Jane Elliott

Uncommon card · No. 82480

Jane Elliott (née Jennison; born November 30, 1933) is an American diversity educator. As a schoolteacher, Elliott became known for the "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" exercise she created to teach students about the effects of discrimination and racial stereotyping. She first conducted the exercise with her third-grade class on April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The local newspaper's publication of compositions that the children had written about the experience led to much broader media interest in it. The classroom exercise was filmed in 1970, becoming the documentary The Eye of the Storm. PBS series Frontline featured a reunion of the 1970 class, as well as Elliott's work with adults, in its 1985 episode "A Class Divided". Invitations to speak and to conduct her exercise eventually led Elliott to give up school teaching and to become a full-time public speaker against discrimination. She has directed the exercise and lectured on its effects in many places...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Mike Whye / PBS, Public domain