So what does this mean? Well, I lived in a predominantly Muslim country in my early 20s, so maybe I don't have the implicit bias that I'm told I'm predisposed to have as a white Midwesterner. Or perhaps these tests aren't as accurate as the writers had hoped? There are lots of different ways to examine these results. For example, when I silently repeated to myself the choices that were associated with the key in my dominant hand, I felt my sorting was much faster. I tried to do it the opposite way, by concentrating on the answers associated with my non-dominant hand, and I found I was spending more time sorting the words. So do the test results have more to do with the way we think about the words as they appear on the screen, or with the biases that we supposedly have regarding Muslim/Bad vs. Other/Good?

As for the sexuality IAT, I sorted everything equally. My best friend is a gay woman married to another gay woman and I adore them both. They've raised three amazing sons and are two of the best moms I know. So I'm not surprised that everything was equal for me in this test. However, I did make errors each time because I was trying to go quickly. It also trips me up each in each test when the same sorting is done but the sides of the screen are switched on me.

The religion IAT gave me much the same results as the sexuality one. I really feel these tests are more about the ways in which our fingers are reacting to what we see on the screen than about implicit bias.

I also looked for bias for young versus old people and again displayed no bias. I have an honesty bias. I like people who are brutally honest, no matter their other faults. Fake people I have a hard time with.

What I learned about myself is that while I may not hold an implicit bias, I still carry the weight of experience from a male-dominated field. Moving forward, this pushes me to be intentional about representation in my classroom, highlighting female scientists, encouraging all students to see themselves in STEM, and actively working to disrupt stereotypes before they take hold.

As I got closer to the end of the test I then wondered if maybe since I work with young people most of the year, if I would have a bias against old people. I was a bit worried because I kept thinking "I really do value the perspective of individuals older than me, but do I have an unknown bias against them?" I am thankful that I ended up in the zone of no automatic bias towards either grouping of people, especially as someone who works with many different ages of individuals every day!

Recognizing bias is critical to ensure all students succeed. As I read the articles for the week I found myself assessing if I call on or help students more based biases, and found myself using systems (like students names on popsicle sticks and random generators) that help to eliminate bias in my classroom. My hope is to be more aware of my implicit biases and establish practices the remove biases when possible.