We all have our biases — it’s an innate part of being human. The difficult part is knowing that you have them, and working on not making them a part of the classroom. We need to make sure that we grant all of our students the same opportunities as everyone else, no matter their race, class, or gender.
Race
What do you see when you first look at someone? Physical appearance. That’s all you have to go on until you actually interact with this person. Many times we form perceptions based on race. It may not be a conscious perception, but unfortunately, opinions are formed based on those perceptions — the Asian and Caucasian students will be smart, the African-American student will struggle, the Latino student will have language barriers.
We all do it. An educator tweeted that he was “color-blind,” but I don’t believe that’s true of any of us. Race is more than the “color” of our skin. We can’t ignore it, because it is an integral part of who we are. But we shouldn’t limit our students because of it. I do believe that educators exist who can see past race and see the students themselves, but there are also educators who can’t, or choose not to.
Click here to learn more about how teacher can avoid limiting their students
