Clicking an item below will take you to the indicated part of this document, or you can scroll through the questions in order. Snap judgments of people's characteristics are a common influence on life in schools. As early as kindergarten, children can be heard talking about who is smart and who is not. Perceptions of others are based on everything from students' ways of dressing to their choices of leisure-time activities. Oftentimes such labels are the primary reason for avoiding interactions with particular students.
Labels are potentially dangerous for two reasons.
To encourage students to reserve judgments about others, there are several things I might do. Initially, I would want to collect some information from students. I might then use an activity, much like the one demonstrated by this teacher in this case, to encourage discussion and reflection on the problem. I might also use short stories, or scenarios based on situations that have occurred at school, to illustrate how readily we make judgments about others and to stimulate discussion about the ramifications of doing so. Discussion of these scenarios would be structured to encourage students to withhold judgment until students have considered the facts or issues in the scenario, perspectives of different actors, and what they know about more and less effective ways to handle such situations.