Gender Equity

     When I was a student in college during the early years attending classes on campus, if I can remember correctly, it was probably the girls that responded to asking questions and they were acknowleged more than the boys. The boys or should I refer to them as males would also respond to questions, but not as readily as the girls. I don't think the problem of gender bias has been overblown or underblown. Gender bias has been around for years. This is why a law for Women Sufferage was created for women to have rights to speech and job opportunities, because the population of men in the early years believed women had a place in the home for their children and husbands. They didn't have the opportunities in the workforce to work and receive equal pay as the men, the opportunity to attend college to receive a better education or to vote.
     I do believe there could be some merit to how boys are losing out as much as girls, but in different ways in schools today. When I taught a dyslexia class for more than 3 years, I always had more boys than girls. My class also had more minority students consisting of Hispanics and African American students. I remember in one of the classes I attended for Reading on a university campus, the instructor said boys are much slower to maturing than girls. And this often interferred with their education and learning ability in different subjects. When I taught a 3rd grade class in a charter school, I would assign students to groups or centers to work on projects and review different lessons I taught in the class room and I would notice the girls would take control of the group or centers leading the boys in the lesson. The girls would ask more questions about the lesson they were working on than the boys. I would have to assign or rotate the centers to make sure I would receive responses from the boys. Often times the girls would argue who was in charge of the group.
     I would approach the issue of gender in my school and district, by working with others on a special project, gathering data, working with teachers, to ensure there is equal amount of task given among the boys. I would speak up at district meetings or campus meeting to bring the attention of equal quality of education for boys and all students learning ability. The appropriate tools and research based resources, continued professional development for teachers to teach students and learn more than one way to reach all students and learn their culture. Because of the different situations and living conditions in the home of these students. Maintain a strong communication with all parents and keep resources and information available for parents to get involved with interventions.
     The issue of gender bias or lack there of illustrated at the David School from the Country Boys video is an example of boys failing more in the school system than girls. I did notice how many girls were present compared to the boys during their morning introduction from the principal. I noticed how the author used boys in this country town to illustrate the hardship in school with behaviors, disrespect for teachers, and their learning ability for subjects taught in school. I believe these examples were used to let the audience be aware of a growing problem in our society. I was sad in the video when the principal resigned from her position. It made me wonder if this principal spoke up about the school for her students and the improvements for the school at board meetings and district meetings with the Superintendent. She was probably a dedicated principal who did not mind coming out of the box. Perhaps she was forced to resign from her position, this was never mentioned in the video why she was leaving. The students Cody and Chris are having some difficult times with their life at home and the situations that seem to hunt them during their school time to improve their education and graduate.
      The video showe examples of the men as fathers in this small coal mining town that was at one time prosperous, but have become a regular small town with not future of growth for jobs. The fathers portrayed drinking  and not holding jobs to support their families and the women were the ones in the family being the backbone and supporters in the family for their children.