So far, I have seen some amount of gendered behavior in the classroom but it has not been overly obvious nor, from what I can tell, particularly problematic. The students that I am working with in Mr. DuBe’s classroom are all in the tenth grade, and therefore certainly aware of their gender and how it affects their daily lives, but it doesn’t seem to play out very much in the classroom itself.

Some of the gendered behavior that I have observed has to do with how certain students interact with one another, as there is definitely a bit of flirting and playful teasing that goes on between some of the male and female identifying students. I haven’t witnessed anything out of the ordinary, but it makes a lot of sense that there would be some of this type of interaction as students are in 10th grade and trying to explore their own identities and how they fit in with the other 10th graders.

As far as a gender regime, I would again say that there is nothing too obvious or problematic that I have witnessed in the classroom: I would say that female students definitely tend to share their answers with Mr. DuBe and the class with more frequency, and are generally a bit more eager to participate. There are a good amount of male students who seem checked out, and while there are certainly some female students who appear disinterested in whatever Mr. DuBe has to say, the majority are male. The girls generally seem to be a bit more put together and prepared for their classwork, and while it is certainly a generalization, there is a definite quality gap between the work of girls that I have looked at / helped and the work of boys.

There are some boys, such as Luke and Stone, who buck the trend and participate quite a lot. Luke is the main example of this, as he frequently participates and shares both answers and comments on what is going on in class. While his answers are not always correct (in fact they are frequently slightly off base), Luke continues to share eagerly whenever Mr. DuBe has a question. I have noticed some of the other students in the class give a tiny chuckle to themselves when Luke raises his and or answers, so it seems that his behavior may come at the cost of some social capital. I am not sure of the extent to which Luke is aware of this behavior from his classmates, but I hope if he does know about it it doesn’t keep him from continuing to engage in class.

My gender has certainly influenced my educational experiences, though I am challenged to think of a time in which it negatively influenced my education. In classes such as women’s and gender studies in school, for example, there was not a class that we had where I was not incredibly aware of the fact that I am a male-identifying student – it shaped how I felt about the class, what I shared with my classmates and the teacher, and what my answers were to essays in the class. While it makes a lot of sense for that to be the case in WGS, I would say that I was also frequently aware in my classes of times when I would maybe not raise my hand to speak on something that had to do with gender in an English class, as I had already shared something and I wanted to make space for female students to chime in.

In a larger sense of how my education has been effected, I feel lucky to say that it has not played a large role in the larger course of my education. I have never felt discouraged from taking a class, or like I was not welcome in a space because of my gender, which I am very grateful for. I was able to take classes that are typically male dominated like CS and extracurricular robotics, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. While I was aware of my gender while I was in these spaces, it was always from the perspective of trying to make sure that I was cultivating the space to be comfortable and inviting for my female peers, which is much easier than having to actually enter those spaces as a female student.

Helping out in class this week was very rewarding because we were helping students work on their plans for the first essay they are going to write this year and, for many, the first essay that they are going to write in almost two years. Students were supposed to come up with their thesis statements and three topic sentences based on the statement, and myself and the other tutors were waiting in the back of the classroom to give them feedback on what they had so far. Some of the students had perfect topic sentences and great thesis statements, but for others it was clearly an incredibly difficult task. One I got past a tiny bit of shock at the fact that these 10th graders were struggling with something that seemed so key to a language arts class (this reaction is bad! I know!), it was very gratifying to help them develop something that made sense and that they could feel better about moving forward with the writing process.