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Edited on Wed May-19-10 09:13 PM by Igel
It's fascinating. The teacher makes a lot of decisions. Some kids get by with more than others. Others get more help than others. Some are possibly kicked out, others are allowed extra time, others are cut no slack.
Now, there are two assumptions that you can make. One is that the teacher is being egregiously biased, openly having favorite students and letting them get by with a lot while others are treated like crap.
This was the assumption I had the first couple of hours I observed teachers doing their job.
The second assumption is that the teacher has formed varying expectations and has come to certain conclusions about students. The kid ignoring her during new material isn't harrassed because he's done it in the past, is a good student, and learns the stuff just fine. The kid who's mind wanders for a moment is called to attention because invariably he needs to pay close attention or else he won't learn it. The kid who's been good can get by with more than the kid whose bad behavior will only escalate. The kid who's said he wants 71% for his final grade because he's happy with a C, hates the material, and intends to do something entirely different is cut more slack than the kid who's unfocused and underachieving, and expectations are higher for the gifted kid whose said that he intends to study that teacher's subject but is momentarily off-task. By midterms, the teacher usually knows her kids.
Shifting from one assumption to the other requires more information, but mostly it requires adopting a different perspective. One in which the outside observer has far less information than the teacher and actually has to commit the nearly unconscionable sin of trusting the teacher.
The same two assumptions are also possible for parents with several kids. The kids aren't treated the same because they're not the same. It drives younger kids crazy, mostly because that's cognitively where they are.
On edit: Hampering showing trust to teachers is the fact that sometimes they *do* openly show favoritism or treat a student or two like crap. Thing is, the students' conclusions aren't always valid and neither are observers' because they leave out information or don't have information.
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