Self-Awareness and Reflection

Instructors can’t lead students where they haven’t gone themselves. Part of engaging in anti-bias and anti-racist teaching practices is recognizing that everyone exists within a broader context of structural inequities in which implicit and explicit bias constantly shape how we navigate the world. We all hold multiple identities, are part of social groups, and have complex and intricate personal backgrounds worthy of dignity and respect. By committing to continuous improvement of your own self-awareness, you can take ongoing action to best support the people in your learning community.

Here are some questions you can reflect on to get started:

• What are my identities, and how do others/my participants perceive me?
• What are my implicit (or explicit) biases? Do I propagate, neutralize, or challenge stereotypes in my class?
  • Consider taking at least one implicit bias test. When you’re done, think about: Were the results what you expected? What surprised you about the results? What is one helpful next step to address your implicit bias?
• How can I be a bias interrupter?
• How do I handle challenges in the classroom?
• How might the ways I set up classroom spaces and activities foster inclusion or exclusion?

Establishing norms for respectful interactions

Work with participants in your course to develop norms or community agreements that specify the group’s expectations for how everyone will interact to build a safe, productive, and respectful learning environment. Once norms are established, use and reinforce them regularly.

Here are some examples of norms:

• Be respectful of people’s opinions and experiences
• Listen to understand
• Keep confidentiality

To help participants come up with norms for their CORP discussion groups, consider asking them to do the following:

• Think about the best group in which you have participated, either in discussion or another endeavor. What made it satisfying?
• Think about the worst group in which you have participated, either in discussion or in another endeavor. What made it unsatisfactory?
• For each of the positive characteristics your group identified, suggest three things the group could do to ensure that these characteristics are present.
• For each of the negative characteristics your group identified, suggest three things the group could do to ensure that these characteristics are not present.
• Share your positive and negative characteristics with your group. Together, draft a set of ground rules, or norms, to which each member of the group can agree.

Fostering Belonging

As an instructor, you want your class to be a place of belonging for every learner so they can fully participate and learn the most from what the course has to offer. This is especially important for early childhood teachers who will be creating their own learning environments. But what does this mean? Belonging can mean something different to every person. It is something that the participant has to define; we may be able to say we have included everyone, but the participant is the only one who can determine if they feel like they belong. Centering their experience is crucial here. It’s important to talk with the participants in your course about how you each define what it means to belong. According to the TIES Center, “Belonging is experienced when students are present, invited, welcomed, known, accepted, involved, supported, heard, befriended, and needed.” Each of these represents 10 dimensions of belonging. You might consider sharing this with participants in your course to start a discussion about belonging.

Here are other strategies to consider to help foster belonging:

• Provide a low or no stakes discussion forum in your course where you pose questions that help everyone get to know each other (Ex. What are three songs that represent you and why?)
• Reach out to course participants before class begins, perhaps with a short, fun video introducing yourself
• Have a one-on-one video chat with each learner early in the course/program
• Distribute culture and climate surveys
• Encourage and allow learners to talk about their families, their values, and themselves beyond the classroom
• Invite seniors and/or alumni to co-facilitate class with you
• Provide participants with both mirrors (opportunities to see themselves) and windows (opportunities to see into the experience of someone else)
• Offer affinity CORP groups (linguistic, racial, first-generation college student, etc.)
• For an online course, use surveys to discover participants’ preferences for responding (e.g. early responders, late responders) to help build compatible groups 

Facilitating rather than lecturing

Participants bring their own funds of knowledge to each course. Funds of knowledge include:

• Academic and personal background knowledge
• Accumulated life experiences
• Skills and knowledge used to navigate everyday social contexts
• World views structured by broader historically and politically influenced social forces

Ensure you are facilitating discussion so everyone (including yourself) can learn from one another, rather than seeing you as the expert. This also helps reduce a student-teacher power imbalance.

Source: Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (n.d.). Funds of knowledge toolkit.

Interrupting and responding to hurtful comments

As the instructor of a course, you must disrupt hurtful comments. Keep in mind it may not be a participant’s intent to say or do something hurtful and address the impact. In this way, you are modeling how participants can also disrupt hurtful comments.

Here are a few tips for responding to hurtful comments in-the-moment:

• Pause and assess the situation.
• Intervene and address the offense. Remember that this is a learning opportunity for everyone, especially if the comment reflects someone’s implicit bias.
• Acknowledge participants’ emotions. Make space for discussion verbally or in writing.
• Refer to and utilize the group norms.
• Validate and support those who have been targeted.
• Follow up one-on-one outside of class.
• Provide resources.

There may be times when you offend someone or make a hurtful comment. Although you may not have intended to be offensive, that may be the real impact from something you say or do. Therefore, give yourself grace and understanding that it wasn’t your intent and take responsibility for how your actions or words impacted others. Practice a commitment to “getting it right” rather than “being right.” If you receive critical feedback, reflect on it.  Ask how you can get it right and repair the relationship. 

It may also be that you as the instructor are not aware that a comment is hurtful. To help foster an environment where participants can take the risks that are necessary to learn with others you may want to explicitly discuss how you plan to handle these moments and offer ways that they can let you know (e.g., exit slips, etc.).  

Validating experiences

Paraphrase what participants say to ensure you understand their statements and questions.

Recognize when participants are speaking from their own experiences and validate them. If you feel there is something to unpack from a participant’s statement, ask a reflective question and use the language and instead of but.

For example, a participant might say that, from their experience, parents of color tend to be less involved in their children’s education. While this may be what they have experienced, this statement must be unpacked; It conforms to the myth and stereotype that parents of color (and people of color) are not interested in pursuing education. A response to the participant might sound like this: “What counts as being involved? How does that compare to a program’s definition of parental involvement?” or “I recognize this is your experience, and I encourage you to think about the possibility of what participation may look like across various races and cultures.”

Walking the talk

Model the practices you teach and invite participants to share their respectful, productive feedback with you about each session. Consider setting up anonymous surveys in your Learning Management System to collect data you can use to improve. For help creating surveys, see: How do I create a survey in my course?

Here is a sample survey template:

Please share anything you’d like about Session (insert #), including any readings, narrated lectures, videos, knowledge check, assignments, or anything else. You might respond to any of the following prompts or share anything else on your mind: What supported your learning? What questions do you have remaining? Are there perspectives that you would have liked to see included or any idea that would better support your learning? Thank you for any info you share! We value your input.

Consider adding:

If you would like a personal response to anything you’ve said in this survey, please type your name here. Then, we will reach out to you during the following week- up to 7 days after the end of Lesson __. Or, feel free to send a message directly to your instructional team for a faster response. We are always here to help you!

Speaking in “I” statements

When speaking about experiences and understandings, speak on behalf of yourself.

Managing air space

Recognize who takes up more time, or air space, during conversations. In class, be explicit that participants must share air space. If certain students continually dominate conversations, ask to speak to them outside of class and address the concern and offer them ways to self-reflect both on what may be their own exuberance and the impact for others. We want to be able to support both.

Recognize power structures in place that manifest in sharing air space. It’s not unusual for White men to dominate conversations, for example. Air space doesn’t necessarily need to be equal; focus on it being equitable. For instance, Indigenous and Black women are often excluded from class conversations, so it is okay if they take up more air space than what is equal. Note these are not definitive rules, rather they are examples of how power dynamics show up during discussions. Adjust your understanding based on the context of your class.

One simple way to foster more equitable responses is to have times where participants write down or reflect on their answers before you open the discussion. This also allows those who may process things more slowly the time to formulate a response. 

Using broad definitions of culture

Culture is broader than race. Culture can describe a group that shares similar experiences, beliefs, understandings, and histories. Examples of cultures include deaf culture, cisgender culture, youth culture, home-owners culture, or Beyoncé’s fan culture, known as the Beyhive.

Understanding intersectional identities

Each participant, and yourself, is composed of various identities. Intersectional identities refer to identities that are systematically oppressed. According to Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw, the original author of the theory of intersectionality,

“…the point of intersectionality is to make room ‘for more advocacy and remedial practices’ to create a more egalitarian system.”

Applying an understanding of structural inequities along with systems of power to the lived experiences of participants in your course can help you enact and advocate for policies and practices that help everyone succeed.

To learn more, read The Intersectionality Wars by Jane Coaston. Also watch Dr. Crenshaw’s TED Talk, The urgency of intersectionality.