In an ideal world, every teacher would approach every student like a blank slate of potential. But the truth is, despite teachers’ best efforts, prejudices and assumptions get projected onto students. A recent study in the Social Science Research journal found that teacher bias has a profound impact on students’ own expectations and achievement.

As a pre-K–12 trainer for educational equity with her organization, Seed the Way, Rebecca EunMi Haslam dismantles systemic bias for a living. Although she acknowledges that none of us are immune to bias, she says we can all do our part to “try to be aware and increase our capacity to question our assumptions, to recognize when our perspectives might be influencing our judgments and expectations of others, and to check our bias at the classroom door with the goal of aligning our stated core values with our actions.” 

In the July/August issue of Literacy Today, ILA’s member magazine, Haslam makes the case that speaking openly about racism, bias, and inequity makes for better teaching and learning. She unpacks bias and self-assessment, schema theory, values-based teaching principles, personal politics and religious beliefs, and implications for student outcomes. 

As an organization that strives to bring equity issues to the forefront of literacy education, we feel that this is a must-read for all educators—which is why we’ve decided to make this article open-access.