Re;To the administrators who think their school couldn’t possibly be contributing to a school to prison pipeline,

To the administrators who feel offended at the accusation, who think it’s a sign of how our society must be devolving.

There are things you are not seeing. Things that are impossible to see without training, and even after training, there are things you are doing that are impossible to undo without explicit help.

So when you say, “Every student who comes in my office, I go by the book. Race is never a factor!” you think that means there is no hidden bias in your school.

Of course you think you aren’t biased. We all do. It’s human. Implicit assumptions are invisible: no on can see their own.

But you are wrong. You are biased.

You cannot trust your gut, you can’t trust what you THINK you see.

This is proven time and again in many trusted, peer reviews scientifically valid studies of human behavior.

But don’t give up.

What CAN you do then? Ask yourself:

• Are you teaching the behaviors you wish to see in your school?
• Are you training your staff on culturally responsive teaching?
• Have you made explicit effort in every lesson to help students feel they belong? To make sure every child knows how to make meaning?
• Have you tested your own implicit assumptions? (google: implicit assumptions test)
• Have you asked your students where they see bias? Do you believe them when they tell you or do you tell them how they are wrong to think that?

Bias In a school begins long before a student appears in your office. And it’s not just you, not just your teachers, it’s all of us.

And it remains hidden to all of us until you do the work to make routinely invisible assumptions beliefs and practices visible.


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*Thanks to the CMS principals meeting for the focus on cultural responsiveness and our focus on restorative practices, Making it better, and all of today’s presenters.

Related:
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/news-and-thoughts/what-i-know-as-a-sociology-teacher-that-is-important-for-all-teachers-and-students-to-know
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/news-and-thoughts/what-i-know-as-a-former-psych-teacher-that-everyone-in-schools-can-benefit-from

http://educationpost.org/some-tips-for-a-white-teacher-trying-to-stop-being-racist/