talking points # 7 gender issues

When we were first assigned this topic for our seventh blog it made me think of a paper I had to wirte in writing 100 last semester. It was a paper on gender stereotypes and a majority of it had to do with so called "women jobs and men jobs". It reminded me of this because I think that this plays a big role in why there are gender issues in the classroom. Society molds our minds into thinking some jobs are better suited for women and some for men. For example; a nurse is seen as a female role, a doctor as a male, a police officer as a male and a teacher as a female. This is brought inside the classroom even though it isn't really noticed. I think that teachers should try and get a child out of stereotypes of jobs by trying to read books and do activities where the woman or man is doing a job they wouldn't normally be seen doing. They should also post pictures around the classroom of female cops, male nurses, female firefighters and so on.
While doing research I found many articles that talk about how teachers are biased and do not even know it. Many teachers focus alot of attention on boys rather thn girls, calling on boys more and giving them more encouragement. This is between male teachers and female teachers. I also came across an article that talked about how boys act out and disrupt the class when they are frustrated and girls tend to be quieter and participate less. Teachers often make the boys participate more in order for them to pay attention and disrupt more, which is taking away from the girls and making it harder to notice when one of the girls is withdrawing from conversations. Much of the material I read talked about how much more boys get into the sciences, mathematics and construction rather than girls because boys are pushed more to do better in those areas than girls. Girls are told the answer to questions in those areas where as boys are forced to come up with the answer on their own.
In order for education in schools to become unbiased, teachers have to realize that they do biased behaviors without even knowing, and they have to watch for them and change them. Many schools have workshops now for this, for the teachers and students. Some schools have even come up with clubs and organizations for girls that are interested in science and math.