The Perfect Student

  Dearest Gentle Teachers, 

As most of you start the school year my hope for you is that it is off to a great start and you have classrooms full of healthy and happy students. As a teacher, we always want more. We want students to pay attention, we want them not to sleep, we want them to show up with all of their supplies, we want them to be on time, etc. I am sure I can go on forever about what we would see as the perfect student. This would fall under an important topic that teachers need to stop and remind ourselves.

I am sure it looks like students are lazy from the start when they don’t have the materials or the attitude they need when they walk into the classroom. But it is important to stop and realize that you may be passing bias on this student initially. You have no idea what type of morning/day that student had already. You have to know that there are no perfect students. But there are students that have different pasts and current experiences and it is our responsibility to make sure that our students don’t feel that pressure to be ‘perfect.’

One topic that is important to remind ourselves about at the beginning of the year is our own biases. If we don't take the time to reflect on our own biases, they can impact our teaching. We must take the time to look at where we have come from, look at what we assume our students come from, and really think about how we are projecting our experiences and biases. 

What is bias? Maybe this is the first time you’ve heard that it could affect your way of teaching. “Biases are the automated processes in our brains that inform our decision-making” (Ebarvia 16). Biases are natural. We all at one point in our lives have multiple biases and sometimes we don’t even realize it. Sometimes we need to talk with others to see where our bias is. To understand our own bias, we need to know what different types of bias we can have. So here are the most common biases we as teachers have; Curse of Knowledge, Nostalgia, Anchoring, In Group Bias, Just World Hypothesis (Ebarvia 18-28).

Curse of Knowledge

As teachers, we typically go over the same knowledge yearly. We look at the same books, at the same periodic table, at the same facts about World War I, but our students Don’t. This is typically their first time learning what we are teaching them. This is where our curse of knowledge can be a downfall if we let it. Helping students understand can be hard. Especially when we think what we are teaching is simple. We have to remember that it isn’t the tenth, or fifth, or even second time these students are learning this. Its their first. Try to find something that you can try for the first time with them. As an ELA teacher, you can easily cold-read a short text or poem with your students just to remind you where they are at. 

Nostalgia

“Back in my day we had to walk a mile up the hill in two feet of snow to get to school.” Oh the good ol days. The days of no technology, apparently no transportation, and no school closings. At least that is what I think everytime I hear that statement. But what I don’t think is how ‘great’ those days must have been. I know most of the time that phrase is exaggerated but I wanted to highlight that phrase because we as teachers can often see yourself using something similar. The world is changing which means our classrooms are changing. The fact that you never did something ‘back in your day’ doesn’t mean that students now are the same way. But what does this way of thinking get your students Now? 

Anchoring

I remember checking my schedule immediately in high school to see what classes I had, to ask my friends if they were in any of the same classes, and then usually getting let down because most often we were not in the same classes. Some of us do that now as teachers. We check our class schedules and we go and chat with other teachers to get the details on certain students. Usually labeling these students with “they can be a problem,” “oh they’re great, they always do their work,” or even “I doubt they will even show up.” But why do we do this? Do we have absolutely no hope that our students can change? Ebarvia says it best in her text, she showed her class list to the previous teacher and that teacher had some ‘negative’ things to say about some students, but “of the names the teacher pointed out, I had honestly not seen the issues that they shared. In fact, in some cases, it felt like they were describing a completely different student than the one who was sitting in my classroom” (23). Give your students a chance to prove to you who they are. 

In Group Bias

We all have those favorite students. But think about why they are your favorite. What kind of skills do these students possess that the others don’t? For most of us, it's the on task students, the students who show up with everything they need and come ready to learn. It's hard not to enjoy those types of students. You see what you did here though? You had biases on those students. Bias doesn’t have to be negative and a lot of times those students that we favor are the students that are more like us. How do you treat those students differently than others? “How many “troublemakers” are simply students who are least like us?” (Ebarvia 25). 

Just World Hypothesis

First and foremost, life isn’t fair. This world is unjust. As teachers (and honestly just as a population in general) we need to leave the “what goes around comes around” bias at the door. We can usually assume that students who study at home for tests are going to pass the test. But what about the students who have a rough home life and can’t study? Or maybe we have students who don’t know how to study. When that student ends up failing the test we tend to take that mindset of “well we’ve done what we could as teachers, it's the students fault they failed.” But instead of blaming the student, we need to look at the bigger picture and see what really is to blame. We have to start looking at the privilege we may have as teachers that those students do not have. Life isn’t fair, but we don’t have to have that mindset towards our students. 

If you think you may be bias free, that there is no way you have bias, read this article Dangerous Discussion: Voice and Power in My Classroom by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca and ask yourself how you would have initially handled the situation. 

I am not in the classroom yet, not full time at least. This will be my last year of school before I can be in the classroom full time. Right now, I am constantly aware of my biases. I am always reassessing myself. I am also always conversing with others and making sure the units I plan are not going to negatively affect my students. I don't want my biases to hinder my students' performances even if I'm not their full time teacher. But as someone who is watching a full time teacher I am able to observe. I can see where and how biases play a role in students' lives. 

Biases are tricky. Sometimes we have no idea when they are happening. It is important to become aware of these times. My question for you, as September takes off, is how will you continue to reassess your biases throughout the school year? 

Yours Truly, 

Lady Ace

Citations

Ebarvia, Tricia. Get Free Antibias Literacy Instruction For Stronger Readers, Writers, And Thinkers. Corwin , 2024.