At the National Advancing Equity Symposium, I heard the following:
Student Panel: A young African-American college student who had a hard time convincing his teachers that he truly did have a fantastic SAT Score and that he belonged among the other Engineering students.
Panel on “The Impact in Investing in Education for Minority males: restructuring the Optics for Boys and Men of Color”: Dr. Bryant Marks – Associate professor of Psychology at Morehouse College stated the fact that while we all have implicit biases, it is difficult to convince people of the fact and that our behaviors maybe thus impacted.
Presentation on “Preparing Teachers Through Education Programs and Professional Development to Work in Culturally Diverse Environments”: Ms. Claudia Morrell – Senior Consultant – reiterated the fact that in a recent study conducted by her associates in Baltimore – particular resistance to growth and understanding the impact of implicit bias was demonstrated by STEM teachers.
I have always believed that teachers being who they are would be less likely to let their implicit biases affect their teaching behavior. The more I read and from what I heard from the various presenters, I am greatly perturbed by the fact that this is not necessarily the case. Dr. Marks’s point resonates with my experience when working with teachers – they do not believe they have any biases and therefore do not need to make any specific changes. Where do we begin? How can we make teachers aware of a) implicit bias and b) ways it might be manifesting itself in their daily teaching duties?
- One of my suggestions is to have teachers understand the concept of encouraging student resilience
- Recently, we created a series of videos identifying ways in which teachers can change their language and approach to students acting out - http://ctsp.tamu.edu/instructional-videos/encouraging/ thus encouraging them to remain resilient.
- Perhaps the answer as Ms. Morrell proposes lies not in changing teacher’s biases but their practices – which then leads to better than expected students’ outcomes and debunking of implicit thinking.