You may or may not know of a woman called Jane Elliot. Basically, she was well known for running an experiment on her pupils (no pun intended), and this experiment has gone on to be repeated many times. There are quite a few YouTube videos out there on this. Jane Elliot and the Blue-Eyed Children Experiment Basically, her class was split into two- blue eyed students, and brown eyed students. For the first day, the blue eyed students were told that the brown eyed students were inferior to them and the brown eyed students were treated less kindly- they were allowed less break, they weren't allowed to use the water fountains...and so on... Then, the next day the scenario was swapped. The idea being to teach the kids about empathy and racism. Although not to this extent, we did something similar to this at school. Most likely inspired by this. We were split just like their class was- the brown eyed people from the blue eyed people. However, we didn't do a vice versa of this- we only experienced it one way. Our old form teacher came into form one day and went around the desks, checking everyone's eyes. It didn't take me long to catch on, since I'd already seen plenty of videos on this experiment at the time- so I knew what they were planing to do. But the majority of people were just really confused what was happening. And yes, you're probably asking "but what about the children who have neither brown or blue eyes?" well...basically, if they had lighter eyes (like say...green) they were sorted into the blue category for simplicity. I know hazel eyes can appear green or brown (or a mixture of both) depending on the lighting, but yeah...basically anyone who looked like they were more to the blue/green side of the eye colour spectrum were put into the "blue" category, whereas those with darker eyes (like me) were put into the brown category. As she reached me, she frowned. "Yep, definitely brown" she said to me. Although my eyes are a light brown, they are definitely, unmistakably brown. Anyway... after she went around the room and had finished looking at everyone's eyes, she told everyone with brown eyes to stand up. Those that were sat down laughed at us while we were stood up looking around awkwardly. She then said a bunch of negative things about us brown-eyed people in the room and for most of the lesson we had to stand up. She then gave a bunch of positive points (points you got rewarded for being good) to the blue group, which annoyed us. I have to say, the teacher's acting was pretty good. The experience was weird as I don't really experience unfair treatment like that based on my appearance since I'm white so I'm not used to going through that. It was a fairly interesting to experience. Although, of course the experiment was a lot softer than the original one was, and definitely softer than what people actually experienced in those segregated and prejudiced times. Still...I'm interested to hear if anyone else did this at school or have heard about this. If you want to know more about this, I'd highly recommend looking into it. Try searching for "the blue eyed-brown eyed experiment" or even just "Jane Elliot". There have been a few variations of this test.
I heard of that, but we never did it in school. I'll read it. Some other studies I was taught [and can remember]: Rosenthal and Jacobson's ''spurters'' experiment (pygmalion in the classroom) - to see how teachers treat children of different percieved intellegence differently. The children took a base IQ test and randomly [not based on the IQ] R&J told the teacher some of the children were spurters and some were not. Even though the ''spurters'' were randomly chosen and did not reflect their real base IQ, at the end of the year, the ones labelled ''spurters'' ended up with a better end IQ than the ones who were not labeled as ''spurters''. Zembardo's ''prison'' study - to see how sane people react when given power and oppression in a setting. It saw ordinary men be overly violent and humiliate their prisoners just because they were given the ''prison guard'' label, when all the ''prison guard's'' role was to 'maintain reasonable order'. Even Zembardo himself, who played the ''wardan'' took over out-of-real-life-character characteristics of a harsh ''wardan''. The ''prisoners'' also submitten to the ''prisoner'' role. Milgram's (1963) ''electric shock'' study - to see why people obey authority. He took some men [later done with women with similar results, and some other settings] and had a stooge playing the ''partner''. Milragm told the man that ''He [Milgram] would take full responsibility for the actions you [the man] do'' The man in the study was always the reader/shocker and the stooge was always the person answering/electrocuted. There was another person in the room telling the man to ''keep going'' even if the man asked to stop - up to five times before being letting to stop. The man had to ask questions and if the stooge got it wrong the man had to shock him. 65% continued up to 400 (maximum) volts and all participants continued to 300 volts. [as an additional note: Derren Brown repeated this experiment in 2008 with similar results.] All were highly unethical as it affected people's physical, mental and intellectual health, but it did show something about society. There are positives and negatives to these experiments but just given an overview. Taken from sociology and psychology studies.
May I ask... what exactly do you mean by "spurters?" as in those that got a high or a low score? (I know the scores were given out at random, I'm just interested to know what you mean by "spurters" in this situation.
The spurters are those who the teacher was told they were going to improve a lot with their work during the year and get a really high grade by the end of it. So the teacher took this on board and unfairly gave them more help than the ones not labelled spurters to improve. For example, giving the spurters more time to answer questions, providing more help with answers/homework, giving more praises and encouragement to learn than the non-spurters.
At my school, people would just tell the teacher to shut-up and go about their day. Plus everyone with blue eye's was already inherently popular so it would have ended up being a joke.
I remember learning about those in school. It really makes you think about the darkest side of human nature, doesn't it?
Ah,ok. I can believe that actually, it doesn't really surprise me. In secondary I was in the bottom sets for everything, and they'd pretty much just given up on us. Thought we were unteachable. Especially when we did a mock in maths once and our teacher said "oh, it's ok. I wasn't expecting any of you to pass anyway". :dry: I mean, if you've given up all hope in us then why both teaching us? Why not just have a rock teach us instead, we would probably learn more. :bang: Sorry...I got a bit carried away there, best not get me going on the education system. Ugh. My point is, teachers are more willing to put in the time when they see potential in you. It can really destroy your confidence when they don't. :icon_sad:
I guess we just have to be constantly be aware of studies going on around us and stand up to anything we think is wrong. ---------- Post added 8th Jul 2016 at 01:46 PM ---------- There was another study, not sure of the name but saw it in a sociology book, where this person was actually targeted to get a C but accidently was put A on the form. So the teacher worked this student extra hard [catch ups, extra feedback] because the teacher thought they should be getting higher. When the results came, the student got a B and they were happy but the teacher was dissapointed. I'm not sure why they don't try to get them higher grades, teachers get more money if the students achieve on or more than target, and even if there wasn't the cynicalness of more money, they should want their students to achieve more - that's why they became a teacher. I want to be a teacher so removing these labels is important for me, but I'm not sure how you can boost individual skills in all students whilst also trying to make sure everyone gets the same treatment of high quality teaching. I guess I'll learn it at uni. My tip: Don't look at your target or predicted grade, and if you already have, ask your teacher ''how are you going to get me to the next level?", not in a rude way, just to show you really care about the course, and get more help. Anyway, I could probably write essays about the education system since I did it for AS-level. Perhaps, if you haven't already, you could take a look at the course online and use it to try and get the teachers to spot their own inequalities.
True, teachers do get more money when more students pass, but with some teachers (particularly teachers that are close to retirement and won't see any of the students at exam time) don't particularly care, they've got their money- why should they care about how you do on the test? Many grow old and cynical, and give up caring. Our old IT teacher didn't care much, she even let one of the students smoke an E-cig in class (which wasn't allowed!) but she'd clearly been worn down by students too many times to give a damn. She was just glad no one was setting desks on fire. (Which did happen a few times when my sister was at that school- I never got to see a desk set on fire though). What kind of teacher do you plan to be? I mean, what kind of level are you aiming to teach? Primary? Secondary? I wish you the best anyway, kids and teenagers are insane. Just remember why you got into teaching, please just try for me. For the kids you will teach. I really wish I had experienced having better teachers then I did- but sadly, that's just how life has been for me so far. I don't know much about teaching, but at least try with the students. Don't just leave them to go get drunk like my primary school teachers used to do. At around 10/11 years old, me and a few others were left to take care of a bunch of 4/5 year olds, and another group was left with the 6/7 year olds. We didn't realise at the time just why we had to take over and teach the younger years at break and lunch time, but now that I look back with a more cynical take on the World...well, it's pretty clear to me now why. There were only a few of us that we sent to take charge of the younger years, and the class sizes weren't small either. Sometimes they'd just send five or six of us to take care of them and we'd have to take care of both groups on a bad day (aka a day where there was less staff about and less people were willing to take care of them). It was common for most of the staff to go "missing" for a while, and we had to learn to just take care of ourselves and help take care of the younger years. It was pure chaos, and many of the teachers I had have since been fired. I didn't learn much at that school, and I ended up in bad sets when I got to secondary. But considering that my primary school was also fined for being racist (which I guess ties into this thread nicely, huh?), I don't think they're the best example of teachers. Most teachers that I've had have been more competent than that, even if some of them didn't care. My tip for you is not to expect your students to know things right off the bat. Sure, don't treat them like idiots but at the same time, don't have a go at them and use reasons like "You should have learnt this at Primary school!" because they may have gone through similar experiences as me. Just, try and be patient. I seemed like a hopeless case to many of my teachers, but I persevered with it and I came out with a decent amount of GCSE's. It's all too easy to say that a student is hopeless and give up on them, but it's more beneficial to actually try to help them. Also, don't have too much of a go at them for their handwriting. Sure, it has to be readable- but it doesn't have to be joined up neatly all the time. When my primary school teachers actually were there, I spent a good time of my education learning how to join up letters. I had to fill out entire booklets of it, several of them. They were very particular on how you should write, but all that fancy writing did was slow me down. When I joined secondary, they could tell instantly what Primary school I came from based on my writing alone- the style of writing was very specific to the school, and hard to master. I hated it. These days I write in a mixture of cursive and non-cursive. If my old teachers saw my handwriting today, I'd think they would run a mile. :lol: I think what really got me through Primary school was my parents. In the end, they had to end up giving my extra lessons at home, teaching me quite a few things- in particular swimming and maths. Although the teachers were around during lesson time, and they taught me maths- I was always lagging behind in it. In fact, my teachers would send my parents things to go over with me at home, as well as extra lessons with several teaching assistants. You've no idea how embarrassing it was on the last day of year 6 still doing work that was intended for receptions and year 1's (4 to 7 year olds) at age eleven. :eusa_doh: As for swimming, I missed a lot of the swimming sessions at school because they sent me to the school counsellor instead. Something about not thinking "inside the box" enough. I don't really understand to this day why I was put in those sessions. And I don't understand why my counsellor had a mental breakdown either. :icon_sad: "Perhaps, if you haven't already, you could take a look at the course online and use it to try and get the teachers to spot their own inequalities". I don't have those teachers anymore, since that was in secondary (I'm in College now) so glad that I don't have them anymore. "I want to be a teacher so removing these labels is important for me, but I'm not sure how you can boost individual skills in all students whilst also trying to make sure everyone gets the same treatment of high quality teaching. I guess I'll learn it at uni. " I suppose that's the hard part, and I don't really know the answer to that question. Best of luck to you anyway. Sorry for venting here. :icon_redf ---------- Post added 9th Jul 2016 at 12:19 AM ---------- Just for clarification reasons, the brown and blue experiment occurred at my Secondary school, not my primary school. My primary school was fined for other, more serious reasons not for this experiment because that was in Secondary, not Primary.
