Stereotypes are everywhere and can be considered “positive” and “negative.” With stereotypes, all different kinds of groups are targeted. Within a classroom a stereotype could influence perception and behavior of both the students and the teacher. Unfortunately, even though we recognize and know when a stereotype is wrong, we still choose to label.
With this week’s mystery reading I found myself stereotyping the author immediately. Even though I do not agree with stereotypes, I could not help but make an assumption about this person. I found him to be a bit head-strong and childish in the manner in which he felt he always had to defend himself to his wife’s co-workers because they were lawyers. I also felt that he was a little too old to be teaching kindergarten. I could not help the way I assumed things throughout my reading, which proves that being stereotypical is not a choice.
We as teachers are often dealing with these difficult situations in our classrooms. Typical ways that teachers stereotype their students is through expectations we have of our students, and our perceptions and attributions of students’ behavior and motivations. As students we stereotype what people expect from us and that effects how people treat us, how we think about ourselves, and how we portray ourselves to others.
In our classrooms stereotypes can bring forth anxiety and greatly affect performance. As teachers we must not reinforce stereotypes. We can use counter-stereotypical examples (positive ones) that can compensate for the negatives in the situation. Do not single students out with certain questions and touchy subjects or ask students to speak for their “group.”
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I too found the author to be a bit defensive about his profession. Based on his writing, I could tell that he perceived people to be judging him every time he explained that he was a Kindergarten teacher. In his defense, they probably were. There are many stereotypes that correlate with being a Kindergarten teacher. When visualizing the standard Kindergarten teacher, I see a young, naive-looking but sweet woman with a soft voice. As a female, it is acceptable to be a Kindergarten teacher. However, if I were to say that I was a Kindergarten teacher, would I get as much respect as a high school teacher?
In addition, the role of teacher is constantly belittled. For the rest of our lives, we are going to have to defend our profession in some way or another, whether it is in conversation, writing, or formal speech. When I tell people from home that I am a music education teacher and plan on teaching in public schools, I know that some of them are thinking, "Aw, isn't that sweet." This really irks me because I feel that my future career will have so much importance, more so than an everyday businessman contributing to this consumerist-crazed society. Even so, my business major friends receive more respect upon simply labeling their studies than I do, but sometimes I just have to let it go. In order for people to take our jobs seriously, we need to not get defensive about but have a grounded sense of pride and be willing to calmly explain the legitimacy of our jobs when people are ready to listen.
When I read the article, I found myself doing the opposite. I found myself sympathizing with him, because he had to defend his profession. I immediately had negative thoughts towards the lawyers. I find myself often rooting for the underdog, and since I felt the author was being attacked for his choice of profession I instantly gravitated to his side. Kindergarten teachers are stereotyped as the young, pretty, bouncy girl, fresh out of college, or at least as females. Stereotyping is something I really dislike. Every time I witness somebody talking about or making assumptions about people based on a stereotype it drives me nuts. The sad thing about this, is that even though I hate it so much, I still find myself stereotyping people. Its something that I work on daily, but its so ingrained in us as humans that sometimes it controls us and it is unrecognizable by us. Its almost like an addiction. I hope as a teacher I will not stereotype my students and will teach them to the best of my ability regardless of who they are.
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