A Study on Communicating Biases

Meryl Streep made headlines last month with her Golden Globes acceptance speech that included a response to “one performance this year that stunned me,” i.e.,  Donald Trump’s imitation of a disabled reporter during the presidential campaign. Her words garnered attention, just as Trump’s nonverbal behaviors had. This calls to mind the warning of a character Meryl Streep once played, the witch in Into the Woods. “Careful the things you say. Children will listen. Careful the things you do. Children will see and learn.” When considering the lessons we are teaching children, it should be noted that these lessons are being conveyed not just verbally, but nonverbally as well. 

A recent study built upon past research suggesting that:

a) implicit biases can be communicated through nonverbal signals

b) infants avoid or respond negatively toward objects after observing negative responses to them; and

c) evidence of social bias and prejudice has been observed in children as young as in preschool

Researchers at the University of Washington showed four- and five-year-olds a video of a person in a black shirt and a person in a red shirt, each target person being treated differently by an actor. The actor displayed either positive nonverbal signals (e.g., smiling, leaning in, using a warm tone of voice, eagerly giving a toy) or negative nonverbal signals (e.g., scowling, leaning away, using a cold tone of voice, giving the toy reluctantly) toward the targets. The actor then introduced a novel object. Each target labeled it with a made-up word and used it in a particular way. The video also explained that one target was part of “the dark-red group” and the other was part of “the black group,” and a friend from each group was introduced.

The children were asked which target person they preferred, what the novel object should be called, and how the object should be used. The latter questions were asked because imitation, or failure to imitate, has been shown in the past to reflect children’s feelings about a person. The children were also asked which friend they preferred, and an imitation measure was taken.

Results showed that children explicitly preferred the person who was treated with positive nonverbal signals, and that they were more likely to use that person’s label for an object, even though they were not significantly more likely to imitate the displayed use of that object. Further, the children showed more positive attitudes toward the friend identified as being in their preferred person’s group, and they were more likely to imitate this friend.

While the implicit biases actors displayed in this experiment may be less subtle than many displayed toward individuals and groups in natural settings, the implications are certainly interesting and worthy of further exploration. Adults have great potential to teach children many things, including — it seems — biases. It is likely wise to heed the words of the witch.

Tips for a Manageable Email Inbox

Peeking into a student's backpack or dorm room used to be a good indicator of his organizational skills. But these days a student's email inbox may be more revealing than the way he manages his paper load. Information and documents are increasingly distributed to students via email instead of on paper, and many students aren't able to stay on top of their electronic clutter. We considered tips from organizational coach K.J. McCorry, founder of an environmentally-focused organizational consulting business called Eco-Officiency, and did some of our own brainstorming as well, to come up with this advice for students (and, just maybe, parents, too):

• Reduce: An easy way to combat inbox overflow is to get fewer emails, which can be accomplished in a few ways. First, set up a "dummy" email account and use it for all online purchases and other occasions when you must share your email address with an unimportant third party. This way, if your email address is shared, only your dummy account's inbox will fill up. Second, unsubscribe from solicitations. They may be hard to see, but "unsubscribe" links should be at the bottom of all marketing emails. Don't believe the myth that opening sales emails will cause you to receive more of them; get yourself off all of those lists. 

• Set-up for success: Nearly all email platforms allow users to create folders. We suggest that students create one folder for each class (chemistry, English, etc.), one for their personal communications, and one for each extra-curricular activity (band, soccer, etc.) in which they are involved. It may sound unattainable, but hear us out: the goal should be to have zero emails in one's inbox because they've all be placed in the right folders.

• Order of Operations: McCorry recommends checking email about five times a day; a lot more or less than that negatively impacts productivity. Each time a student signs on, McCorry suggests that they first delete all spam and irrelevant messages. Second, they should answer all emails that require only a quick response. Follow the three R's here: Read, Respond, Remove. By skimming quickie emails, jotting a short response ("We're meeting on the second floor of the library. Don't forget to bring notecards!") and dragging these messages to the right folder, inboxes will seem less intimidating in no time.

• Just Do It (Now): McCorry's steps should leave only a few emails that require careful reading and/or a thoughtful response in a student's inbox. This is great news because it means the important stuff won't get lost in a queue of other messages. McCorry suggests taking care of those time-consuming responses ASAP to avoid creating a backlog in one's inbox. Remember, waiting to respond means having to reread the email later before typing a reply, which is a big waste of time. Instead, students should bite the bullet and respond immediately while the email's contents are still fresh.

There's no single way to manage email, but we hope these tips will help. They certainly work for us!

photo credit: EUNOIA via FlickrCC

Books to Teach Social Skills

The Importance of Building Social Understanding

Developing social skills is a critical part of child development. However, it can be complicated to explain to students the importance and relevance of different behavior modifications in an engaging, meaningful way. As a classroom teacher, I often relied heavily on creative books to help set the stage and open a dialogue with students about behavior and behavior management. The following are a sampling of books that tackle multiple social areas that can be hard to explain to students. In my classroom, I always read social development stories in a whole class setting, and then engaged in a teacher directed discussion about the lesson behind each tale. Furthermore, having a framework of a story can be beneficial as a reference when giving students directives about the behaviors. For example, the story Decibella and her 6-inch Voice introduces a five-point voice scale to students, so often when I wanted to temper the vocal volume of student I would ask them where their voice was on the Decibella scale, and follow that prompt up with where it should be. It was a strong tool in helping manage the classroom environment, while also promoting behavioral self-monitoring in my students.

Book Recommendations

The Way I Feel by Janan Cain

Skill taught: Understanding and Expressing Emotions

Grades: Preschool through Third Grade

Summary: An excellent book, with beautiful illustrations to teach students about complex emotions such as pride, fear, pain, curiosity, anger and disappointment. The story also gives students a way to articulate the emotions they are feeling, and an understanding how one might act when feeling a particular way. The text uses bias-free language and vocabulary to give students a framework to express their feelings.

The Way I Act by Steve Metzger and Janan Cain

Skill taught: Behavior Management

Grades: Preschool through Fifth Grade

Summary: An accompaniment to The Way I Feel, this book explains and details character traits such as compassion, curiosity, capability and bravery. The story uses beautiful illustrations and verse to describe behavior in different contexts and how different types of children act differently. Furthermore, the text defines new vocabulary describing behavior in a judgment-free way, and gives students a new wealth of language to describe their own actions. 

 
My Mouth is a Volcano by Julia Cook and Carrie Hartman
Skill taught: Managing thoughts and words without interrupting

Grades: Preschool and up

Summary: An award winning book created to teach children about controlling their thoughts and expressing their ideas at an appropriate time. The book is written in friendly, witty verse that is accompanied by beautifully illustrated imagery. The story provides teachers, parents and interventionists a fun way to teach students to listen to others and wait their turn to speak. 

Decibella and her 6-inch Voice by Julia Cook and Anita De Falla

Skill taught: Listening and Communication

Grades: Kindergarten through third grade

Summary: A colorfully illustrated and thoughtfully written story about a girl who learns to use and her adjust her voice to communicate with confidence. This story teacher students about the five voice volumes, and how one must adjust their levels for different settings. The story uses humor to teach students effective communication techniques, and also provides a section of tips for parents and teachers. 

Personal Space Camp by Julia Cook and Carrie Hartman

Skill taught: Respecting personal Space

Grades: Preschool and up

Summary: An exceptional book that uses humor to teach children about respecting and maintaining personal space in a way that is witty and engaging.

Team Work Isn’t My Thing, and I Don’t Like to Share by Julia Cook
Skill taught: Sharing and Teamwork

Grades: Kindergarten and up

Summary: A great team building book that uses humor to teach students the value of working together and sharing their resources. This book is part of Ms. Cook’s Best Me I Can Be! collection, which includes many other titles that are also worth exploring. The additional titles cover topics such as peer pressure, making friends, asking for help and receiving feedback.

Technology Allows Teachers to Communicate with Students With Ease and Privacy

Teachers who want to be available to students after school hours face a conundrum. On one hand, the best way to communicate these days is via text messages, which are even more efficient than emails. On the other hand, most teachers are understandably loathe to share their personal cell phone numbers with students, and also to pay for the messaging fees their phone companies will charge for all those text messages. Luckily, some innovative services are revolutionizing teacher-student communication, making it faster and more private than ever before.

Google Voice



Teachers who have Google accounts may be interested in setting up a Google Voice account, which can be used to stay in close contact with students while maintaining an all-important layer of privacy. The service will assign teachers a new phone number, which they can link to their current cell phone if they choose. When a student sends a text message to the number, the teacher will see the message on his/her private phone (or computer, if the teacher prefers) without the student being able to access the teacher’s personal number. Replies sent via phone to the student’s number will show the Google Voice number, not the teacher’s private phone number. Teachers can also choose to use their computers to sign in to their Google accounts and reply to text messages via the computer; their students will receive teacher responses as text messages on their cell phones. Texts replies to students, whether sent by phone or by computer, are free. And if, at the end of the school year, the teacher chooses to unplug from school responsibilities for a while, s/he can change the Google Voice settings so that student messages will not be accepted.


Remind101



Another intriguing service is Remind 101. Each group a teacher sets up (Debate Team, First Period, Parents, etc.) will be assigned a unique code. Students who wish to sign up for teacher texts simply text that code to Remind 101 and they’ll automatically be added to the list of phone numbers for that group. When the teacher sends out a message, such as reminding kids that there’s a test on Tuesday or modifying a homework assignment, the students, or their parents, will receive the information as a text message. A teacher can even set a schedule so that messages to go out at a predetermined time, so a teacher can leave work for the day with the assurance that the message will be received during prime homework hours. Students are identified on teacher contact lists only by name, not by phone number, and the teacher’s phone number is not shared either. It’s easy to opt out of the messages, and students or parents can receive the messages as emails instead of texts if they choose, to avoid messaging fees. Currently, Remind 101 is in beta and so is a free service for teachers, too. While it doesn't allow for the kind of back-and-forth that Google Voice makes possible, Remind 101 is a great way to communicate with whole classes or groups of parents at once.


Services like Google Voice and Remind 101 break new ground. And teachers may find themselves breaking new ground, too, as they encourage their students to check their text messages instead of to put away their phones!