Dealing with the boys, or the lack of them

[Sophia Maag]

The 4th grade class I sit in on has a unique gender balance: there are four boys and fourteen girls. Whereas most classrooms I grew up in were about evenly split, Ms. McLaughlin’s class provides an interesting opportunity for observing gender, specifically female-identified students. When thinking about this question initially, I wasn’t sure exactly how a girl-dominated classroom differed from any other, but then I realized that there is a lot missing from the classroom. For example, on Wednesday, one of the boys lept out of his chair, ran to the other side of the room, grabbed his pencil pouch, ran back to his desk, and jumped into his chair, almost toppling over. He then proceeded to fidget for the remainder of his sitting-down time. In contrast, most of the girls stay firmly in their chairs. Thinking back to my elementary days, I remember that the boys were often more squirrelly than the girls; whether that’s because of cultural or physical reasons, I don’t know. I think girls are often expected to behave better than boys, so perhaps socialization plays a role in movement, too. One thing is for sure though, Ms. McLaughlin’s girl-dominated class is definitely quieter and less hectic than most 4th grade classrooms, and I think a big part of that is the boy-girl ratio.

Another observation I’ve made is the difference in the level of school work between genders. When I was younger, there were always one or two really smart boys in my classes. They had the worst handwriting, but they read chapter books before everyone else and knew their times tables without even trying, it seemed. There is one of those boys in the classroom I’m observing. Although I think a lot of the kids (girls and boys) are smart, the average score on a multiplication quiz was roughly 23/50. Many of the “smartest” girls didn’t answer more than thirty questions correctly. Ben, on the other hand, only missed one. (For context, the kids had three minutes to complete 50 multiplications problems. The teacher told them to only fill in the ones they knew and to leave everything else blank.) I’m curious as to why Ben, and no one else, scored so high, and why there was always a Ben-like boy in all my classes in elementary school. Although there is a picture on the wall that says “Everyone can do well in math!” boys are often taught that they can be better at math and that girls aren’t as good. Again I’m curious how much the difference in skill is due to development and how much socialization.

Another aspect related to gender that I’ve noticed is the classroom art, and the art the students had made.  New to the wall (and perfect for our subject this week) were bios of the kids, but in an artistic/drawing-based form. All the students had filled out a sheet of white paper with their names, hobbies, family, favorite book, and things like that. It was interesting to compare the girls’ the boys’ papers. For the most part, the boys’ focused more on sports and used more reds and blues. They were also not as nicely colored/drawn as the girls. I think this shows good evidence for how we socialize boys versus girls. It is not that boys inherently like sports, and girls prefer cats over snakes; kids are programmed into liking what they like and acting how they act.

Although I normally visit Greenvale on Mondays and Fridays, this week I went on a Wednesday. On Wednesdays, the 4th graders get to meet up with their 2nd-grade buddies and help them with a project. This week the older kids were helping the 2nd graders make paper jack-o-lanterns. However, because of the classroom’s odd gender ratio, many of the girls were paired up with two or three 2nd grade boys. After the event was over and everyone was back in their classrooms, the teacher said to the class, “Our girls did great since they had to deal with all the boys!” This comment was interesting to me because it implies a separateness between the genders, and that it’s hard to work with boys. This seems like the general theme — boys act more physically and are louder than girls. Not only did the teacher insinuate to her students that boys act differently than girls, but she also shows it in her teaching style. For instance, a few weeks ago there was one boy and one girl who were both behind in math. Whereas the girl was paired with me and I patiently walked her through math problems, encouraging her gently along the way, I saw the teacher harshly tell the boy that he had to concentrate and finish his work. Girls are treated with more care, and boys seem to get a more “deal with it”/tough it out approach. This reminds me of Gilligan’s In a Different Voice; the emphasis of caring for girls perhaps teaches girls that caring is an important aspect of their development and the lack of caring for boys teaches them that care is not an essential part of their role.

In other news, I’ve continued to work with the student Allie, who seems to have problems with attention, among other things. On Wednesday I was paired with her for the buddy activity (she had two 2nd grade girls). I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t been there. Allie didn’t talk to her buddies at all, I’m not sure she even looked at them! Her focus was directed at the projector, which was displaying live images of ghosts and witches, and which was emitting spooky Halloween noises. I ended up helping the 2nd graders. At first, I tried to get Allie engaged in the activity, saying “Can you explain the activity to your buddies, Allie?” or “Can you show them how to draw a pumpkin?” or “Can you hand them your scissors?” She didn’t get the hint that she was supposed to be the MKO in this situation. In fact, the 2nd graders seemed to know more than the 4th grader. One drew a pumpkin and upon seeing it, Allie whined to me that she wanted to draw a pumpkin “like that” and asked me to draw it for her. The other 2nd grader, on the other hand, asked me if it had to be a “normal jack-o-lantern,” to which I replied “no.” She proceeded to fold the paper in half and started making several cuts in it. Instead of drawing a simple pumpkin, she created a 3D pumpkin! She thought out of the box! I asked her if I could take a picture and she said yes. What you see below is the most enthusiasm I saw out of her the entire session! What this buddy session showed me was that kids’ development is not solely based on age; there are lots of factors that contribute to how kids act and how their intelligence develops.

 

[Trina Eichel]

Sophia,

Your comments about observing the differences in behavior between boys and girls in your classroom is very interesting. I definitely had similar experiences in my elementary school where all the girls were considered well-behaved because they sat quietly in their chairs and did their work while the boys were much more unruly. I have not really noticed this in my classroom at prairie creek. Perhaps this is because all of the students are out and about a lot of the time working on different things that it does not place attention on just one student or just one group of students. I think maturity is an interesting concept in elementary school because a lot of boys are excused for their behavior because they are seen as less mature than the girls. I don’t think this is true I just think they mature in a different way. School was not made for young boys and so they do not behave like they belong there. Molly gives her students a lot of active breaks where she allows them to go run around and rest their minds so that when they come back to the classroom they are able to focus for a longer period. This method works really well in her classroom, but I can see how it may deter some learning as well because of all the breaks.

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