Gender Issues in Schools and History Lessons

Elizabeth J. Meyer wrote in her article, "Gender Harassment in Secondary Schools: Understanding Teachers' Interventions" about the difficulties that teachers face when attempting to respond to heterosexual harassment, homophobic harassment, and harassment for gender nonconformity issues in the classroom.  Meyer sees the situation as a layered, complex challenge; one with varied moving parts acting separately, making matters more difficult.

Meyers touches upon ‘external influences’ that effect teachers who are attempting to deal with these uncomfortable issues.  One of the most striking aspects was the administration versus teacher issues that crop up during these bullying incidents.  Meyers writes there was “a trend of teachers not trusting their administrators to support their actions and feeling that they have to handle most non-violent discipline issues alone” (8).  While the actual aspect of teacher vs. administration didn’t necessarily surprise me, the amount of times the issues came up was shocking.  It seemed to me there was a major bias in powerful positions, a sad fact that I didn’t expect to find in the article.  Since those in power speak the dominant discourse, it should not have surprised me, but reading all the accounts certainly bummed me out.

I also took issue with the teacher who said:

“[I don’t stop name-calling] if I’m too tired, if there are set things I need to get through in a lesson.  I know my lesson is going to take 60 minutes, I’ve only got 70 minutes to deliver it, I’ve got 10 minutes to waste.  Right now my job is being a teacher and I have to get through the math before the end of the year.  It’s not my priority list.”       

While I understand this as supporting evidence of the exhaustion suffered from the constant work teachers face, I do think that name-calling problems should be seen on a case-by-case basis.  If a student, for example, is teasing or giving another student a hard time, a teacher should use their best judgment whether to intervene.  If the line is crossed, then the teacher should speak up, no matter the exhaustion level. 

I think this example was a little broad – there are plenty of battles I didn’t want to fight, but chose to because it was the right thing to do.  Sometimes teachers focus too much on lesson planning and curriculum and forget that we’re also teaching proper sociable behavior.  I always remind students this when I hear off-color remarks or homophobic jokes – they won’t be tolerated in the real world and they won’t be tolerated in the classroom.  Plus, it's just plain cruel and wrong.

The last quote I want to write about was actually the most frustrating part of the article.  Meyers wrote that “the challenge that this finding presents is how to raise the awareness of educators who have not personally felt the impacts of discrimination or exclusion from dominant culture” (17).  I was irritated by this quote for a couple reasons.  First, doesn’t everyone feel left out or alienated at some point in their live?  Is it really so difficult to empathize with students who face gender discrimination?  Are people so callous?  And some of these people are my colleagues?

I think it’s sad to think only teachers who are directly affected by discrimination are the ones who actually do anything about these bullying abuses.  Being an observant person should be able to clue in to teachers that there are students that get picked on, they need to be specially attended to, and ones who are on the other side (the bullies) should be taken care of, as well.       

         Perhaps I’m naive about the awareness of other teachers to these issues.  Although I was from a town that doesn’t look at these issues in a good light, I did slowly become aware of the injustices through my interests in history and pop culture.

         I found several parallels between the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s and the modern LGBT Movement.  Today, racism against black people from the 50’s and 60’s is a common lesson taught in classrooms across the country.  I think one day the word ‘fag’ will be looked on as badly as the n-word.  Hopefully, this day will be sooner than later.

         I think that I was made more aware of this, like I wrote above, through my interest in history and pop culture.  As I explored the GLSEN.org website, I found myself looking at different profiles of great gay/lesbian/transgender people throughout history.  I think the more these are presented in the classroom chances are more students will become more sensitive to what they say to each other.

          For example, I think the Stonewall history lesson was interesting - people couldn’t go out to the bar to hang out!  This seems like a simple injustice to show to students, something they could easily relate to. 

The other history lesson that I thought was interesting was the fact that there were people who fought to take homosexuality off of a listof mental disorders.  I think it would be good for students to read that homosexuality isn’t a choice – genetics are never a choice.  Once students see this more clearly, I think it will be easier to bridge the wide gap currently found in classrooms.  

Lastly, I wanted to mention how I was not aware that it was LBGT awareness month this past month!  One of the resources on the website has the month of October and a famous LBGT person for each day, much like Black History Month.  Hopefully, this will month will be more prominent in our nation’s consciousness in the future.

         Finally, I wanted to note that the movie “Milk” played a major part in my awareness of the difficult history of LGBT people in Ameria and I think it helped expand my consciousness about homosexuality rights in America.  Harvey Milk was a fascinating character, a sorta Martin Luther King Jr. of the LGBT-rights movement, and in the right context, could be presented as one of the heroes of America, not just the LGBT movement.    

Keepin' It Real: Overview

Last week we had a lovely discussion about the article "Keepin' It Real" by Prudence Carter.  We first discussed the major terms in the article, which included:
•Cultural Capital.
•Embodied cultural capital.
•Objectified cultural capital.
•Institutionalized cultural capital.
•Dominant cultural capital.
•Non-dominant cultural capital.
•Cultural Straddlers.

Next, we discussed the major themes and ideas of the article.  I thought these quotes were particularly important to understanding the article:

•(72) – “The failure to acknowledge black cultural capital signifies to many of these students a disavowal of their cultural backgrounds, their collective identities, and the value of their cultural practices.  They link their own self-importance to this capital and expect to find some place for it within the social spaces they inhabit, whether at home, in their neighborhoods, or in their schools.”

•(75) – “Both educators and students have a responsibility to address how culture affects academic achievement.  When dominant social groups define and circumscribe what is appropriate for success and achievement, the choices made by low-income African American and Latino youths can have negative consequences.  It should be a matter of personal choice whether individuals listen to hip-hop music or soft rock, dress in FUBU or LL Bean, or maintain mixed or same-group peer associations.  Certain ethno-specific cultural resources can function as nondominant capital and serve a social and cultural function.  These sorts of cultural codes do not intrinsically determine achievement and mobility.  Yet many of these students, especially the noncompliant believers, need help in negotiating and expanding their ideas and presentations of self, and ultimately in balancing different social ‘acts.’  Both students and schools could benefit from an opening up of society’s understanding of culture and capital.  

After the break, we watched a short clip from Dave Chappelle that encapsulated many of the ideas we discussed in class that day, as well as other ideas from other parts of the course.

Next, we watched the powerful "A More Perfect Union" speech President Obama delivered in 2008 about race in America.  I thought the points he made about our difficult history were fascinating:

  

I ended class with the Dave Chappelle sketch "White People Can't Dance."  He makes funny points about the different music that gets people moving, depending on their cultural background, or cultural capital.  

If we had more time, I would've included this article about the history of affirmative action.  I honestly have mixed feelings about affirmative action - it can be frustrating - but I thought the article was more focused on the discourse surrounding the issue.  Initially, affirmative action was brought in to make things more fair to the underprivileged.  The current discourse is arguing for affirmative action for the benefit of diversity in colleges, which is a harder argument to make than the fairness argument.  I thought it was interesting!  

I Care: Let's Do Whatever It Takes, By Whatever Means Necessary

In Michael Wesch's article, "Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance," Wesch tries to describe a way of approaching teaching that he calls 'anti-teaching' because he has come to the conclusion that 'teaching can actually be a hindrance to learning."  He points out how he had found out his students at Kansas State University were disconnected to learning and he has been trying to find a way to connect them to both education and the world at large.

In his article, Wesch writes "if our students are 'not cut out for school', perhaps we have made the mold too narrow or inflexible, or more likely, just not meaningful enough to inspire a student to fit in.  That's the significant problems" (5).  This idea was interesting to me in a couple ways.  The first, "we have made the mold too narrow or inflexible," reminds me of teachers who refuse to try and look at students' points of view, and think their way of teaching is the only right way.  Any students who don't fit into their ideal are left behind.

At first, when I started teaching, I was relatively disturbed by teachers who thought like this.  Now that I have a few years under my belt, I can relate a little more to that attitude.  It seems like there are individualized plans or modifications for every other student.  It can become frustrating, and tiresome, when it seems like we're constantly trying to catch up on students who aren't exactly matching our effort.  Yet, as I continue learning more about teaching, these particular challenges can be the most rewarding, especially when the students start to come around, so I've been more patient with them as much as I've been irritated.  It's a weird dynamic, to say the least.

Which brings me back to the quote: the learning the students haven't been "meaningful enough to inspire a student."  This speaks to a more overall attitude and can seem like a somewhat easy answer - inspire the students and they'll follow - and it seems like a bigger challenge than a buzzword.  Wesch certainly takes us to examples where we can do this, although the challenge seems slightly overwhelming.  I tried imagining doing some of his classroom activities and thought about how difficult  it would be to get there, especially with MCAS/overall standardized testing looming over everything.

But, I'm sure it's not an overnight process.  Trying to understand the idea that "the medium is the message" helped clue me into some of the first steps I could take (6).  Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are becoming such a part of our society, yet aren't used much in the classroom.  Wesch points out that "at a deeper level these are little more than simple parlour tricks.  They make up a rather creative and interesting means of learning but not a reason for learning.  They do not address that most significant problem, the problem of significant" (6).

This is a common problem for teachers - the questions from students about what's the point of doing an assignment, how the lesson won't effect their lives, how they will never use this or that skill in the real world.  It's increasingly difficult, as Wesch points out, as we've become a fractured society and it's been more difficult to find a common narrative ground to lay education's significance on.  Wesch points out that we need to recognize that there needs to be a shift "from the national to the global" and "our grand narratives must also shift" (6).  

I watched a couple of Wesch's videos to further understand how to shift the narrative.  The first video was one discussed in the paper - "A Vision of Students Today."  

I wish I could say I was surprised by some of the statistics and anecdotes offered in the video.  I was an undergraduate only a few years ago and I could feel in my classmates a similar unease depicted in the video.  Many friends would voice these concerns.  I felt the frustrations as well, yet I think I had many professors who looked outside the box and were able to connect with me.  Some students don't have this occur and they don't look too fondly on their educational experiences.

I continued looking into Wesch and watched his hour-long lecture that further dove into the work done behind the first video:

Wesch was the keynote speaker at a conference in Manchester, UK, and I found this video struck a chord with me, more so than the reading.  He had so many fascinating ideas that I found myself jotting down throughout, things I had thought of but couldn't quite put into words.

He spoke about his studies in New Guinea and how he had discovered that the people there didn't actually have names.  There was a census done and it was reported that around fifty people had the same name.

I was particularly struck by this because here in America, it's almost like we have two personalities now, two names, so to speak.  There's the real us, the physical us, and then there's the Facebook/Internet alternative universe us.  And people in New Guinea don't even have licenses or ID's, never mind Facebook profiles!  Imagine that!  We're trying to find significance through technology, which ends up being a hollow, shallow existence.  Meanwhile, there are people on Earth living without Names!

There were plenty of other awesome ideas in the video, and I'm going to list them here in case people haven't watched it and are hedging on whether to or not.

• Media mediates our relationships.
• We shape our tools.  Our tools shape us - McLuhan
• Half of students don't like school, based on a show of hands in class.
• To be significant, you have to be on TV - or that's how people see the world.
• In the 1950's 12% of people considered themselves "important."  By the 80s, the number had risen to 80%.
• The search for the authentic self is where people are having issues.
• The medium shapes the message.
• Power corrupts.  PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
• "I care.  Let's do whatever it takes.  By whatever means necessary."

The last quote was what Wesch poses to end his presentation.  I thought it was particularly powerful quote and one that will leave an impression on me for a long time.   

The Power of Discourse

The first thought that struck me after reading the three chapters from Gerry August's "Making Room for One Another" was the importance of perception as both a student and teacher and how we must never assume anything, for we can never truly know something until it's explicitly said or done.  We, as teachers, can make observations and read between the lines to clue us into something, but we must be direct in order to find out information.  Only after we uncover the truth can we make the necessary adjustments that will help facilitate learning and/or understanding with our students.

In August's book, she observes a student, Cody, who is an adopted Cambodian boy with two mothers.  August specifically picks Cody's family to research because she would like to know about the behavior of a kindergarten student who has two lesbian mothers when faced with a classroom filled with mostly heterosexual families.  His teacher is using a teaching technique that introduces dialogical practices in the classroom.  When the teacher uses dialogical practices, August argues, the students are receiving education which "resides the foundation of democratic association (8).  August writes that "dialogicality pushes voices out from the normative socio-political center, promoting diversity among utterances.  This struggle is worthy of our attention, for it is the site of socio-political change" (8).

August attempts to prove the importance of dialogicality by watching the teacher, Zeke, using it throughout a school year.  I would argue does that Cody's situation does in fact prove August's hypothesis to be correct, that dialogicality teaching is important.  The interesting part is that the scenario doesn't work out exactly as she had predicted.  When this happens, it teaches us all a lesson, August included.

August predicts Cody has been anxious about discussing his parents because he has two moms.  In the end, Zeke and August discover he was more uncomfortable with his status as an adopted child, revealed after the reading of "Tango Makes Three," a story about an adopted penguin.  Cody had trouble understanding why his birth parents didn't want him, had abandoned him, and the story helped him understand that there may have been more to the story than them simply not wanting him.

As August showed in this discussion about Cody's interaction with the book "Tango Makes Three," the book had more meaning to him than the book "What's in a Family," a book about different ways families can be set up:

"Gerri: And um he asked a question during the discussion of it, why couldn't the orig- why couldn't the original parents keep the eggs.  And I that was like a light bulb.  It was a light bulb for me."
"Tamara: That's a big, big, big big thing for Cody.  Right.  Right."

The original perception was that Cody was nervous and shy about talking about his parents because they were both moms.  The story "What's in a Family" was introduced to Cody's class with hopes he would interact with it, which he doesn't do.  "Tango Makes Three" is when he finally speaks up about his questions on his own adoption.  He is able to connect to the text and learn, a major theme we've  had throughout various texts in class (Shapiro, Bartolome, Finn).

Cody wasn't outgoing about his 'moms' yet this shyness was part of a bigger picture - his lack of confidence with his adoptive status.  Although this wasn't the original idea that August had in observing the execution of the dialogical teaching technique, it actually worked out in a more interesting way, and speaks volumes for the importance of this technique.

Cody may have had a stigma growing up as an adopted child if he hadn't make the connection as early as he did in life.  He may have been labelled as a weirdo if he had never dealt with the anxiety he held over the issue and never had the power to express these concerns.  I think it's brilliant that these techniques were being used at such a formative age.  The story allowed Cody to connect his own issues with adoption to himself, something he had to do for himself, something he may have never been able to formulate without this seemingly simple tale.  I thought it important he had the power to do it.

Clearly, August was surprised by this turn of events, but it still was a fascinating turn in her research.  The reading taught me that, as teachers, we make mistakes like that, too.  We may only see a piece of a bigger puzzle, not the big picture with our students.  The teacher, Zeke, was able to find out this information because he was successfully able to "stretch" Cody's notions of his life and his power in it.

As teachers, we have to challenge ourselves to stretch our students' perceptions of their own lives.  Zeke and August weren't afraid to go all the way with their dialogical techniques - when the "What's in a Family" text didn't illicit a response they continued with their curriculum and found unlikely results with "Tango Makes Three."  We can't go half-way when trying to teach our students the power rules in our society.  As challenging as it seems, the results could effect a child for his/her entire life.  This is a truly democratic practice, as Shapiro pointed out last week.

Perhaps teachers should learn the discourse, the language, that pushes these ideas, through workshops and personal days.  It seems like it would be well-worth our time.

From the reading, I interpreted that carefully using language when trying to tackle these subjects if of the upmost importance.  August portrays this throughout the chapters by showing the dialogues of different days in the classroom.  I was impressed by how good he was at diffusing difficult situations the children were throwing at him.

The idea of discourse was an idea we touched upon throughout last week with Shapiro and I thought more about how politicians use discourse to try to change the public's mind about issues.  During class discussion last week, there was a vague memory I couldn't place about Newt Gingrich and a list he sent to other Republicans to help get their message out.

I finally figured out what I was trying to think of today while reading the August piece.  In 1996, Gingrich had sent a memo with two lists of words.  The first list he called "optimistic governing words" and the second list was called "contrasting words."  I thought it was particularly fascinating - he was trying to change the discourse of the Republican agenda by using powerful words, like "prosperity, success", and contrasting them with other loaded language, like "radical and bizarre."

I may not agree with many of his views, but Gingrich certainly is an interesting political character, a person who understands the power of discourse in our society.