Below are some common classroom experiences that make me feel more or less welcome:
Positive experiences
Negative experiences
Positive experiences
- opportunities to self-determine my learning
- space to give and to revoke consent
- individual attention
- recognition of difference between students (race, sexuality, gender, interest, etc.)
- teacher openness regarding and willingness to correct mistakes
- acceptance and praise of student mistakes as part of the learning process
- deliberate and explicit class and subject expectations
- space for and acceptance of the need for physicality and movement
- space and flexibility for questions and "off-topic" moments
- organization and routine
- respect for personal boundaries
- teacher investment in my learning
- positive interdependence and personal investment in my learning
Negative experiences
- presumptive and gendered language (the scientist = he; the nurse = she)
- cis-hetero-normative assumptions (binary pronouns used without checking, assuming that someone who "looks like" a woman must be married to a man)
- feeling dismissed or having questions shut down
- feeling trapped or bound by the material or the expectations
- not knowing what to expect
- not being seen as an individual
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