Evaluating Impacts on Professional Practice

Racism, classism, and ableism are all concepts that have an impact on our society. These factors in our society frequently produce unfavorable tendencies in individuals and groups who are labeled and stigmatized because they oppose the imagery or lifestyle of the dominant culture. Racism, classism, and ableism in society can transfer and impact our classrooms, causing a gap in our purpose of inclusion, diversity, and high quality education for all children. Our surroundings, social cultural experiences, family traditions and beliefs, and, most importantly, the media all affect our personal biases and general misunderstandings of people, groups, and individuals. These factors can persuade and achieve biases and stereotypes of people in various groups and individuals.

As human beings, we naturally form biases in order to organize our experiences more efficiently in our effort to understand and engage with the world around us. In the classroom, these teacher biases lead to expectations of students that are sometimes unfair and unproductive. Many natural biases come from expectations of students based on their parents. We unconsciously categorize students based on their parents’ socioeconomic level, their career, their use of language, or even the clothes they wear.

Inequity in student learning expectations based on race and culture is well-documented (Tenenbaum & Ruck, 2007 as cited in Jones, 2016), and may, in some unfortunate instances, take the form of direct, willful disadvantage. Some prejudices are explicit, however "hidden" or implicit prejudices that go unnoticed by the individuals are much more difficult to identify. While explicit prejudice has been linked to planned acts of discrimination, implicit prejudice has been linked to spontaneous, nonverbal responses (Dovidio, Kawakami, & Gaertner, 2002; McConnell & Leibold, 2001 as cited in Jones, 2016).

I feel that at one time I had gender bias because I raised girls I felt that I could relate to them and it was easier to deal with girls in the classroom. In my mind I taught boys were more disruptive, Though many teachers do not deliberately decide to treat boys and girls differently, these actions affect learning (Erden & amp; Wolfgang, 2004 as cited in Nduagbo, 2020). We are often unconscious of biased teaching behaviors because it's easy to teach the way one was taught. I have since found out that all children have their own personalities and girls can be just as difficult as boys. Though unintentional, these subconscious attitudes can create destructive outcomes like gender or racial biases in education. For this reason, it’s was important for me to recognize and overcome this implicit stereotyping.

It is critical to be aware of our own development as educators in order to assist children' learning processes. We must acknowledge ourselves as cultural creatures constantly encountering, interpreting ideas, and interactions. This constant mindfulness and self-examination process places us as co-learners alongside students. Challenging our biases is an ongoing process of reflection and experimenting with different methods to see how you can give every student the voice they deserve.

References

Jones, J. (2016 November 12).The world of -Isms in the world of early childhood education. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/world-isms-early-childhood-education-jocelyn-jones

Nduagbo, K. (2020 July 23).How gender disparities affect classroom learning. https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/how-gender-disparities-affect-classroom-learning