I was first introduced to the Harvard IAT tool earlier this year for another course in the PME program. After completing the test the first time, it took me awhile to make sense of the results because I felt as though my personal beliefs did not align with them. I made it a goal to introduce the Implicit Bias tool to my senior year secondary students and see if the results would be any different. I wanted to see if students who were undergoing the education system during recent years would have different results, as they were introduced to critical thinking strategies earlier in education.
The community that I teach at in Scarborough has over 70% of visible minorities. The staff at my school strive to make sure students from all backgrounds are represented in the curriculum, conversations, and the extra-curricular activities that we offer. Still, there is a lot that needs to be discussed and revamped.
A month ago, I had my students take the Implicit Bias activity and answer some reflection questions. Besides some obvious differences such as these are high school students who generally have less patience for participating in graduate school activities, the consensus from most of my students was that they did not personally agree with the results they got on the test. Many pointed out that the test is designed for testing accuracy and speed, and that took away from testing for their actual perspectives and beliefs. The lesson I took from the Implicit Bias test, and one that I reminded my students of, was that we need to continue making a conscious effort to reshape our thinking from the traditional values, beliefs, and biases that may have been put on us during early childhood development.
I believe that a roadblock my students underwent while taking this activity was how Diangelo (2011), described, “Although all individuals play a role in keeping the system active, the responsibility for change is not equally shared.” As mentioned previously, many of my students and myself identify as BIPOC, and to receive results that allude to the fact that we prioritize white perspectives and views over our own is disheartening. Especially as we continue to challenge these views and ideologies day in and day out and think critically about why we have always done things the way we have done them. We know that our interests and perspectives are not universal, (Diangelo, 2011), and it is also due to individualism that has each person thinking that their actions and beliefs do not contribute to the overall problem.
References
DiAngelo, R. (2011). White Fragility. International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 3(3), 54-70.
Montreal, July 2016
Comments