{"id":1395,"date":"2020-01-15T04:16:26","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T10:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/?p=1395"},"modified":"2020-01-22T08:59:46","modified_gmt":"2020-01-22T14:59:46","slug":"you-and-me-and-the-fae","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/blog\/2020\/01\/15\/you-and-me-and-the-fae\/","title":{"rendered":"You and Me and the FAE"},"content":{"rendered":"
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image via theeverydaymomlife.com<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

FAE stands for Fundamental Attribution Error<\/em>. It’s a fallacious type of thinking in which we attribute other people’s actions or performance to their character<\/em> but excuse our own actions or performance by attributing them to our situation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

It is entirely possible to commit FAEs within the same day,\u00a0 even within the same hour:\u00a0 cutting someone off in traffic because we are late to a meeting and then yelling “Jerk!” when someone else does the same thing to us.\u00a0 One study found that when something bad happened to someone else,\u00a0 subjects blamed the person’s behavior or personality 65% of the time.\u00a0 But when something bad happened to them, the subjects blamed situational factors and circumstances 66% of the time.<\/p>\n

In education, the FAE is particularly troublesome.\u00a0 The less teachers and administrators are aware of this type of bias, the more likely they are to attribute failures and behaviors to a child’s character, downplaying situations and circumstances that may be affecting performance.\u00a0 Worse, sometimes a pattern emerges in which some kids are often cut some slack while others never seem to catch a break. This can be highly obvious in suspension rates when they are broken out by ethnicity and\/or gender.<\/p>\n

Less obvious is the effect context can have on high-stakes performance measures such as End of Course exams, ACT and SAT tests, state tests, and formative assessments. When students perform poorly in school and on tests, there is a subset of teachers that will blame that performance on the child’s character, ignoring other, external factors: she didn’t take it seriously, he didn’t put any effort into it, he messed around too much, she ignored my advice, he’s a slacker, she’s too busy being the class clown, he slept through class, she’s a troublemaker<\/em>;\u00a0 the list goes on and on, sometimes arriving at the “Those Kids” station.\u00a0 As in, “those kids never do well<\/em>” or “those kids just don’t care about school.<\/em>” That may be the ultimate, and most dangerous, FAE.<\/p>\n

Here’s a short list of external conditions that can affect performance:<\/p>\n