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A friend of mine recently told me about an incident involving students at Berkeley High School. On the first day of classes, African-American juniors and seniors were being asked by their honors course teacher to show him their schedule when they entered the classroom. The teacher, who was white, apparently assumed the black students were lost and in the wrong room, and his gesture made them feel unwelcome and humiliated.

This is an example of implicit bias-a behavior that arises from subconscious associations, which may even contradict someone's explicit values. Implicit racial bias plays a role in many classrooms and schools with potentially devastating effects. In one recent experiment with preschool teachers, researchers found that when teachers were primed to look for behavioral problems while watching a classroom video with black and white children (none of whom were misbehaving), teachers gazed much longer at black children than white children, as if anticipating the behavioral problems would come from the black children.

In another experiment from the same study, teachers read a vignette about a behavioral problem with a preschooler randomly identified as a black boy, black girl, white boy, or white girl, and then were given details about the child's background or not. Providing the background information on the child increased the severity of suggested disciplinary actions when the race of the teacher didn't match that of the child, supporting the idea that we are more inclined to punish those who look different from us.

In fact, disciplinary actions are more likely to be perpetuated against African Americans-boys and girls alike-than any other group of students, regardless of the infraction. And while it's understandable that teachers would want to prevent disruptions in the classrooms and take actions to avoid them, some seem to have little idea of how to do that without turning to ingrained biases.

Of course, teachers are not alone in having racial biases. Their behavior reflects how social messages are hard to escape, even for people of color. But studies like these show how racial disparities can be perpetuated in classrooms, too. If left unchecked, this kind of biased treatment can haunt a student well into elementary school and beyond, making the promise of "schools as the great social equalizers" a false one.

The good news is that teachers can learn to combat their prejudice, even the implicit kind, if they become more aware of it and take steps to actively fight it in themselves. Here are some of the ways that might help educators treat all of their students with dignity and care.

1. Cultivate awareness of their biases

Teachers are human and therefore influenced by psychological biases, like the fundamental attribution error, when we assume that others who behave in a certain way do so because of their character (a fixed trait) rather than in response to environmental circumstances. In-group bias leads us to assign positive characteristics and motivations to people who are similar to us.

Biases like these are natural, used as cognitive shorthand for making quick social judgments in ambiguous situations, especially those involving people from unfamiliar ethnic or social groups. They become a problem when we're not aware of their impact on other people. And if we're part of a majority group with more social, economic, or political power than a minority one, then accumulated unconscious bias can be extremely destructive, limiting the life opportunities and hurting the well-being of the minority group.

Many researchers believe that becoming more aware of our biases can help us improve our interactions with others, decrease our sense of unease in interracial contexts, and make better decisions. Though most of this research has been done with other professional groups or the general public, the same lessons are likely to apply to teachers.

However, many teachers feel pressures not to cop to those biases, perhaps out of fear they will be accused of racism. This leaves them blind to the ways that biases work at an unconscious level. Pretending to be colorblind is not helpful and in fact adhering to a color-blind philosophy has been shown to increase implicit bias, at least in college students. Admitting that we are all subject to biases creates a safer space to examine them more carefully and to take steps to fight them.

2. Work to increase empathy and empathic communication

Empathy -the ability to understand another's perspective and emotions-is important in all human social encounters, including teaching. Yet, often teachers have little understanding of the communities where their students live and have trouble understanding their perspectives, leading them to treat these students more harshly.

One solution: learning about the lives of students and showing that you care. At least one study has found that actively trying to take the perspective of another person-as opposed to trying to be "objective"-increased one's ability to not fall prey to stereotypical views of others. Actively inducing empathy for another person has been tied to a willingness to consider environmental circumstances more closely when handing out punishments for misbehavior. And, one recent study has found that training teachers in empathy cut down student suspension rates in half.

Though perhaps more research has been done on empathy in other professionals (such as physicians and police officers), teachers may want to take note of the ways that they have learned to increase their empathy through a combination of stress reduction, learning how to manage difficult emotions, and practicing empathic communication. Treating students with kindness and consideration is a sure way to bring out kindness in them, too.

3. Practice mindfulness and loving-kindness

Mindfulness practices-such as paying attention in a nonjudgmental way to one's breath or other sensations-has been shown to decrease stress in teachers, which can indirectly have an effect on reducing bias. But according to some research, mindfulness may also have a direct effect on bias reduction as well.

In one study, young white participants who listened to a 10-minute audiotape with instructions in mindfulness showed less implicit bias towards blacks and older people than those who listened to a 10-minute discussion of nature. This suggests that nonjudgmental awareness, even when not specifically focused on reducing prejudice, can help reduce unconscious biases.

Loving-kindness meditation-a practice that involves consciously sending out compassionate thoughts toward others-may also help. In a recent study, the random assignment of a short-term loving-kindness meditation reduced implicit bias toward a targeted group, though it didn't decrease implicit bias for other groups not targeted by the meditation.

4. Develop cross-group friendships in their own lives

While it's important to take steps in the classroom, the relationships we form outside of the classroom can also have an impact on bias.

Cross-group friendships have been shown in several studies to decrease stress in intergroup situations, to decrease prejudice toward outgroup members, and to decrease one's preference for social hierarchy or domination over lower-status groups. These findings alone might encourage teachers to seek out cross-group friendships in their lives so that they can be more receptive to the diverse students they find in their classrooms.

Another reason for teachers to consider developing cross-group friendships is that they may influence their students to do the same. When people see cross-group friendships working out in positive ways, they tend to be more willing to engage in cross-group friendships themselves.

In addition, positive cross-group friendships can have contagion effects in other people within social groups, turning whole communities into warmer, more receptive spaces for cross-group interactions. All of this bodes well for teachers role-modeling the kind of behavior they want to see in their students.

Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean teachers should indiscriminately approach someone just because they are from a different racial group. Instead, teachers can reach out to colleagues at work, or get involved in activities or perhaps attend events where people with different backgrounds and perspectives come together for a common cause. Developing friendships can be one of the best ways to break down barriers of prejudice, and it's more easily done when people have some common interests.

Is this a lot to ask, given all the burdens our society heaps on teachers? Perhaps. Teachers should get more support than they do, and, ideally, school districts should make reducing implicit bias a priority backed up with money, policy, and training. Individual teachers can only do so much.

Luckily, the teaching profession tends to attract altruists who want to teach in a way that helps their students. By working at countering implicit bias in themselves, they can truly make a difference in the lives of their students, making them feel safe, cared for, and welcome in the classroom.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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Four Ways Teachers Can Reduce Implicit Bias

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We're all subject to bias. Here are tips to help teachers treat all of their students with dignity and care.

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How to Practice Loving Kindness Meditation

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How to Practice Loving Kindness Meditation

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How to Practice Loving Kindness Meditation

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Loving kindness meditation, also known as compassion meditation, is simple but powerful. Learn how to give loving energy to yourself and others.

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12 Ways Teachers Can Build Resilience So They Can Make Systemic Change

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12 Ways Teachers Can Build Resilience So They Can Make Systemic Change

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When things are hard in the classroom, it's tempting to blame the kids, their parents, or the communities they come from, but those are not things an individual teacher can control. Building personal resilience is about responding to adversity, to setbacks, to getting knocked down. The resilience comes from learning something in those moments.

"Resilience is about thriving and not just surviving," Aguilar said. "Because I think there are places where people use the term and they're just talking about survival. But resilience is when you experience a challenge or a setback and you come out stronger than you were before, having learned something new."

After decades of teaching and coaching, Aguilar has written a book that joins her years of experience in classrooms around the country with the research about resilience. Called Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators, the book offers practical ways educators can build their resilience mapped to months of the year, and the ebbs and flows of energy that dictate school life.

But this isn't the average self-help book. Aguilar, like many educators, sees real issues in the systems and structures of education. But she also knows teachers are too overwhelmed and tired to pick their eyes up and see the bigger issues. Aguilar believes that building personal resilience leads to action. In Onward she writes:

"Here is my theory of action: If we boost our individual resilience, then we will have more energy to address organizational and systemic conditions -- to elect officials who will fund public education, organize against policies that dehumanize educators, and push back on punitive assessment policies and scripted curriculum that turn teachers into robots and students into depositories to be filled. With more energy and more resilience, we can build and strengthen the kinds of communities in which we can thrive, where we can engage in professional development that allows us to reflect on our own biases, and where we can observe and learn from each other."

As a coach, Aguilar is action oriented. She wanted to give educators things they can do, habits they can form to boost their resilience. The current research isn't framed that way; it describes dispositions, which are more like attitudes or ways of being. Resilient people tend towards optimism, for example, and they're curious and courageous.

Aguilar has taken that research and developed a sequence of reflections and activities that teachers can do throughout the year to build habits that cultivate a resilient disposition. She thinks they will be most powerful if educators do them together.
1. Know Yourself
"You'd need to do this in the summer when you have a bit of a break," Aguilar said. She recommends June, when school has ended and teachers have had a little time to recover. In June many educators are reflecting on the end of the year anyway, so why not go a bit deeper to think through the values, socio-political identity, strengths and personality traits that define each of us?

In Onward, Aguilar writes: "Self-knowledge helps us to be more confident about our actions and clear on our decisions. It's what enables us to show up in a way we want to show up."

This is foundational work. Everything else depends on self-knowledge because so much of how one reacts to a situation is rooted in experience, context, identity and perception.
2. Emotions
There's been an increased focus on social and emotional learning for kids in classrooms, but much less attention is paid to helping teachers manage the array of emotions that come up over the course of a school day. Just because teachers are adults doesn't mean they've had practice recognizing, naming and reckoning with their emotions.

"Embedded within emotional resilience is emotional intelligence," Aguilar said. "And I find so many adults have never had an opportunity to really learn about emotions."

In the workbook that accompanies Onward, Aguilar offers activities that walk educators through a process of thinking through what an emotion is, how to understand their own, and offers language to talk about emotion. This is reflective work, perfect for July when teachers have a little distance from the classroom.
3. Tell Empowering Stories
"It really might be the most important habit, but you can't practice it well without understanding your emotions, so they all connect," Aguilar said.

The stories educators tell dictate the experience they'll have, she said. The story could be about kids and parents that don't value education. Or, it could be that teaching in a particular context is hard because the political and economic systems aren't set up to support this community. "You can tell really different stories about the same thing," Aguilar said.

She has found that educators often get excited about this habit: "When they realize they have the power to reframe a situation, it's actually very empowering. It can be a big relief to people."

It can also open up avenues of creativity. Sometimes teachers can feel so overwhelmed that it's difficult to see a situation in any other way than the one they're already locked into. Aguilar has seen this time and again when coaching. She often asks teachers and leaders probing questions to shift the way they see the constraints and structures within which they are working.

"I think it's really critical because so many educators almost can't imagine how things could be better," she said.
4. Build Community
Aguilar imagines this habit tied to September when school is back in session and people have energy and hope for the year ahead. "One of the visions I had when I wrote this book was that teachers would read this book together," she said. "They'd talk about it together, and they'd do the workbook activities together."

And in doing so, they'd deepen relationships with one another. Those relationships can be a crucial source of resilience when setbacks occur.
5. Be Here Now
This section draws from mindfulness practices and their power to ground educators in the present moment. Mindfulness in schools has exploded over the past few years, especially on the West Coast where Aguilar lives. So she was surprised when readers from elsewhere in the country had never heard of it.

"The ability to be present in the moment allows you to be clear on what story you're telling," Aguilar said. "It's really hard to tell powerful stories if you're not able to recognize when you're telling a story."

She equates this set of strategies with October because towards the end of this month things can start to get hard for educators. It's a time for deep breaths, creating some metacognitive space before reacting to students, and taking care of oneself.
6. Take Care of Yourself
November is often a hard month for teachers. The excitement from the beginning of the year has worn off, the days are getting shorter and darker, and exhaustion becomes a factor. Most educators have probably heard they should take care of themselves and yet many still don't. Aguilar uses this section to help educators interrogate why this might be.

"Teaching is so dominated by women and there's so much messaging to women about self care, but they also get messages about giving to everyone else," Aguilar said. Sometimes deep values come up about who deserves rest and what it means to prove one's worth.

"It's intended to help people untangle what's going on," Aguilar said.

7. Focus on the Bright Spots

"This is an opportunity to focus on strengths and assets and skills and shine a light on what's working," Aguilar said. Again, in the heart of winter it can be easy to let a natural negativity bias take over. It requires active work to push back against those thoughts and create structures to notice the progress students have made and the many beautiful things happening in schools and classrooms.

"Resilience has a lot to do with how often we experience what is thought about as positive emotions. That is in part how we get to the thriving part of the definition, and not just the surviving," Aguilar said.

It's easy to dwell on the negative, the lesson plan gone awry, the one kid who won't engage. But Aguilar says that unless educators actively work to refill the reserves of satisfaction, meaning and connection it's hard to keep going.
8. Cultivate Compassion
In January it might seem like teachers would return from a vacation and feel rested, ready to jump back into the classroom with energy. That's partly true, but Aguilar has also found that the time off can decrease people's tolerance for stuff they have to deal with in the classroom. They've felt like a normal human for a few weeks and they don't want to go back. That's why she suggests cultivating compassion for oneself, colleagues and students during this time.

"Recognize that if you're cultivating compassion you can have greater understanding with a student who lost their temper and did whatever they did, and you can respond differently in that moment."
9. Be A Learner
Learning is something resilient people do. They take away a lesson from hardships they experience.

"One of the most useful prompts for someone when they're in a challenging situation is to ask, is there any possibility I could learn something from this experience?" They don't even have to know what they're learning yet, but just asking if there's something that will reveal itself later can make it feel possible to get through.

Aguilar used the example of her mother's battle with cancer and ultimate death. In the moment, she felt horrible and couldn't see her way out of the pain and grief she was experiencing.

"When I think back to that time, now I can see there were things that I learned," Aguilar said. "But it's definitely not a situation in which I would say that was a great gift because I learned this or that. Without question I would rather have my mother back."

In those difficult moments, it helps to acknowledge and value the emotions someone is feeling. Without that acknowledgement people don't feel heard and they can get stuck in the negative emotions.
10. Play and Create
There's a lot of research showing that play is fundamental to learning and to human nature. Yet it's often stripped from schools. Play also helps people to be creative, deal with stress and solve problems, all qualities connected to a common disposition of resilient people -- courage.

11. Ride the Wave of Change

"Springtime is when things start changing in schools," Aguilar said. "Spring time can be really unsettling and difficult." New initiatives are launched, hiring happens, teaching assignments change, it can be hard for teachers and deplete their energy.

Aguilar recommends that teachers engage with change, but think carefully about whether the change is within their sphere of influence. Making that distinction can help an educator decide where to spend their energy.

"We all have a finite amount of energy and we can make decisions about how and where we use it. Change gives us an opportunity to reflect on that."
12 Celebrate and Appreciate
"We need to end the year on a note of celebration," Aguilar said. Taking time to recognize growth and show gratitude offers a different perspective on what can be a tiring time of year. Many schools have end of year rituals to celebrate the achievements of the year, but personal rituals, as well as class rituals can also be powerful.

Aguilar has no illusions that teachers will pick up this book, do a few exercises, and magically become more resilient. She knows these qualities require cultivation and time, but from personal experience she also knows they work. She now has a daily gratitude practice, and she finds herself repeating over and over again the activities that help her deconstruct her thoughts and beliefs to gain a deeper understanding of her values.

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12 Ways Teachers Can Build Resilience So They Can Make Systemic Change | KQED

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When things are hard in the classroom, it's tempting to blame the kids, their parents, or the communities they come from, but those are not things an individual teacher can control. Building personal resilience is about responding to adversity, to setbacks, to getting knocked down. The resilience comes from learning something in those moments.

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8 Ways to Make Teacher Evaluations Meaningful and Low Stress

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8 Ways to Make Teacher Evaluations Meaningful and Low Stress

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Welcome to Teacher Evaluation 101.

Do not copy and paste the notes from one teacher's evaluation into another's. (Yes, this happens.)

Avoid the "kiss, kick, kiss" approach-you know, the one where you tell the teacher something good, proceed to list all the things that went wrong, and then end on a high note. You may also know this as a compliment sandwich.

Do send your observations to teachers as soon as possible so they can start acting on shortcomings that you picked up-or find out what they did right.

And please, please, do not compose a mini-novella of every single thing you observed and expect the teacher to wade through and fix them all.

Instead, give the teacher one-or just a few-high-leverage points they can focus on to make the biggest difference in their teaching.

Now that we've gotten those basic do's and don'ts out of the way, let's move to the more advanced material. Here are eight concrete ideas from principals and other experts that school leaders can use to make their evaluations and observations of teachers meaningful, actionable, and low-stress.

1. Understand Your Evaluation Tool

Get out of the compliance mindset. Yes, you have to follow your state's requirements and do these (generally) annual evaluations. Yes, you may feel boxed in by state rules and local contractual obligations. But don't stop with that, said Robyn Jackson, a former school administrator turned consultant, who now coaches principals on how to get the most out of evaluations.

Take all the data you've collected in the evaluation process and use it to devise an action plan that you, as principal, can take to help your teachers move to the next level.

2. Pre-Game With the Teacher

Before you even set foot into the classroom for a planned observation, sit down with the teacher to discuss the upcoming lesson that you'll observe and what you should expect.

Ask whether there is anything the teacher wants you to pay special attention to while there, said Brad Jacobsen, the principal of Ashland-Greenwood Middle and High School in Nebraska.

3. Visit Classrooms Early and Often

While states may require principals to visit classrooms once or twice a year, principals and their teams should aim higher. Both teachers and experts recommend that principals visit classrooms often-and that they start doing so early in the year.

These visits can be as short as 10 minutes.

Early and frequent visits allow principals to become familiar with the teachers, their teaching methods, and students, and teachers and students also get more comfortable with having the school's leaders in class.

Principals can spot strengths and weaknesses in instructional methods and classroom management, and provide the teacher early opportunities to make adjustments.

Regular visits can reduce the anxiety of formal evaluations and make them feel less like "gotcha" moments because teachers get the opportunity to work on problem areas. They know what to expect when the team returns for a formal review.

Keith Brayman, an economics and international relations teacher at River Bluff High School in Lexington, S.C., describes the evaluation process as "low-stress." That's primarily because the principal and assistant principal visit his classroom every couple of weeks and are open to discussions outside of the classroom.

"Honestly, I don't even notice when it's really going on," said Brayman. "We just go about as business as usual. We know they are going to come in; they'll let us know a few days in advance, for a formal evaluation."

Brayman, who also worked at two schools in Florida, said that not every school has the same culture of trust when it comes to evaluations.

"I've never had a bad principal in my career," he said, but still the process in his prior schools was stressful.

"They'd come in with a clipboard, full of papers, and they'd be staring at you the whole time," he said. "It was very different."

4. Observe Everything-Not Just the Teacher

In the past, principals tended to have a laser focus trained solely on what the teacher was doing, every single minute of the visit-a by-product of what state evaluation systems asked them to do. But teachers, principals, and experts say that principals should pay attention to the classroom environment-what students are doing, what teachers are asking them to do, and the kinds of questions students are asking.

Keishia Handy, the principal of Cole Elementary School in San Bernardino, Calif., uses five-minute sessions to pick up many cues about teaching by watching students.

"Are they using the academic language that is aligned to the content within the standards?" said Handy. "Are they asking questions that indicate that they're actually processing the information, or are they asking surface-level questions because they don't understand what's being presented? I'm also looking to see if they're using one another for resources, rather than having kids raise their hands and asking the teacher for help."

5. Provide Immediate Feedback

States have various requirements for when principals should return feedback to teachers when conducting formal evaluations. Some online tools make the principal's notes available immediately. For informal evaluations, some school leaders make it a practice of giving the notes as soon as they leave the classroom-sometimes emailing them before they head out the classroom door.

Timeliness is a key way principals can ensure that teachers get the most from the process, said Lucas Clamp, the principal of River Bluff High School in Lexington, S.C., and the 2019 NASSP National Principal of the Year. After conducting a walk-through, Clamp tries to send his notes to teachers within 24 hours, and he writes them in a way to make the observations a conversation-starter and not an end point, he said.

Clamp sends what he calls "notices and wonders." A notice is a kind of praise-an indication that he saw something going well. A wonder indicates he has a few questions. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but that he may need additional information.

In a visit to a geometry class, Clamp sees students are already paired and working in groups. The students are engaged and working together-which aligns with the school's goals for student collaboration and leadership. But he also wonders how the pairs were chosen. Is it because they sit together often? Is it based on proficiency-a higher-performing student working with a lower-performing student? Why are two students sitting off to the side and not working in pairs?

All that information is communicated to the teacher shortly after he leaves the classroom.

"We try our best not to make assumptions," Clamp said.

6. Find a 'Root Cause'

What's the one thing a teacher could change immediately to make a positive impact?

Jackson argues that evaluators often give teachers, especially struggling ones, a laundry list of things to work on and expect them to figure it out on their own.

"Usually when we see struggling teachers, we give them feedback that says classroom management was a mess, planning was a mess, instructional delivery was a mess, assessing student performance was a mess," she said. "Then we say, 'I'll be back in two weeks [and] that all needs to be fixed.' That's impossible, especially for someone who is struggling."

What principals should do is look for that one thing-a root cause-that teachers should focus on, before moving to the other issues, she said.

Principals get to the root cause by a process of elimination, Jackson said. They can go through the list of the things they saw and constantly ask, "If the teacher eliminated 'x' and nothing else, would the classroom and instruction significantly improve?"

By focusing on one thing and working with the teacher to improve it, he or she would be able to see the changes and that would build momentum for other big things to tackle. That makes the needed improvements more manageable and helps hold the teacher accountable, Jackson said.

7. Give Teachers a Voice

Teachers need to feel that feedback is an ongoing, two-way conversation. Principals should be frank and honest, but they also shouldn't come in with an accounting of everything the teacher got wrong. Teachers should have the opportunity to reflect on the lesson and be able to provide context and information that the principal might not have seen. That could include preparation in the previous class or what happened after the principal left the room.

While it's not a requirement, the Delaware system encourages principals to allow teachers to write a self-assessment after they receive the principal's evaluations, but before they sit down for the post-evaluation conference. Teachers can prepare their own take on the principal's observation of their classroom, and cite evidence for why a skill or technique demonstrated during the observation warrants a certain performance rating.

Principals in Delaware are trained to hold off on deciding a final performance rating until after they've heard from teachers in the post-conference meetings, said Melissa Oates, who works on educator evaluations in the state's department of education.

8. Provide Opportunities to Improve and Grow

Feedback should be motivated by the desire to help teachers acquire, assimilate, or adapt their skills so they continue to learn and grow. It's one thing to tell a teacher that they need to work on "x" and leave it there. A principal is likely to get more out of a teacher by giving support to help the teacher improve-whether it's providing a coach or having the teacher visit model classrooms.

And the support should be customized to each teacher's needs and grade level. "In the classrooms, we expect teachers to differentiate based on student needs," Jackson said. "We don't do the same for teachers."

At Martin Luther King, Jr. Early College in Denver, the improvement and growth processes are built into the feedback conversation with teachers. Principal Kimberly Grayson and the leadership team work with teachers on one action step he or she can take.

A coach models the action step and helps the teacher include it in the lesson. The teacher then will practice the step.

"We actually have the teacher stand up and do a full role play of what the action step looks like, and we do the role play over and over multiple times until the teacher gets it right," Grayson said. "Because we want the teacher to, A, feel like the debrief time is valuable and, B, feel like they are able to walk out of that debrief conversation and feel successful going into their next classroom when it's time to implement that strategy."

Published in Print: October 16, 2019, as Making Feedback Useful for Teachers

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8 Ways to Make Teacher Evaluations Meaningful and Low-Stress

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Welcome to Teacher Evaluation 101. Do not copy and paste the notes from one teacher's evaluation into another's. (Yes, this happens.) Avoid the "kiss, kick, kiss" approach-you know, the one where you tell the teacher something good, proceed to list all the things that went wrong, and then end on a high note.