Response to my own previous blog!

I was thinking about my conundrum: if an online class uses only avatars for students to represent themselves, the instructor knows nothing of their age, gender, race, ethnicity, etc. Is this a positive or a negative? On one hand, this may eliminate bias based on these things. But my Director suggested that a good teacher responds to each student based on who the student is and that includes factors like age, gender, race, etc. This idea stopped me cold.

However, on reflection, I disagree with this interpretation of the statement that a good teacher responds to who the student is. Yes, a good teacher must respond to each student as a separate individual. However, this should not include bias (positive or negative) based on non-academic factors.

At the end of the very first computer class I taught at SFC, a student came up to me. She was a 40-year-old black woman, dressed in business clothes. I know her age because it was the first thing she told me. She walked with me out of class, explaining that she was a bit nervous because this was her first class back in school after many years. As we walked, we passed another classroom. [FYI: I am “sort of” white (I’m Jewish, married, at that time, to a black Puerto Rican).] As we walked past the other classroom, we both looked in and saw a black woman teaching the class. My student said to me (and I am still amazed at her frankness!), “I didn’t know there was a class taught by a black woman! Maybe I should have taken her class instead.” Then she thought a moment and said, “No, I think I’m better off with you. Black teachers are usually a lot harder on their black students.”

This incident stuck with me for many reasons. First, of course, I was surprised that this woman would state such a politically incorrect opinion so openly to someone who (a) she had just met and didn’t know at all, (b) was her teacher and thus a person who had some power over her success in the class. But I also thought about her second statement: that, in her mind anyway, black teachers are harder on black students than non-black teachers. [Please note that I am using “black” rather than the politically correct “African American” because I’m quoting my student.]

So the idea that race, age, gender, etc. does impact how people interact can be both negative and positive in the ways we traditionally think of them, as well as in other more surprising ways.

But yes, I do believe that teachers need to temper their responses to their students, based on the individual. But I think this must be solely in the context of the educational system. I would not want to go to a dentist who treated me differently than another patient based on my skin color or age. But I would want to go to a dentist who treated me differently from his/her other patients based on my particular teeth issues! And a teacher can do this without knowing the personal background of each student.

Next blog will contain references to pertinent research I have found on this topic.