Hello, Just had a reasonably well argument in my head about what counts as a ''positive attitude'' towards education; and how my characteristics (non-binary agender, white, middle-class background, medical disability, sociology A-level) might change what I consider a ''positive attitude'' and therefore affect who I hire. Please note that this is for a teaching application and not student attitude. So, if you were a headteacher looking at applications for potential teachers, what would you consider ''positive attitudes'' towards education? Please put your characteristics (gender, race, class, disability, anything else you think is relevent) to check for bias. Just interested. You don't necessarily need to be interested in teaching to answer.
(not listing things so lets just assume i'm biased against everything) Personally i don't think that any of the things you listed would be important to me when hiring a teacher. What matters more would be their knowledge of their subjects their motivation for the job and their ability to connect with their students. Do unconcious biases play a part? Yes that's inevitable with how the human brain works. Do they play such a big part that they would be even nearly as important as the things i mentioned above? No definitely not. A great teacher is a great teacher no matter his "statistics". What I personally would avoid mentioning in a jobinterview is your gender identity unless it is EXTREMELY important to you. Because in my experience that's something that puts people off from the start. Another thing is that you do not have to give information about your medical status to an emloyer (or possible employer). Most don't even demand it. I know that this is probably not the answer you've been looking for but it is something you should keep in mind.
Oh, I wasn't thinking for me. I was actually talking about myself as a head teacher employing. So let's have this scenario: Person 1: Gender - male Race - black Grades - 2-1 Experience - 5 years Top 3 reasons for wanting to be a teacher: was inspired by teacher at school and wants to inspire children the same way, wants to help children succeed, wants to help remove inequalities within classrooms Person 2: Gender - male Race - white Grades - 1-1 Experience - 10 years Top three reasons for wanting to be a teacher: wants to have the good holidays, wants the good pensions, wants to have the easy marking Whilst person 2 does have better grades and more experience,the reasons he's given are reasons why I would not suggest to hire this man as whilst teachers do like the first one and the last is dependant on how much he works; it suggests he won't actually work much on the children's learning due to wanting it ''easy''. Person 2 might have slightly lower grades and half of the experience; grades don't tell us too much and anything more than 3 years work experience is enough to have ''good'' knowledge of the classroom. The reasons' he's chosen to wanting to be a teacher sounds positive and possibly innovative - I would ask some more questions on what he'd do to help the children succeed and what changes he would make in the classroom to remove the inequalities; it creates a conversation. However, people from other backgrounds might think of different ''top three reasons'' and claim my reasons for not hiring are [unconsciously] prejudice against a group. So I was just wondering [and instead of negative reasons I asked for positive attitude to keep things positive] what kind of things people would hire for. Of course, that list is probably longer than not hiring for. I realized that ''race'' might not actually sound like it fits but here's why I added it. If the scenario was flipped and ''white'' was in person 1, and ''black'' was in person 2, I would still hire person 1. However, due to the fact I am white, people might think I'm being unconsciously racist due to hiring someone from my race when in reality it's due to the ''reasons for wanting to be a teacher'' [since either way I hire person 1]. I was doing A-level sociology and it says that different groups, and in this section race, have different attitudes to do with school; and any group - in this case ''white people '' might have a different idea than ''black people'' when it comes to what constitutes as a ''positive attitude'' or ''negative attitude'' towards teaching - even if the person, in this case I, would hire for the exact same ''positive attitude'' and not hire for the exact same ''negative attitude'' regardless of characteristics but still there is a bias; but either way I would not hire for person 2's reasons [If you'd like to give me a good reason for person 2's reasons for ''top three reasons for wanting to be a teacher'' go ahead, but I can't see one].
I'm white, middle-class background, non-binary/transmasc (working as female atm), with GAD, 3 years professional teaching exp., 2+ years pro-bono exp. I definitely think that a positive attitude towards education includes creativity, temperment, desire for growth; personally and in students, even extending to the system, inciting learning vs/ forcing it, encouraging self-motivated learning even beyond the curriculm, dedication to creating as equal an opportunity as possible in the classroom, and acknowledging the short-comings of working inside the system. I think a very poor educator focuses more on test scores than how their students react to learning. In some cases, I think experience will actually work against educators regarding this criteria, though experience shouldn't be discounted. I basically wouldn't even look at grades, what I would do is maybe 'test' for knowledge in the interview. I'm looking to hire a teacher, if the would-be-teacher can't break down and explain their pedogogy to me (for example), then do they really know how they're going to be a teacher? Or if they can't explain some point of what they are applying to teach?
What's your opinion on blind job interviews then? I mean people have been discussing this idea for a while. On the pro side people wouldn't be judged by gender race or anything similar but at the other hand it would probably be harder to access someone's personality.
