A second look
1 of 4
The first thought is fast
A learner walks in ten minutes late with a hood up, and a thought arrives before you have chosen it. Everybody's mind does this. It sorts people quickly, from things picked up over a lifetime. The first thought is a habit of mind. It is not a verdict on you.
For exampleFirst thought: here we go, not bothered.
Pick an activity. Each takes two or three minutes.
For the second after a quick judgement arrives. Pick one move and use it for a week. Then choose the next.
Why this works in your room
A quick judgement is a habit, and a habit can be interrupted.
For your learners: They are judged on what they did today, against a standard you set before you looked.
For you: You catch the first thought before it becomes a decision about a learner.
Pick one place
Not all four. One, for one group.
Who I ask. How I mark.
What I expect. How I read behaviour.
Catch it and swap it
What did I just decide?
What do I really know?
Find out about this one
What is one thing I know about this person?
What could I ask?
Look at the situation
From their seat as well as yours.
What else could explain it?
How does it look from where they sit?
Decide the standard first
What does good look like?
Write it down before I see who.
Watch out for
Fighting the thought, or feeling bad about it.
You only have to answer it. Do not push it away.
Elsewhere in Bradford ThreadWorks
Big 4Rubrics in Teams, to set the standard before you mark.Open Big 4 (opens in a new tab)
The Inclusion HubInclusive language and the tweak of the week: small changes for the next lesson.Open The Inclusion Hub (opens in a new tab)
Lesson WeaverEDI, built in, and the EDI calendar of dates to plan around.Open Lesson Weaver (opens in a new tab)
WalkThrusEveryone thinking, everyone answering, and Stretch and challenge for all: the same bar for every learner.Open WalkThrus (opens in a new tab)
RAISEInclusion through a whole session, from start to finish.Open RAISE (opens in a new tab)
Prompts to paste into Copilot
Copilot can help with the standard and the situation. Change what is in brackets, and never describe a learner to it.
The standard, before I mark
I am about to mark [task] for [level] [subject]. From these criteria: [paste criteria], write what a pass, a merit and a distinction each need, in three plain bullet points each, so I can mark every piece against the same list with the names hidden.
Other explanations
In my lessons, a learner [what they do, for example keeps arriving late]. Do not guess anything about who they are. Give me five explanations that are about their situation and not their character, and one question I could ask privately that would tell me which it is.
Where the four moves come from
Patricia Devine and colleagues treated prejudice as a habit and gave people a small set of strategies to practise for eight weeks. A later repeat found the change that lasted was in what people noticed, cared about and spoke up on.
Devine, Forscher, Austin and Cox, 2012 (opens in a new tab)Why it does not blame
A short exercise for teachers that avoided the word bias, and talked about why learners misbehave and why respect matters, halved suspensions in a small study in five American schools. People change more when they are not put on trial.
Okonofua, Paunesku and Walton, 2016 (opens in a new tab)How sure is this?
Not very. Reviews of bias training find it raises awareness, with little evidence that awareness alone changes what people do. That is why this ends with one move for one week. Five minutes here is not the eight weeks Devine's team used.
Atewologun, Cornish and Tresh, 2018