My understanding of implicit bias is having negative thoughts, feelings, or prejudices against something, such as a group of people, without being consciously aware of doing so.  The survey was quite surprising to me.  I decided to take the one on Native Americans thinking that I would “ace” it.  The survey was really interesting to participate in because I had to use two keys on the keyboard and place words and names into different categories.  During it, I grew frazzled because I knew it was a timed activity and if I took too long to press a key, it would impact my score.  My score at the end suggested a “moderate automatic association of Past with White Americans and Present with Native Americans”.  I’m not exactly sure what this tells me, but what I think is that I don’t associate Native Americans with being here before White colonists.  This is exactly opposite of how I thought I would score!  In all honesty, I am not sure I can recall a time when I’ve used my own implicit bias to navigate a situation.  I am not suggesting that I haven’t had implicit bias, but, since it’s an unconscious thing, I am not aware of one.

In the story, Wherever I Go, Abia seems very confident and secure in her home environment, despite it being a refugee camp.  This surprised me because I assumed that a camp was a horrible place in which to live.  As she began her new life in her new home, the idea that they might take a plane also did not fit with my idea.  I thought there was a lot more of having to dangerously trek through other countries.  My guess is that the author chose not to show this for creative reasons, not because it does not happen.  My students did not seem to notice her nervousness about finding a forever home.  They seemed to really focus on which country her new home was in.  They observed that the school sign’s said “Elementary” which is in English and that there are tall buildings and a mountain in the background.  Thus, they were confident she was in America.  I had a hard time diverting their attention from the location to how she might be feeling.