\u201cMrs. Elliott?\u201d the assistant handed me a memo.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Hamlin would like to see you in his office after school today,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you know what this is about?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, except I did hear him say something about how you were teaching the kids to say \u201cBrothers and sisters\u201d rather than just \u201cbrothers\u201d when memorizing scripture verses, the assistant answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh. That,\u201d I muttered while rolling my eyes.<\/p>\n
That assistant was correct. I had been called to the principal\u2019s office because according to him, I was \u201cchanging\u201d scripture and this \u201cHAD TO STOP!\u201d But *was* I really changing scripture? I argued that in fact, I was not, because when Paul wrote to the churches and he used the word, \u201cbrothers\u201d he usually meant \u201cHey everyone! Women and Men, Boys and Girls, Siblings, All y\u2019all.\u201d I wanted my fifth-grade students, developmentally concrete thinkers, to understand that Paul was writing to the entire congregation of a specific church and his words were for them and for all of my students \u2013 ALL of them, not just the male students.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Language Matters<\/strong><\/p>\n I did this because as Pragya Agarwal says in her book, Sway, Unraveling Unconscious Bias<\/em>, \u201cLanguage matters.\u201d[1]<\/a> \u201cWords and images are powerful forces that shape our reality and create implicit bias.\u201d[2]<\/a> This is true, especially in adolescent years when brains are developing, and social attitudes and expectations such as stereotypes are being formed.[3]<\/a> Because we often fall back on System 1 thinking, quick instinctual decision making, which is formed through our past experiences, interactions, situations, and contexts,[4]<\/a> it is all the more important we do not steep our young learners in biased, sexist, racist or any kind of othering language.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Role Models Also Matter<\/strong><\/p>\n Role models also matter.[5]<\/a> I was asked recently why I became a pastor. I responded, \u201cBecause I had strong female pastors when I was a teenager.\u201d Growing up in a church that welcomed female pastoral leadership, I never developed a bias about women being pastors, preachers, or leaders in the church. Or, if I did develop a bias, it was that women should<\/em><\/strong> be in ordained church leadership! It wasn\u2019t until I dipped my toe into another denomination and was told I could never be ordained because I am a woman, that I realized (to my shock) that some denominations do not recognize the ordination and\/or leadership of women in the church, and in fact, prohibit it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are SO MANY different kinds of bias!<\/strong><\/p>\n I wasn\u2019t going to focus on gender as an unconscious bias. I thought I would focus on race as I know I have implicit biases around race. However, reading through Agarwal\u2019s book opened my eyes to how many different kinds of unconscious biases we form throughout our lives. From gender to race to weight to age, to any other \u201cothering\u201d we create, Agarwal uses many academic studies to show how we form bias and stereotypes. She also touches on the many ways unconscious bias affects everything in our culture, from education to policing to Artificial Intelligence. Learning I had unconscious biases and how easily I fall back on them via system one thinking is proving to be a threshold concept for me.[6]<\/a> To unravel unconscious bias from our lives and our culture is a wicked problem[7]<\/a> and though we are getting better at naming the problem and owning some of our part in it, it is difficult to see how we will completely untangle it from our subconscious as a society.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How to unravel unconscious bias<\/strong><\/p>\n I was kind of surprised that there was only a short chapter at the end of the book about how to work against bias. To be fair, she did address how to work against bias in other chapters but the real, \u201chow to\u201d was in the last chapter. Simply being aware of our unconscious biases and how they are shaped by our own upbringing and life experiences can help us minimize their use.[8]<\/a> \u00a0Then, there is the admonition to not simply use what Kahneman calls, System one thinking,[9]<\/a> where we make quick decisions based on a heuristic (often a bias) but to take time with important decisions so that we are able to activate our logical and rational thinking, actively busting any biases that can affect our decisions.[10]<\/a> Calling out microaggressions and creating safe spaces in work places (and in churches) to have difficult conversations about microaggressions, and, like Petrusek argued in his book, Evangelization and Ideology<\/em>, focusing the action, argument, or statement rather than apportioning blame[11]<\/a> is crucial to making people aware of their words, actions, and how they affect others.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Pragya Agarwal, Sway: Unraveling unconscious Bias<\/em> )London, UK: Bloomsbury Sigma, 2020), 221, (Kindle Edition)<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Ibid, 250.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Ibid, 41.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Ibid, 439.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Jan F.H. Meyer and Ray Land, eds.,\u00a0Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge<\/em>. (New York, Routledge, 2003).<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Joseph Bently and Michael Toth, Exploring Wicked Problems, What they Are and Why They Are Important, <\/em>Archway Publishing, Bloomington, IN, 2020.<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> Pragya Agarwal, Sway: Unraveling unconscious Bias<\/em> )London, UK: Bloomsbury Sigma, 2020), 436.<\/p>\n [9]<\/a> Daniel Kahneman,\u00a0Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/em>. 1st edition. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.<\/p>\n