Gender Issues

The buzz on campus is … separate classrooms for males and females … a separate “high school” for 9th grade only … differentiating instruction … expanding the curriculum offerings so more students have more choice.

It seems that recycling is alive and well in the educational institutions of this district. If a teacher stays in the profession long enough, there is time to see it come, go, come back again with a new name, die off, and be resurrected once again. At that point, it’s time to move on because the teacher truly has been there, done that, and seen it all.

When I walk through the door and see that the class is a majority of males, I relax: I prefer to teach boys. A recent discussion with a dear friend, also an educator, revealed the reason why: boys asks questions, but girls make comments.

Boys, if you can get past the male posturing, are generally more straight-forward than girls. If they want to know something, they ask. If the teacher asks a question, they clam up, but will respond with gentle prodding that allows them to be right—somehow.

Girls, on the other hand, don’t’ ask questions: they make comments, lots of comments, and if they don’t understand what’s going on, those comments often become personal snipes at one another, as well as the teacher.

Example: Teacher invites the students to talk about Antony, a character from the play Julius Caesar, to help them clarify their understanding of who Antony is and his role is in the play.

Male response: isn't he some guy in the play? (restating the question)
Female response: he’s so totally hot in the movie! (playing to the crowd)

Teacher: yes, he’s a male character in the play. I’m asking about the character in the play, not the actor in the film.

Male response: uh, I’m not sure what you want me to say. (silence from male students)
Female response: well, you don’t have to be so bitchy! How was I supposed to know you were talking about the play? (lots of giggling from other girls)

Guys either listen or they don’t; if they don’t listen, they fall asleep. Girls either listen or they don’t; if they don’t listen, it’s because they are writing notes, doing their make-up, whispering, text messaging, flirting with a guy across the room, making faces at a girl friend across the room, adjusting the furniture, digging in their backpacks, demanding to use the bathroom … the list is endless!

When a male student is told to knock it off, he usually does after first making a comment such as, “You talkin’ to me?” Once the teacher confirms that he is, indeed, the target of the comment, he usually accepts he’s been busted and shuts up, at least for the moment.

When a female student is told to knock it off, she attacks: “Me? Why do you always pick on me? I wasn’t doing nothing!!” If the teacher again directs her to be quiet, we have to travel the “why do you always pick on me/why aren't you telling so-and-so to be quiet: she's talking too” road, which can be long and winding even on a short day.

Guys seldom do personal grooming in the classroom; girls are hard-pressed to keep their make-up and mirrors hidden for an entire 55-minute class. Guys may read a text message, but seldom initiate it. Guys may not take notes on the class discussion, but girls are constantly writing anything except lecture notes. Guys don’t decorate their notebook covers, but girls have photos that would make any grown-up blush! Guys write filthy comments and gang graffiti in the textbooks and on the desktops, but girls confine their writing to notes they pass during class, between classes, during lunch, on the way to and from school, during the pep rally, at the dance. Neither the males nor the females use a paper and pencil to complete the assigned homework.

Tell a guy to pull up his pants and he does it; tell a girl to cover up her bulging boobs hanging out of a spaghetti strap tank top and she wants to know why you are looking at her!

For me, it’s a no-brainer: give me a group of guys over a gaggle of girls any day.