The Smartest One in the Room ...Sort of

Upon receiving the computer, the professor found a technical problem the staff member could not solve and the professor looked to her class for help.

The young, Ivy-league-educated doctor surveyed the classroom of working teachers she had been charged to teach tolerance and understanding. She pivoted on her heel and made an almost complete 360-degree turn, dismissing every one of her students' potential to help her until she stopped at the one man in the room, a young man with a tie and glasses.

"Can you help me?" she asked.

"I'll try," I replied.

When I started the program that would lead to my master's degree, I didn't understand why the professors bothered taking time out of the classroom to teach students, current teachers, lessons like Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover. Hadn't that lesson become irrelevant in a world of Sesame Street and Star Trek, in a pluralistic state like New York, to a profession that introduced teachers to the myriad and unique forms of humanity?

I think even the educators who embrace the idea that children are unique and should never be judged based on skin, color, gender and appearance, forget to apply the lesson to adults.

People assume I'm smart, I think because I wear glasses. People assume I am conservative, because I wear a tie. And the combination has made me a "Math Professor" in the eyes of at least one teacher who did not understand me. While harmless unless empowered by me, the labels are inaccurate, as labels always are, and that is frustrating. It is particularly frustrating when these judgements are made by people you would hope know better.

I understand it is human nature to make judgements based on appearance. It is anthropological, biological and psychological. We are open to people we find attractive. We close up when we fear someone. However, humans also have the capacity for logic and such judgements are, in fact, illogical.

Maybe I was best suited to deal with the computer problem. I don't know. However, what I do know was that the selection process was based on superficial and circumstantial evidence and that I cannot support.