NYSTC Equity Challenge-Week 4

Reflect and Act

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  • Last updated January 13, 2022 at 10:05 AM
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“I am NOT black. You are NOT white”.

I want to first say that I absolutely love the video and it really gets my mind thinking about how skin color and appearance really does affect a lot even though we like to believe as a society that we are beyond that. I think that implicit bias’ definitely impact out interactions with students, parents and other staff. Whether we choose to believe it or not, people surround themselves with people most like them. We are more comfortable as individuals with being surround by people we view to be like us. This can be the same appearance, the same values, or the same ethnicity. I think many individuals prefer to be surrounded by those like them, and view those not like them as inferior, and not important. The biggest thing I can do to challenge implicit bias when it comes to my students, is to show them that I am dedicated to them, and I am not going away. I am going to continue to fight FOR them, to encourage them, and always support them. I am going to show them that I care for them, and I am their supporter. I might not look like many of them, but I will treat them as equal individuals and show them that they are important to me.
kodona97 About 2 years ago

Trusted 10

My list primarily consisted of women of about the same age that I am and also of similar backgrounds. I think a lot of this has to do with my comfort levels and not wanting to go outside my comfort zones meeting new people and people who may be different from me. There was very little diversity in my trusted 10 list as well, which kind of surprised me but then I realized that I don't put myself in situations to meet new people. But especially people who are culturally different from myself. 
brittany_button About 2 years ago

Option 1

How could implicit bias’ impact our interactions with students, parents, and other staff?·      My school has a large Asian ENL populations and it can be said that Asian students are often better at math and science. Also our ENL families live in a society where they are mostly and immigrants where they can have to deal with a lot of bias and stereotypes.·      Parents can be seen that they don’t care if they don’t show up to their kids school events and parent conferences but in reality they work multiple jobs to provide for their families.·      In todays media, teachers and school staff are seen as people who don’t want to work even though we were seen in amazing lights at the beginning of COVID. Also that teachers never work because we have the summers off and tons of school breaks.What are you willing to do to confront and challenge implicit bias when it comes to your students?·      Keep an open mind, don’t automatically assume things.·      Get to know the students and their identity and culture and not just the “car” they drive·      Be mindful of tone and how its used and don’t discipline toneBe aware of my implicit bias
dahobb54 About 2 years ago

Trusted 10

My trusted ten are predominately of European descent.  One is a mixture of European and African descent. Nine of them are women, while one is male.  Seven of them are in occupations other than education which is a nice break from group think. They range in age from 10 years younger to 7 years older.  Two of them I met while in school, two I've known since I was a little critter and one is a roommate I had after college. Moving on, one was a neighbor, two I met on the job and the remaining two were parents of my children's friends. Religion is 60% Catholic with the rest diverse. Ethnic affiliations tend to be predominately Irish, Italian and Polish. The remainder have families which have been in the America's longer and are a mixture of many ethnic groups. We all don't vote the same way, but we all love to eat!!!
sue225 About 2 years ago

10 Trusted

My 20 trusted are all White females, sharing the same gender and race as myself. I believe that these trends occur because of shared experiences. Each of my 10 are friendships formed from shared experiences either in personal education, professional experiences, or commonalities with children of our own in neighborhood or community activities.
kelly-rich About 2 years ago

The Circle of Trust ...No Chinks in my Chain

  As I first approached this assignment, I immediately thought of Meet the Parents. If you’ve seen the movie you probably remember “the circle of trust.” Robert De Niro’s character, Jack, a former CIA agent and overly protective father, is obsessed with making sure his future son-in-law Greg is a trustworthy and honorable husband for Pam, his only daughter. From his point of view, a person is either in or out of his circle of trust; there’s nothing in between. I think we all have multiple circles, each with varying degrees of trust, depending on the people, context of the relationship, and the circumstances involved. My innermost circle is the Core. This is the circle of trust reserved for the closest relationships in my life. This level of trust is characterized by the people that know my hopes, dreams, fears, and insecurities. These relationships have the highest levels of trust because they also have the highest levels of vulnerability.

Over the course of time, these relationships have experienced increased amounts of personal disclosure and the parties have developed a history of respecting and protecting the vulnerabilities of each other. My trusted circle of confidants includes the majority of people that are similar to me as far as sex and race. They vary as far as education, job history, location, politics and nationality. I seem to “collect” members for my circle as I move through life. Some members have remained constant since grade school and others are more recent. This task has given me food for thought on the diversity or lack of it within my close circle.

Jack Byrnes: Greg, a man reaches a certain age when he realises what's truely important. Do you know what that is?
Greg Focker: Love... friendship... enjoying the moment... living... just love.
Jack Byrnes: His legacy.
Greg Focker: That, too. Right, yeah. Sure.
Jack Byrnes: Let me put it very simply. If your family's circle does indeed join my family's circle, they'll form a chain. I can't have a chink in my chain.

I don't believe I have any chinks in my chain :)


afurcinito About 2 years ago

Trusted 10 Activity

When reflecting on my list, I noticed that most of the people I listed were people similar to me. They were not all the same race as me, but most were women and most were around my age. I believe this to be because they are mostly fellow teachers, whom I recognize have very similar persectives as I do. I believe they understand most what I am going through on a daily basis, so they are my most trusted confidants. Of course if the teacher population was more diverse, as it should be, my list of trusted 10 would look differently. However I understand the implications of this activity and how surrounding ourselves with those like us further serves to reinforce our beliefs and experiences as "normal". Rather, we should attempt to diversify our peers in an effort to fight implicit bias within ourselves. 
rewilk02 About 2 years ago

Option 2: Trusted 10 Activity

My 10 people were split between male and female, but they were all white, and all about my age. I thought the age thing was interesting, in that I feel like the country's education system teaches us as a population to only interact with and befriend those born within a year from us. (Unlike the one-room school house sort of model where you would interact with all ages). Also, 9 of my 10 are practicing Christians, and their life-long commitment to living a just and good lifestyle is probably a large part about what makes them trustworthy in my mind. I do think that religion seems very segregated in Syracuse… you either go to a white church or a black church and I haven’t seen many places with much overlap. At my church, the only black people are ones that have been raised/adopted by whites. I just feel that in my life, I haven’t been exposed to enough African Americans to develop those relationships of trust, and I’m not sure where to start.
megan-healy About 2 years ago

Trusted 10

I completed the trusted 10 activity (though I did 7) and I reflected to find some patterns. I chose not to include my immediate family for this activity because that would take up all 7. Outside of my immediate family, I realized that besides my fiancé, all other 6 of my trusted people were women and mostly white women. The women were mostly my age and have similar careers as me, with the exception of one. I am going to take some time to reflect on how this leads to my own implicit bias? 
rking About 2 years ago

Trusted 5 Activity

  • Robin
    • Age: 48
    • Race: White
    • Gender: Female
  • Rebekah
    • Age: 27
    • Race: White
    • Gender: Female
  • Christy
    • Age: 47
    • Race: White
    • Gender: Female
  • Akeera
    • Age: 35
    • Race: Black
    • Gender: Female
  • Paul
    • Age: 26
    • Race: White
    • Gender
I noticed most of my trusted people are White females.
mashaw43 About 2 years ago