A Classroom Divided

From: PBS/FRONTLINE ’s “A Classroom Divided” website

The very first documentary about Elliott’s exercise was made by William Peters in 1970 for ABC News. He filmed Elliott conducting her exercise with her third-grade class in Riceville, Iowa. The program was called “Eye of the Storm.”

In 1985 Peters produced “A Class Divided” for PBS/FRONTLINE. This film included original footage from “Eye of the Storm” and also chronicled a 1984 mini-reunion of Elliott’s third graders, now young adults, who talk about the effect her lesson has had on their lives. It also showed Elliott teaching her lesson to adult employees of Iowa’s prison system and documented how their reactions to her exercise were similar to those of the children.

In the years which followed, four more films about the exercise were produced: a German filmmaker made “Blue Eyed,” which showed Jane Elliott conducting the exercise with Kansas City adults; the film “Eye of the Beholder” documented the exercise in Miami, Florida; the 2000 video “The Angry Eye” showed Elliott conducting her exercise with another group of adults; and in 2001 an Australian producer chronicled the exercise in a program called “Stolen Eye.” Finally, in 2003, there is an American made-for-TV movie in development which will star Susan Sarandon as Jane Elliott.