What a cute little expression I used to say… but it has a deeper meaning that I never thought of until now.
Going off of Katie's example/situation with gender bias I wanted to comment on my own experiences. In my praxis site, I see a split between boys and girls on a daily basis. When the class uses rhythm instruments, the teacher will always have the boys on one instrument and the girls on another. One gender will start off a round and the other will follow. If the class is too noisy or rowdy while moving around to the steady beat, the teacher will have the boys sit and the girls do the exercise, and then they will switch. No matter the activity, it seems like they are always divided by gender.
At the beginning of class, the students are expected to form a circle on the floor for warm-ups. I have noticed now that when the students enter the classroom, they tend to sit with half of the circle being boys and the other half girls. When they are asked to choose partners for group activities, all groups, except for maybe one or two, usually have students of the same gender. I feel like this idea of separating by gender is creating competition that may carry over into other areas besides music activities. The students do seem to be competitive when they are separated. Is this really teaching them equal rights or that boys and girls can work together well?
When asked why he approaches a division of the class based on gender, the teacher simply stated that it makes it easier. This way he does not have to waste class time counting the number of students and how to separate them. The classes (in terms of, for example, fourth grade) generally have the same number of boys as girls in them. The teacher also said the students get a kick out of being separated this way. I know it may be fun for the moment, but will it backfire later? Will these students always try to separate between genders and therefore become less worried about equality as a whole? Am I over-analyzing?
Maybe the expression should change to: Girls AND Boys Rule!!
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2 comments:
What age about are the students? I remember when I was young I hated girls and had to stay away from their cooties. Maybe it is easier to separate them because that's what the students want.
He divides all K-5 this way. And yes, I though boys had cooties too, but now I'm looking as if it helps keep things separated, instead of helping to bring the genders together and erasing those thoughts.
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