Goal:
- Create an equitable learning environment for your students of color.
- With so many negative portrayals of female students and students of color, we have to ensure these get students a fair chance to succeed.
Reason:
- The unfortunate reality is that stereotypes impact us, even when we try not to let them.
- Society is constantly inundating us with images of based on racial stereotypes that make assertions about students' capabilities. Consider the stereotype of an asian student who is quiet and overachieves in math, or a black "ghetto" kid with baggy pants who fell behind in school and never caught back up.
- Research shows that our expectations of students correlates more with race and class than it does with their ability.
Action:
- We often conflate implicit bias with explicit sexism, racism, classism, ableism, homophobia, or transphobia. While we wouldn’t identify ourselves as sexist, we have to recognize that some of our actions may be unconsciously based upon our biased assumptions about the abilities, interests, or needs of girls or women or people of color.
- It is important to become reflective about your behavior to identify ways in which your expectations of, or interactions with, people might conform to stereotypes you unconsciously hold about one of their identities.
- Spend time thinking about the way biases appear in your teaching life.
- Maybe you didn't contend with your students ideas as deeply as you would have if they came from someone you look up to for advice?
- Maybe you graded some students harder than you meant to because you culturally expected them to be better?
- Consider adopting a system where you randomize the order in which you call on students.
- Bonus Action:
- Curious about how to identify internal bias? Try taking an implicit-association test (IAT).
- We all have internal biases. To move beyond them, we need to recognize how they may be impacting our teaching.
- Curious about how to identify internal bias? Try taking an implicit-association test (IAT).