How can I get teachers and administrators to really understand and confront their own prejudices?

Rachel Shaw

How can I get teachers and administrators to really understand and confront their own prejudices?


In order to help teachers and administrators successfully guide their students in confronting their prejudices, first these authority figures must wrestle with their own ignorant stereotypes. Oftentimes, people can hold prejudices but still feel ashamed of their own misconceptions and biases. It would be helpful to have the first investigation of one’s prejudices be personal and private, perhaps a series of writing prompts that can be responded to in a journal. At the same time, teachers and admistrators should read texts, from all different levels, that discuss issues of racism, diversity, and exclusion. By requiring that participants be constantly reflecting on their own biases and practices in tandem with the reading of texts that challenge those inner thoughts and ideas, teachers would be constantly thinking about their perspective and those of other cultures and viewpoints.

After completing this individual exercise over a period of several weeks, the group could come together. Profiles and pictures of potential “students” could be handed out and participants could be asked to anonymously provide their thoughts about the abilities, personality, likes, and dislikes about the “student.” From there, these anonymous responses could be examined by the group as a whole and the adults could work together to emphasize the importance of observation and objective analysis when coming to know students at the beginning of the year. The group should meet regularly throughout the year to provide feedback about how curricula could be made more multicultural, and also to continue providing support as peers continue to increase their knowledge about the individuals in their classroom. Teachers and administrators could hold continuing workshops about the various cultures in their classroom, inviting those who identify with a particular culture to come and speak about the customs, rituals, and the other pieces that make their culture special. Individual retrospective coupled with community education would be a powerful way to jumpstart a faculty’s excursion into the multicultural rea