Sexism In The Classroom

2 Pages 600 Words

Sexism in the Classroom

In their article "Sexism in the Classroom", Myra and David Sadker argue that sexism exists in the classroom and that boys are treated better than girls. The authors, Myra and David Sadker, talk about the research they did and what they observed over a three year period. They found that boys have a better opportunity of learning because they got more attention from the teacher and they observed that boys were often called on more than girls in the classroom. Their research also showed that the teacher gave boys more positive comments.
Before I read this article I honestly never thought about sexism in the classroom. I believed boys and girls were given the same amount of attention in school. If I had thought there was sexism in the classroom, I would have guessed that girls were being favored over boys. In all of my classes in high school and in college I believe that females and males have been treated equally.
This past week I observed my Spanish class to see if sexism exists in my classroom. The ratio of girls to boys in this class is 12 to 7. I observed that girls were called on more often than boys. Also, the teacher gave girls more positive comments than they gave to the boys. For example she told a few girls that they had worked well in their group and did a good job on the assignment But, most of the time she went around the whole class to get everyone to participate. I think that the teacher did a good job of trying to involve everyone in the lessons we were doing.
There were more girls in my Spanish class and always more girls who raised their hands than boys. When we were put into groups, it seemed to me that girls contributed more to the group than the boys did. I also noticed this week that when we came into the classroom and sat down, it was mainly girls in the front of the classroom and mainly more boys towards the back of the classroom. It has been said that teachers often favor one side of ...