Expected, Inspected, & Respected.
"We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience."
-John Dewey |
"We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience."
-John Dewey |
Before reading Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People, I had never heard of an implicit association test (IAT). The IAT is designed to separate a person's automatic and reflective minds. For example, Malcolm Gladwell, the author, has a dark-skinned mother and a light-skinned father and believes that skin colour has no more bearing on a person's value than their hair colour or eye colour. However, the IAT showed that his his unconscious attitudes were incompatible with his conscious values; he had an explicit belief in racial equality but an implicit bias against black people. The method used to discover this mindbug is through two speed tests where the test taker categorizes words and faces as fast as they can. Here is the first one (note that the marks in the circles are not mine, but those of another Winnipeg Public Library patron). The second test flips things around (note that these results aren't mine either). If you are faster at associating black faces with unpleasant words, and white faces with pleasant words, this shows that you have an automatic white preference. If you'd like to test yourself on your own racial biases, you can take the test online at bit.ly/TtkoCZ (this link worked on my iPhone but failed on a desktop).
As a pre-service teacher, I think it's important to discover these kinds of unseen biases in order to better serve my students. Uncovering the mindbugs at work in my subconscious mind is the first step to countering their adverse effects.
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David Wiebe
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