Hi Dami,

This was a very insightful post. I am glad that you had the opportunity to take the NLI workshop/course (?) it sounds like it was a great catalyst to open your mind to the spectrum of difference that we can experience in our classrooms. You’re right: acknowledging difference is the first step, but accommodating is the real challenge. I can relate to the sentiment of striving toward creating inclusive classrooms–I too want my students to know I am sensitive to their needs and am prepared to meet them where they are so I can provide the best experience possible for each and every individual. I’m with Shannon–the infographic is great. Thank you for sharing!

Thank you so much for your post! It was so interesting and encouraging to hear about some of your experiences in the classroom and how you are becoming aware of and changing some possible biases. One of the difficult things (and something that honestly makes me nervous personally) is that our biases usually are what you said, a blind spot. They’re usually something that we are not even aware of, but that nonetheless impact our actions. Though I have become aware of some of my personal biases and am actively working against those, I wonder how many subconscious biases I am yet you become aware of. Thanks again for your courageous post!

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Rathsara, I really appreciate your post as you mention how there are different norms in different countries of speaking about racism or not. There are also different reactions to speaking about it whether a person is in a privileged group in that country or not. I was speaking to one of my friends from India once and he was showing off telling how he could tell where a person was from in India based upon their last name. I thought this was really cool until I talked to one of my other Indian friends who informed me that most people from India can do this, and it is not necessarily a good thing because it leads to different assumptions about people trying to get into school or get hired that could hurt their chances. I then remembered different studies in the U.S. demonstrating that people with traditionally African American names are also less likely to get hired. The fact that biases are also present based on names, not just faces, further demonstrates the need to pay attention to and correct the automatic associations our hidden brain makes.

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Adbhut, thank you so much for writing about this issue! As Deb mentioned, it’s so great that more and more men are allies, and it’s clear from this topic choice that you are one. However, I wanted to take this comment to mention how scientists (especially those in social science and neuroscience) need to be better allies as well. Frequently, an interesting and publishable finding is a sex difference. However, there is rarely any impetus from the journals for you to explain why the sex difference exists. This bothers me, because usually there is a cause that is not simply or merely biological. For my undergraduate Honors thesis, I wanted to examine a classic sex difference in psychology to uncover its mechanism. Specifically, the finding that boys/men outperform women in mental rotation. In my sample, this finding held, but I also uncovered that what is more predictive of mental rotation is personality factors. Certain personality factors are encouraged more in boys than girls, so this difference could be the result of socialization. So often this difference has been touted as biological (people have even researched whether male infants outperform female infants at mental rotation to “prove” this point!), but it, along with many sex differences are not–they are the effects of a patriarchal society. I think there needs to be more recognition of that, so the onus is on social scientists and neuroscientists to reconsider whether a sex difference alone is truly an interesting finding in and of itself. When we stop saying “yes” and instead focus on the mechanisms, then we can better educate society on how to alleviate these differences.

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Corrie, I love this post and have so many different thoughts about it–hopefully I can make a cohesive comment! First, I just want to note that I found this passage “John C Maxwell notes that ‘Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.’ Statements uplifted such as these too often place unrealistic expectations on instructors and leaders to offer “answers”. Instead I seek to offer complications, make gestures, and pose questions that lead to a more complex understanding of how inclusion should be carried out in cultural institutions and classrooms.” particularly insightful. There are so many different ways to conceptualize leadership, and sometimes, the best way is just to be a hand to hold or devil’s advocate. Second, I appreciate your reflection on “Subtlety” and your chastisement of the disrespect shown to it and validated by others with arts degrees. I think their acceptance of the disrespectful interactions with the piece is a reflection of their own privilege (their art degree perhaps makes them feel they can be “objective” about the piece, but art is important because of the subjective interpretations and truth it represents). And those interacting so disrespectfully–they just don’t “get it.” And how sad is it that we as a society have made it so there are people don’t “get it” by whitewashing history and silencing minority voices (both directly and by lack of representation among what art and literature is considered important/the best)? Lastly, because I could rant about the aforementioned things forever, I do want to know how you work to improve interpretation of works of art from artists of different backgrounds. I took several art classes throughout my schooling, but I feel like teachers (at least those I had) focused only on Western art, and if Eastern or African art was given any attention, the interpretations were much less developed. How can we work to give this underrepresented (and often underappreciated) art better presentation and understanding?

That is a very smart point! Once we start communicating with people with different backgrounds, we will see how similar we are as opposed to the biased picture made by our ”hidden brain” which tends to be discriminating.

Thanks so much for your post! I love the infographic and how it drives home the point that we must remember the uniqueness of each of our students and the absurdity of trying to address a variety of needs with a single approach. I really appreciate the point you made about seeking to make our classrooms accessible to all (even before we encounter a student with a diagnosed disability, etc.). I worked for a while in a college’s Disability Services department and one thing that I learned there was that changes that might have previously been labeled as “special accommodations for someone with a disability” are often helpful to many other students in a classroom as well. Subtitles on videos are one such example. Even for students that do not have hearing difficulties, subtitles can still be helpful in comprehending and retaining information. There are countless other adjustments we can make to help make our classrooms accessible to all students. Thanks again for sharing!

Thanks for your post! I really appreciate some of the points you made, such as the fact we don’t recognize our own biases until they are pointed out to us, that we typically form our social circles around people we feel we can relate to, and that while that almost none of us would endorse racism (or other forms of discrimination) we often tend to continue to think and behave in ways that are not consistent with our spoken values. Thank you for sharing some about your personal experiences. That is such an interesting story and it was encouraging to hear how that specific event connected with your larger journey!

I like your comment on how 3-year-olds can become biased after a short training tailored based on their age. Everyone of us had a clear mind of a 3-year-old at some point, but it has been being poisoned as we grew up. I wish we could clean it up in the future!

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Thanks for bringing up some biases in your country of origin. I believe it is not easy to think and write about these things. However, it reflects how “the hidden brain” theory applies everywhere, regardless of location, culture and history.