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Teacher bias can be both beneficial and disastrous, but, being a psychology studying student, I know that this is human nature. We believe that our way of thinking is right, or we would not think that way, and, even if not on purpose, we can accidentally let it slip, even teachers do it.

I am going to share an anecdote, from this year, my sophomore year in high school. It seems that teacher bias can influence the most in a history class. For example, my history teacher believes that JFK was definitely shot from the grassy knoll, and she believes that there definitely were multiple shooters. So, when we came to the assassination of JFK, this was a direct quote, "Lee Harvey Oswald was the man wrongly accused of shooting president Kennedy." I immediately corrected her by saying, "You mean 'possibly wrongly accused'? Right?" and she responded with "well maybe, but if you see the evidence, there was a shooter on the knoll." and that ended my conversation with her, and I'm not saying that I believe or do not believe the Single Bullet Theory, but I still find that this was horribly biased of my teacher.

I have one more example. My Spanish teacher in my freshman year said, and I can't remember why, "And the No Child Left Behind act with these standards now, thanks to our grand great president, Mr. Bush." Once again I am not making a political statement, just an observation. Everyone in the class laughed, and I could tell a couple of them we're peer pressured into it. I did not laugh, nor make a confrontation of it, and I think she got the message that that had made me P.O.'ed.

The effects of this can be traumatic and lead to drastic misinformation, such as with the JFK case. I still can't believe that they can get away with it, even though it can be harmful. There are other types of bias also, other than political, such as bias towards or against students due to their academic ability, their dress, their size or build, and possibly their gender.

Overall, the effects of these biases can take away from a students education, and I notice the students that don't show bias usually are regarded as the best teachers. This has led me to believe that if a teacher judges a student, they are already forcing them to conform to what they believe they are, and this can cause students to fall into social classes that can send them to an ivy league school or end up with a job thats description is "want fries with that?"

Learn more about this author, Jacob Reis.
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