Gender

So, today in my praxis class, I became VERY aware of being "gender bias". First let me just put it out there that I do not have a problem, nor do I think it is a big deal when a teacher refers to the group as "guys", or when I am called am in a group that is called "guys". Although I try to watch myself very closing while using this term, I think that these days the term guys has a different definition. When I looked up the definition in my Mac computer, the term (guys) came up as a group of people of either sex. Anyway, what I wanted to really talk about, was my 5th grade class this morning. I am normally very aware of the children I pick to come up and and help me out, or to play the instruments. I make sure that there are an equal amount of boys and girls especially at that age where they might think I'm picking one over the other. Today, I had a lot planned for my lesson and so as I was going through it, all that was really on my mind was okay make sure you have enough time to put the Orff instruments together with the song. I didn't realize that most of the people I was picking to come help me out were girls. At one point I heard a boy in my class say, she's picking all girls. That is when I realized and started switching it up. I felt really awful that it had slipped my mind, but I'm glad it happened because now I can be more aware of it, and I also know how much it can impact the students.