My Bias

Unfortunately, it was not hard for me to come up with a bias that I have.  I am a white middle class woman and I am pretty snooty.  I grew up in the NE Heights and still live there.  There are times when I feel that I am better than other people because of my whiteness.  I'm not proud of that at all.  I know that my parents would not be proud to hear me say that either, but I believe I learned a lot of it from them.  For them, I believe their snootiness is subconscious.  My parents both grew up around Detroit, MI and I was born in Michigan.  We moved here when I was a baby.  The large hispanic population was something new for my parents, but my brothers and I have all grown up with them.  We have definitely separated ourselves from "them" initially because our cultures and lifestyles seemed so different, but later because we believed our ways to be better.

I think my feeling of superiority is less about race and more about class.  I tend to make judgements about what people wear, how they act, how they speak, where they work, which school they went to, etc.  As a teacher, this will hinder my effectiveness especially if I teach in a school outside of the Heights.  Now that I am more aware of this bias, I can stop myself from judging a child or their family.  I do not want to ignore differences, but I also do not want to place a value on these differences.  I hope I can step outside of myself enough to see beyond my biases and be able to teach children of all classes and races with the same passion and caring.