Talking Points # 7

Gender and Education


Gender and Education in the same sentence is always difficult. Boys and Girls are usually separate when you talk about the classroom or even school. You can tell this because some teachers do a boy-girl system for seating arrangements, have boys in one line and girls in the other, have boy bathroom passes and girl bathroom passes and even in gym its normally boys vs. girls (although, sometimes the gym teacher tries to mix it up).


Teachers even influence gender in the classroom and they might not even mean to. I found this quote on a website about gender equality:


Teachers socialize girls towards a feminine ideal. Girls are praised for being neat, quiet, and calm, whereas boys are encouraged to think independently, be active and speak up. Girls are socialized in schools to recognize popularity as being important, and learn that educational performance and ability are not as important. "Girls in grades six and seven rate being popular and well-liked as more important than being perceived as competent or independent. Boys, on the other hand, are more likely to rank independence and competence as more important." (Bailey, 1992)


Gender can also be biased on grades, also on that website i found some information on grades compared boys to girls. "..boys have never been in more trouble: They earn 70 percent of the D's and F's that teachers dole out. hey make up two thirds of students labeled "learning disabled." They are the culprits in a whopping 9 of 10 alcohol and drug violations and the suspected perpetrators in 4 out of 5 crimes that end up in juvenile court. They account for 80 percent of high school dropouts and attention deficit disorder diagnoses. (Mulrine, 2001) This quote proves that boys are being gender biased in most school systems. It is sad that the world has come to this bias. But along with racism, I guess we (the U.S.) can't get away from biasing or racism. For example, people treat black people with disrespect or lower them because of their skin color, and people also do the same for boys in the academic world. 


Since I am going into teaching, I do not want to follow this and separate my boy students from my girl students. As like any teacher, I want to keep my classroom as equal as I can but I bet that I will bias my girls and my boys at some point in time. That will not stop me from working towards my teaching and trying to be the best teacher I can be.