Reflecting on your own bias is likely a great first step into taking back control from the autopilot. It seems like it would be another form of feedback that can help shape your awareness and help to make you mindful of the needs of others. Thanks for bringing up your own fear, it probably gave the chance for someone else to begin to reflect on their own.

This is really a fantastic blog!!! In fact the bias is all-around us. Not only students are treated differently by teacher, sometime teachers are treated differently by students. Like your pictures of VT presidents, student’s also prefer to sit in the lecture of a white male rather than non-white female, especially when the female is petite (definitely not the case in our CP class ^-^).

Thank you for sharing. I was fortunate enough to have exposure to many wonderful individuals who had their own differing abilities through a camp as a teenager, and many of my experiences there still pop up in my hidden brain. I think that it is important to have exposure, to reopen our “norms” that we develop through common exposure. Thank you again for sharing.

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Thank you for sharing. I was fortunate enough to have exposure to many wonderful individuals who had their own differing abilities through a camp as a teenager, and many of my experiences there still pop up in my hidden brain. I think that it is important to have exposure, to reopen our “norms” that we develop through common exposure. Thank you again for sharing.

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I read this earlier, and to touch on a few of the comments, I find that diversity should be a matter of quality over quantity. That is to say that schools that focus on checking off all of the boxes for diversity run the risk of not being able to enrich their student’s perspectives with actual diversity. This risk could lead to schools not providing support and framework for diverse students to thrive on and off campus. In a schools that is aware of these potential downfalls, there might be more of a focus on nurturing diversity rather than embracing it.

Thanks for brought up the issue of our own limitation. However, sometimes I find it hard to balance to between confidence and awareness of our limitation. To tackle with this problem, it goes back to our previous discussion about authentic teaching. Being yourself. Realize our human limitation and at the same time deal with it. As akin01 says, we can not reduce our limitation to zero, but a good and friendly community will be helpful to that.

Great, I also appreciate your post! I love the idea of facing the fact that we have bias, to “go towards them”. Like other comments, mine will also register agreement with the 3 aspects you wrote — it is a very direct approach and it is good, since these subjects tend to create infinite discussion sometimes.
I would add something that is really coming into my mind all the time while I read the classmates posts on inclusiveness and bias: How could we try to avoid blaming and feeling guilty about it?

I think you blog brought the issue about the purpose of education. Right now there is a trend to view education as consumption. It is a server to enjoy. I recently read a paper about education, which says “party college” and ” sport college” receive more applications, ceteris paribus. This remind me of the case of VT. We are building more parking lots, offering more convenient parking for visitors during game days. Also as Aeron mentioned, the huge athletics facilities fee. I am wondering, are catering to this trend as well?

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I think you blog brought the issue about the purpose of education. Right now there is a trend to view education as consumption. It is a server to enjoy. I recently read a paper about education, which says “party college” and ” sport college” receive more applications, ceteris paribus. This remind me of the case of VT. We are building more parking lots, offering more convenient parking for visitors during game days. Also as Aeron mentioned, the huge athletics facilities fee. I am wondering, are catering to this trend as well?

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I think it can be dangerous to consider higher education a business, but so much of higher education is run like a business that in some ways it would be impossible to not consider higher education a business. Higher education is becoming very expensive and many people can support especially in today’s economy. Higher education in many ways is an expensive gamble. (You spend 4-years and over $40,000 to come to school and there is no certainty that you will get a job that uses your degree. It becomes an even bigger issue when jobs look for you to have job experience and you don’t have it because you devoted your time to studying.) Many minority students don’t have the same educational opportunities in primary school and they simply cannot afford to make a $40,000 gamble. I think the cost/benefit analysis is steering individuals away from higher education. It is a serious issue that extends and encompasses many different areas.

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