Issue:
Winter Staff Development Day: Understanding Biases
By Raquel Ryan, Teacher
At Bing’s winter staff development day this February, staff members gathered for a lecture on new psychological research on self-esteem and for a workshop on cultural competency and identifying biases. The lecture, given by developmental psychologist Eddie Brummelman, focused on the relationship between praise and self-esteem. [For a detailed account of this lecture, please see page 8.] The workshop, “Fast Forward: Moving From What We Know to Becoming More Culturally Competent,” was given by Mary Foston-English, assistant director of Stanford’s Faculty and Staff Help Center. She explained that in order to move forward to the hard work of anti-bias education, we must first recognize the following concepts: We do see skin color, we do see physical differences and we all stereotype. However, through self-reflection and dialogue, we can become aware of our biases and move toward inclusion and respect for all people.
Foston-English began with her personal story, which included painful memories of growing up African-American in the South. She hoped to encourage vulnerability and openness among us as we began to examine what bias means for us individually. Her goals for the day included increasing cultural awareness and sensitivity, and normalizing and identifying our own biases.
After a brief explanation of the history of anti-bias education, she went through the five anti-bias learning goals for adults, as defined by Leading Anti-Bias Early Childhood Programs, a book by Louise Derman-Sparks, Debbie LeeKeenan and John Nimmo. The first of these goals is to increase awareness and understanding of one’s own social identity, with its many facets, including race, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, family structure, religion, sexual orientation and abilities/disabilities. The second is to examine one’s own learning of diversity and differences. The third is to identify any personal advantages and disadvantages resulting from social discrimination, and also any prejudices and stereotypes one is holding about oneself or others. The fourth is to explore ideas, feelings and experiences of social justice activism. And the last is to open up dialogue with colleagues and families about these goals.
These five goals emphasize the importance of self-reflection and assessment before attempting to create and implement an anti-bias curriculum in the classroom. As educators, we often find ourselves debating whether the responsibility falls to teachers or parents when it comes to addressing challenging topics, such as racism, sexism and other forms of injustice that are raised in an anti-bias curriculum. Prejudices and biases are present in every person, and anti-bias work can start only when people are willing to be critical of those biases. In the words of Foston-English, “The more work you do on yourself, the more effective you’re going to be. Start with where you are.”
We then discussed how advocacy for social justice, individuals’ abilities to do the work, and differences in cultural values between members can influence institutions. Foston-English emphasized that when we are not able to address and talk about our differences, we fill in the blanks with our own made-up stories. In an effort to get these kinds of conversations started between staff members at Bing, we broke into small groups for an exercise, filling in worksheets to name our different identities, such as gender, sexual orientation, religious faith and ethnicity, and then sharing which identities were most important to us and why. As a result, many of us learned something new about our colleagues.
At the end of the day, we came back together to reflect on what we had learned and how we felt about it. Most staff members said they felt that the workshop on bias was just the beginning of a longer conversation, and that they enjoyed learning about anti-bias education and about each other. In beginning to think about our own identities and how they shape our biases, we have started to lay the foundation for more complex and nuanced conversations regarding how best to address the difficult topics of racism, sexism and other types of social injustice.
During our next staff development day, held this spring, we continued our exploration of anti-bias work. Megan Hanley, a special education teacher from the San Jose Unified School District, gave a presentation on anti-racist education, focusing on theory and pedagogy. We also discussed how best to understand the varied life experiences of children and families, as well as those of our own colleagues, especially those who experience discrimination based on their race.