Gender Equity :: Economics

Gender Equity Gender equity is a very important subject matter that teachers must deal with in the classroom. As I taught at RAA middle school some differences begin to stand out between the genders. One thing that popped out at me the most was the maturity level of the two. In saying that I mean the sexual desires of the students at their age. That is important for teachers to see for when we begin to group students together for activity. One instance is that of boxing out in basketball. The skill calls for the one boxing out to push out with their butts against the other player. This at the middle school level is not appropriate for the girls and boys to interact in. Their hormones just a little too much. Another difference I noticed was the desire of guys to be with guys and girls to be with girls. This had nothing to do with attraction but dealt with the misunderstanding of skill level. The men perceive the women to be inferior in sports skills so in their group they want guys. The men seem to rather have the least skilled guy over the best skilled girl. I feel they do this because it would be embarrassing for them to be shown up by a girl. So it is our job, as teachers, to do away with this stereotype, and make both genders understand they can benefit skill wise from mix gender activities. In the elementary level the major difference was the age-old argument that girls nasty and guys nasty. The girls definitely do not want to be paired with guys and vice versa. In elementary it had nothing to do with skill level but everything to do with just the gender. I remember putting a boy with a girl at Buck Lake and it was like I had made a kid eat peas for the first time. So the difference in elementary and middle school is just the reason why the boys don't want to be paired with girls. So in noticing that I feel that yes I was biased at the elementary level and I figure I did that because I really wanted to keep the interest up. I noticed that the one time I paired different genders the productivity of the boy went down. I guess that scared me so I shied away from it, but now looking back maybe I should have paired them up. The students will have to learn one day that the two genders can work together to accomplish a goal and what better time than in elementary.