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As students shuffle out of class from 1st period to 2nd period, a large group of 9th grade girls confidently walk into the room. They are often laughing and talking about their friends or how they felt during volleyball practice the other day. All but one of them sit together in two rows on the right side of the classroom. One girl with curly blonde hair stands around with her friends laughing and hugging them until Mr. DuBe get’s up at the front of the room and tells everyone to take their seats. She then grumbles jokingly as she makes her way two rows over to her seat. “I’m so far away!” Mr. DuBe jokes back saying it wasn’t his fault but the random seat generators. This group of girls together highlights some of the traditional gender roles girls and boys split into in high school. While I want to be careful not to pass judgement because I haven’t seen many opportunities for student interaction built into the class, these girls do tend to socialize only with each other. By building a strong clique they are accumulating social capital. Even if it’s only amongst each other, they are demonstrating how they have a network of friends who support them as opposed to being isolated. I feel like for girls more than guys it is socially very important to have a group of girl friends to have around with you at all times.
A maybe better example of Gilligan’s response to moral justice could be understood when in class Mr. DuBe gave a speech about wearing masks correctly. One girl who is usually pretty quiet raised her hand and made the comment that the better they wear masks now the sooner they wouldn’t have to be dealing with masks ant all. This comment highlights Gilligan’s point that women’s moral compass tends to revolve around other people and collective needs rather than purely individual needs or individual rights of justice.
On Monday the class started a new unit on writing informative 5 paragraph essays. Mr. DuBe began class by surveying everyone and asking how many of them had written a 5 paragraph essay before. Most of the class in both periods 1 and 2 raised their hands. Afterwards Mr. DuBe pulled me aside and mentioned he was super blown away by this response as in the past very few incoming 9th graders had ever written a 5 paragraph essay before. He was especially surprised because the pandemic had disrupted so much of their last year of middle school and that most teacher had had to adjust their lesson plans last year. The students were then asked to read over an essay of a former students and to highlight things that made it good. After this they came together and brainstormed ideas of what made a good essay.
This activity highlighted how Mr. DuBe was adapting his lesson plans based on the students prior knowledge as well as providing scaffolding for his students to eventually write their own essays.
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Hi Molly, I enjoyed reading your blog. I think that your point that girls seem to gain social capital by being surrounded by people is an interesting one. Do you think that boys are able to have an equal amount of social power even if they’re not surrounded by others? I wonder why that might be. I also appreciated your application of Gilligan’s “morality of care” to the girl’s response about masks. What are the mask rules in your school? Do student opinions on wearing masks seem to be influenced by their friends?
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