ends. Throughout the video, sometimes Jane Elliot reminded me of the wicked witch of the west from the wizard of oz, I definitely feel like she was a little harsh at times and that could be damaging to a child also.
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