Class Presentation - October 27, 2009

Hello Fellow Classmates,

I would like to say that the presentation that was completed today on gender equity within the classroom was very well done, and made me realize quite a few things about my own personal style within the classroom setting. The first aspect that was brought up in the presentation had to do with gender: how we are raising our children to be like a typical 'boy' or 'girl' and influences such as media, magazines and advertising that perpetuate these particular stereotypes. There was a shift in the presentation that dealt with what theorists had to say on the issue. The functionalists stated that the inequalities that may arise due to being female or male, served the function of creating a situation where students would work harder to be better to overcome these inequalities. I do not agree with this as it seems to me to be an excuse to ignore inequalities that exist, and then a culture within a classroom that is not equal would be perpetuated because of this systemic discrimination.

There were ideals that stemmed from the symbolic-interactionists that made more sense to me, such as the way that students / children interact with each other is where they find their own personal sense of identity. This is how one could explain cliques that exist within the school system. I decided to look a little further in Mead, a theorist that was spoken of very highly within the presentation. The following was pulled from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

The organized community or social group which gives to the individual his unity of self may be called "the generalized other." The attitude of the generalized other is the attitude of the whole community. Thus, for example, in the case of such a social group as a ball team, the team is the generalized other in so far as it enters—as an organized process or social activity—into the experience of any one of the individual members of it.

Granted this is only a drop in the ocean of what this man discovered, but it really is a powerful draw, the 'collective group' when processing ones self identity, especially when peers are such a vital part of ones social group prior to graduating from grade school. I personally did not belong to any one clique in school as I hung out with my family / extended family vs. any friends I would have particularly had within my own peer group. It always did fascinate me, the social power that these individuals had over a school as large as the one I graduated from (Bishop Grandin in Calgary, with a student population of roughly 2000 students) was astounding. It would be interesting to see if these cliques that exist are formed on the basis of some gender stereotypes that exist, such as do 'Jocks' become a group due to the stereotype of being a man depends on being into sports?

But I digress, what I wanted to focus on was the issue of gender equity within the classroom.
I think that it is a very important to be aware of the gender stereotype issues that exist within ourselves when dealing with our students. The presenters passed out a very informative self-evaluation that deals with this issue. It appears in the book titled Together and Equal written in 1997. The questions that stood out for me were: 1. Did / Do I read as many books to my students about females as I do about males? 2. Did I avoid making judgmental comments on children s appearance (ex. stating that a girl has pretty long hair, or commenting on the neatness of a females writing instead of her ability.) This issue needs to be addressed and is a very serious one. Self-esteem of both females and males can be effected due to gender inequality. The messages that were presented in the power point slide that our females and males receive throughout their lives, especially in the area of what girls should look like (thin) and that males need to be powerful and strong, were quite alarming.

I am a beliver that one's gender does not effect or limit what that individual is capable of. What I wanted to bring up in light of the gender equity issues that were brought up in the presentation, is that it seems somewhere along the way we have lost sight of the validity that the traditional roles hold within our society. I am not agreeing with what used to be said about females in the 1960' s and 1970's due to womens' liberation: that the family was being corrupted because women chose to leave the family home to work. That is pure nonsense in my opinion, and not just because I am a woman : ) I do believe that women today who choose to stay home and raise children do not receive the respect that they deserve in today's society. I think that we have become so politically correct that we have stepped over a line and into a realm where there is a type of reverse discrimination. It is important to realize that it is an ongoing journey towards realizing gender equity, and the central theme of 'equity' means choices should be available to individuals regardless of gender, and not to over-compensate by forcing a specific gender to make a certain choice because they didn't have the opportunity to make that choice in the past. (Like my example with women pressured to not be stay-at-home moms)