A Possible Gender Balance in the Classroom

[Chisom Oguh]

To start off, I want to make sure that you (the reader) know that I do not know the gender identities of all of the students in my class. School had already started for a few weeks by the time I got there, so I do not know how the students introduced themselves. Also, because I am a “new” person (who isn’t going to be there the whole school year), I don’t have the power to determine how much the students share with me about themselves. In this response, I will be referring to possible female-identifying students as girls and possible male-identifying students as boys. Moving on, based on my observations, there are some stereotypical gendered behaviors that are present in the class (e.g. the boys being in the back, loud and rowdy while some girls are in a group, gossiping (based on what I’ve heard in their conversations)).

This past week, I noticed that each table in the classroom appeared to have a boy and a girl seated together. I brought my observation up to Ms. Hebs and she confirmed that my observation was correct. Originally, the seating chart was based on the students’ last name, but she also attempted to make sure that there was one boy/girl per table. Does this establish any gender “regimes”? I don’t particularly think so. When Ms. Hebs is teaching new material, students from both genders participate (well, she has to haggle them for participation), and when they work on their worksheets, there is at least one big group in each class that consists of students of the two genders. But as expected, the group of boys that are friends would congregate and the group of girls who are friends would congregate while there would be various partners around the room. There would also be students who keep to themselves.

What the Tables Look Like in the Classroom

There is one student in the class who goes by Malcolm which is not the name that is listed on the attendance sheet. The only reason that I know this is that during my 1st week there, Ms. Hebs couldn’t come to school because she had some home renovations that she needed to be there for. Therefore, there was a substitute teacher who ran the class. When he was calling attendance, he said Malcolm’s registered name, and the students all said that “They go by Malcolm.” I don’t remember the substitute’s reaction to that comment, but I thought that it was great that Malcolm was getting that kind of support in class even when their teacher was absent.

Personally, I don’t think that my gender identity affected my educational experiences to a certain extent. I was just that “good” student who listened to the teacher and tried to give my all on the assignments (unless I was not interested in the subject). I was that typical quiet student with glasses who didn’t participate in class much but knew the material. People would come to me, asking for clarification on the class material. Did my gender affect how teachers interacted with me? Most definitely. And this would tie into what their expectations were for me. By showing potential through being able to understand concepts faster than my classmates, there was a lot of encouragement for me to head into STEM (lucky for them, I liked learning about all kinds of things).

From the lens of a tutor and not the students, I never knew how much teachers had to deal with at the same time. On Monday, a student somehow fell out of his chair right before class ended. Along with his earlier disruptions of class (which happens frequently), Ms. Hebs was not having it. She just looked… exhausted. When that occurred, I was helping another student on their worksheet on the other side of the classroom. I wondered “How would Ms. Hebs handle this? Why is this student giving her so much trouble?” With students like these, I’ve always wondered as a student what happened on the administrative side of things. Would the student get reprimanded properly? If that student continued their “unsavory” behavior, what more could the teachers do to stop them from doing it?

• This topic was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Chisom Oguh.

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