Brian Cannell points to a study purporting to show that attractive children get more attention. He then theorizes that:
You might ask what this as to do with online education. Well, let me tell you…online education is the great equalizer. If parents treat their students differently it is not a great leap to assume that teachers would do the same. Attactive students would get more attention, if you can see them.
Since my first moments in the classroom– looking out at a sea of faces I didn’t know but was expected to engage– I’ve been thinking about those factors which might predispose me to treating some students differently than others. Am I too easy on students that philosophically agree with me? Or those that remind me of myself in some way? What about those who share some outside common interest?
Of course, all such “favoritism” isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Returning students, students with families, students in small communities without much support– these are valid reasons to extend some extra resources and work the inherent leeway in classroom policies.
Like most I’ve studiously avoided decisions based on attractiveness just as I do race, hair style, and manner of dress. I don’t think Brian’s completely on target about the levelling effect of the distance classroom. That might hold true for a while, but I imagine that the same subconscious factors and impulses come out when it comes to students who are exceptionally motivated, talented, bright, studious, or who otherwise show some “spark” that sets them apart from others. That’s probably the basis within most of our real world attractions– I don’t see how it can be much different online…
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Old news. Look for a documentary called, “The Eye of the Storm,” which, while not making the exact same point, points to the age of this kind of thinking and gives some chilling examples of it in action.
Sure, great equalizer; that’s why I get bitched at by my school-marmish friends for failing to capitalize and puntuate in chat. While visual criteria may be less at issue, the social animal still looks for ways to hierarchicalize its interactions. Where the communication becomes strictly textual we replace those visual guides with syntatic, lexical, etc.
Not old news to me, though not particularly surprising.
I’m also making a different point than you are, specifically about attractiveness and thus attraction, which—if you want to cast it as such—is a very specific kind of hierarchy and has a very different meaning when you are dealing with students who are as old or older than yourself.
If you know it all already, why do you bother commenting on it?
I just thought the other guys blog was funny. If you are ugly, it’s okay…we treat you the same as the attractive students here at our Catholic school.
Now for my opinion on that, I believe for the less smart instructors they subconsiously are more inclined to help students with certain physical characteristics.
I just asked my supervisor what he thought, he is an instuctor at a local highschool, he tells me that it is true in his opinion, attractive students do get more attention. Then he proceeded to make the jocular comment that they are all ugly…
I commented as seque into a reference. I don’t have references for the “attractive folks get treated better” research, although it’s something I’ve heard as long as I can remember, and which certainly seems to fit my personal expriences.
From a thin-slicing standpoint, what else would we expect? By definition “attractive” means “evoking positive responses.”
Yes, if you broaden attraction out to its most basic level then it is all the same. But what is being discussed here is physical attraction. I’ve known teachers that very clearly prefer their “hot” students and could care less about the smart one.
The point is, in an environment where you never SEE your students, what does “attraction” entail? And is it really less prevalent in the distance education environment (I think not, assuming that your attractions aren’t all physical, while recognizing that for some people that’s all there is).
It is neat to see the comments that are directed towards my posting. Even if the author of this blog got my first name wrong.
Keep up the comments people it is why we blog.
Feel free to visit my blog and add your two cents.
DARREN Cannell
Chris,
I doubt that it’s any less prevalent. I suspect the whole mess is driven by the very real need to filter for viability of results, said filtering being a deep and unconscious need. So, lacking our normal “thin slice” clues and cues we substitute all manner of news ones, increasing, say, the value placed on grammar and stylish violations thereof, jargon, whether we get our weather from theweatherchannel.com or wunderground. And of course the hot chicks all use Mac.
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