My Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

The memory that I have of an incident we I was the subject of bias, was when I got my first teaching assignment.   The parents did not meet me until the first day of school because I was unable to make the parent night the week before school. I was still working for DHEC and was out of town doing a work shop. I got a call from the director the next day telling me all the things the parents said about me during the meeting. One of the things that was said they don’t think I should take the class because I was a male. This was because the other teachers on the staff were all women and that’s all they know. They wanted to know how good of a teacher I would be for the age group I was getting that your. The bias was that I was a male teaching in a woman dominated field.

This bias made it seem as if male was unable to serve or teach young children. One if the things every job has posted is that they committed to equal opportunity, affirmative action, and non-discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, or disability in educational programs, activities, and conditions of employment. It was not the school but the parents that were decimating about my sex.

I did not feel bad at all, it just made me become the best teacher I could be in my first year. Within that year I was name the top teacher at the school and all the parents loved me.

The view of parents would have to change in order to change this incident into a opportunity for greater equity.