English Landing Elementary School provides training to teachers on “implicit bias” and “microaggressions”

On April 20, 2024, English Landing Elementary School in Missouri posted on Facebook that staff “took time to learn, listen, and reflect around our AVID and Equity and Inclusion implementation and work.” Slides from the training posted on Facebook show that the school’s staff learned about “Implicit Bias and Microaggressions.”

Parents Defending Education gained access to a document from the training after scanning a QR code on a slide. The document provides the following definition of implicit bias:

Implicit bias refers to the unconscious attitudes and stereotypes that shape our responses to certain groups especially around race, class, and language. Implicit bias operates involuntarily, often without one’s awareness or intentional control, which is different from explicit racism.

The document also provides the following definition for “microaggressions”:

Microaggressions are the subtle, everyday verbal and nonverbal slights, snubs, or insults which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to people of color based solely on their marginalized group membership. In many cases, these covert messages serve to invalidate positive group identity or trivialize their experiences. They are designed to demean them on a personal or group level, communicate they are lesser human beings, suggest they do not belong with the majority group, threaten and intimidate, or relegate them to inferior status and treatment.