Jane Elliott: Documentary Analysis

I believe there were some ethical issues surounding the process that Jane Elliott used to conduct her classroom experience. She was creating emotional abuse and trauma to her students by making them feel inferior to the other students in the room and telling them they were not as smart and that they were not good at anything. She degraded, rejected, humiliated and isolated certain groups of children and you could see the emotional abuse written all over their faces when they were in the "discriminated" test group. Emotional abuse of a child can result in serious emotional or behavioral issues, such as depression, detachment or emotional bond to their fellow students or teacher. Emotional abuse can also delay learning abilities and children …show more content…
I believe we are all created equal regardless of our race or gender and that there should not even be a definition of "minority groups" in our society but there are. I truly enjoyed the documentary with Jane Elliott's experiment in the classroom. This did teach those children a lesson of how it truly feels deep within their heart and soul to not be accepted and to be discriminated against. This experiment worked so well that the children really felt the impact of it in just one day that their timed test scores were so much higher than the day they were the "in" crowd. It is amazing how other people can make you or break you just by the way they act toward you or say to you. I was also impressed on the prison guards behavior toward Jane. They were truly irritated and upset for being discriminated against and I do believe this experiment opened the children's eyes as well as the adult prison guards on some of their words or actions they take against minority groups. For young children to comprehend discrimination and the true effects it has on a person I do believe the best way to teach children this is to show them how it makes someone feel. I feel the best want to eliminate discrimination begins with our children. Discrimination is something that children learn as their opinions are influenced by what their role models or other people in their lives think, do and say. I have always taught my children that everyone is created equal and they are all just like us even if we are different. I tell them "if God created everyone to look the same this would be a very boring world" but I know that my children are also exposed to other people and their ignorance and their prejudices. Children may see that some people will not associate with people of other races. They may hear jokes about people of different races then themselves and