© 2025 Iowa Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Iowa Experiments

One day in 1968, the day after the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered, Jane Elliott, a teacher in the small town of Riceville, divided her third-grade class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed groups…and gave them a lesson in discrimination. 

As Iowa Week continues, host Ben Kieffer looks at Iowa experiments.  He talks with Jane Elliott and one of her former third grade students about how the classroom exercise impacted their lives.  He also talks with professor Patricia Zebrowski, from the UI Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders about the work of Wendell Johnson.  Johnson gained infamy with his involvement with the so-called "monster study."  But Zebrowski says Johnson's legacy is one of greatly improving understanding of stuttering.

Katherine Perkins is IPR's Executive Producer of Talk Shows and Program Director for News/Talk. Since 2014, Perkins has managed the broadcast schedule and sound of the news and information service of Iowa Public Radio, as well as has directed the long-term planning and oversight for IPR's talk shows, <i>Talk of Iowa</i> and <i>River to River</i>. Perkins has a masters degree from Sangamon State University (now the University of Illinois – Springfield).
Ben Kieffer is the host of IPR's River to River