Are your unconscious (implicit) biases affecting your teaching? Your decision making? Your judgement? All of the research and science would likely point to yes. The more important question is not IF they are affecting those activities, it should be, are you aware of what your biases are?
Why is that the more important question? Because no matter what, you have biases. Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow would tell you that your brain has two systems. One system is lazy and wants to find the fastest answer to a problem while the other system is more analytical in how it reaches conclusions. As luck would have it, guess which one our brain likes to go with? If you guessed the path of least resistance, you would be correct. That my friends, is where your biases live.
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink he also explains a similar phenomenon that the brain is capable of doing that he describes as “thin slicing.” Thin-slicing refers to the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience (Gladwell, 2005).
So, what does any of this have to do with teaching John? Fantastic question! If you remember from previous posts with teaching and instructing, a trust has to be formed between you and your adult learner. Did you know that your biases will affect your trust building with your learner? Your unconscious will attempt to form an opinion for you of an individual before you begin teaching them or the moment you interact with them. We aren’t just talking about race or gender either. Think about when you first meet someone and shake their hand. Unconsciously, your brain is processing everything about that person through a handshake in microseconds based on past experiences. Do they look like a former friend/enemy? Then you will likely have an opinion based on that. Is their handshake weak? You’re likely getting some clues from your subconscious about that. Are they shy? Are they looking you in the eyes? Do they stutter? Do they sound different? Is that an accent or are they ignorant? YES, YOUR BRAIN IS THINKING ABOUT ALL OF THESE THINGS!!! Most likely, you don’t even know it is doing it.
Have you ever met someone and just felt off about them? Maybe you felt like you distrust them, and you are very cautious around them, the walking on eggshells sort of feeling. However, over time, maybe you got past that feeling and found out that they were not who you thought they were… that is a prime example of overcoming a bias. However, the fact remains, as Kahneman would say, your lazy system led you astray, but your analytical system updated your lazy system in that case.
As an instructor, teacher, student, human, we owe it to each other to be firmly aware that we all have biases, and we need to deal with them. We can use our biases to formulate healthy opinions of one another, but we don’t need to use it as to the sole data source.
Now, let’s imagine your classroom. You are standing in front of it and you are looking at all of your students. What are you seeing? Are you picking out specific features? Are you put off by the way some of your students look? How about the way they smell? What about the way they dress? Or even the way they talk? What about what someone else told you about one of your students, like another teacher or a student?
Again, the research points to you are absolutely doing this, if not outright, in your subconsciousness. How do we overcome that though? The immediate answer is to just be aware that your brain is doing this. In addition to that, maybe we should avoid taking another person’s opinion on someone you just met or haven’t even met yet. Their bias will now affect your own biases towards that same person. Formulate your own opinions on a person through your own experiences.
What do we need to be aware of as teachers in regards to implicit biases?
A study from Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, gives us the following examples of things to be aware of:
Instructors may assume that certain students know to seek help when they are struggling, although students at higher risk for struggling academically are often less likely to seek help and support.
Instructors may assume that students from certain backgrounds or social groups have differing intellectual abilities and/or ambitions. For example, an instructor might assume that a student from a certain background will be satisfied with lower achievement levels.
Instructors may expect students who speak with certain accents to be poor writers.
Students with substandard writing abilities may be stereotyped as lacking intellectual ability.
Instructors might treat students with physical disabilities as if they may also have mental disabilities, and thus require more attention.
Students who are affiliated with a particular identity group may be treated as experts on issues related to that group.
Instructors may assume that students will best relate to the historical, contemporary, or fictional character who resembles them demographically.
Students of certain groups may be expected to have certain participation styles (quiet, argumentative, agenda-oriented).
How do we combat this in the classroom?
Self-Reflection - Start with the examples above, do you find yourself feeling differently based on these? Self-reflection is literally a chance for you to be aware. What you do with your awareness is just as important.
Act Deliberately – With your newly discovered biases, use them for good! Be aware of when you are approaching a situation where your biases may affect your actions and judgement. This is inclusivity at its finest. Force yourself to not judge a book by its cover. Interestingly enough, you will meet a lot of awesome people in the world if you can force yourself to do this!
Seek out feedback – ask for outside observers when you are teaching. Ask those observers to pay attention to how you interact with your students paying particular attention to if you treat any of them differently.
Accept the feedback – don’t put your blockers up. Feedback can be tough… especially when you are being told that you are doing something that you don’t believe that you are doing. Don’t let your emotions block that feedback mechanism. You have a right to be angry with yourself or upset… but take some time to go back to step 1 and start over again with the newly found knowledge.
Ultimately, you need to know that our implicit biases are a threat in the classroom. They are shaped throughout your entire life but they don’t have to run your life. You can absolutely force yourself to use the analytical side of your brain to inform the lazy side and ultimately update it so your subconscious isn’t working against you in some of these situations.
As always, keep learning, keep driving, keep taking risks, but most of all, be humble with your thoughts, be approachable with your actions, be credible with your words, and be aggressive in your pursuits.
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