RES 5535: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (summer 2010)

Boys Will Be Boys

Before I begin, I wanted to say that I have spoke of gender segregated classrooms for upper elementary students. I am considering using gender segregation in my reading literature circles this year to see how it works. I have known it to be successful with other teachers in the county I teach. I found this article from Newsweek and thought someone else may be interested in it too. I feel, especially after reading about Jake, that boys often slip through the cracks. Female teachers plan lessons thinking that they are appealing to males, but we really don’t know. Some teachers don’t even try to bridge the male style of learning when teaching. I am willing to give any teaching method a try, as long as it benefits the children. Here is the gender segregation link:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/22/the-new-segregation-debate.html

I learned a lot after reading Chapter 5 on Jake. Obviously, not being male, I had no idea what goes on in the male mind during school. I had no idea how important it was to link activities to their interests. I thought that as long as I thought it was something that boys would like it would be fine, but it was still under my control. I doubt what my idea of “boyhood likes” are the same as Jake’s, since mine would never refer to NASCAR. Also I had no idea how important the father relationship was in the life of a boy. Jake aspired to be just like his dad, no matter what. The book said “Like other things in his family life, reading had to make good sense to be something of value to Jake.” This was an ah-ha moment for me. In my reading classes I use lots of fictional novels with my students. These however interesting to me and the female students, hold no real value for the males in my class. I will consider more real life relavent readings this year in class. I also found it sad when Ms. Hicks said that “resistance and tuning out became a safer route than giving up his passions and identities, and perhaps the comfort of more familiar kinds of knowledge.” There are many times when I look at boy students, especially in my remedial class, and see that they have tuned out. I always thought that they were being disinterested or disrespectful. Now I am seeing that this is not the case. I had never stopped to ask them what they were thinking about or rather or not they found what we were reading interesting. The book also gave illustrations about when teachers and even the researcher thought that Jake was off task and not listening and he really was. Several times I have called on male students that I thought were off task, but they were able to provide a correct response. I have learned that active listening and paying attention do not always look the part. It is possible for a student to be drawing and listening or fiddling in their desk. I know the teacher took Jake’s car away at one point in the chapter due to him having it out because she saw it as distracting. I try to be aware of issues like this. I allow my students to have materials out that may help them in writing or reading. However, when they begin to play with the items or passing it around to others I do take the item away. This was a huge issue for Jake and I can understand his disdain for the practice of taking personal items away. I always give the items back at the end of the day because I feel that it was important to the student (and otherwise I may forget). I also found it interesting that Jake’s parents saw his as a bright student at home, even though he was struggling in the classroom. I think that often parents’ views of school and home are the same; when in reality they are totally opposite. Jake was allowed to go from space to space freely at home and his attention did not have to be given to one task at a time. Also any activity that resembles reading (looking at magazine pictures, flipping through informational books, etc.) was seen to his parents as reading. This is not how it is in a typical classroom. Because there are so many different styles of children that a teacher must differentiate for in the class, the structure of the class cannot be individualized like it can be at home. Also the goal of reading for a classroom teacher is too increase word knowledge, gain comprehension, and improve fluency. These things were not what the parents were looking for in the home setting. The thoughts of Jake’s future even differed between the parents; mom was hoping for college and dad wanted Jake to help out with the family business. Jake spoke up and made his voice heard that he wanted what dad wanted. I have seen a lot of this at school this year. During IEP meetings, I heard one parent say they want the child to go to college and the other say they want the child to go into the workforce. These are often working class parents who live together and speak everyday with the child. Maybe at fifth grade children shouldn’t have to be deciding their future quite yet. Being the first person in my family to earn a college degree, I didn’t decide until tenth grade that I wanted to go to college. Yet now it seems that even before kindergarten parents seem to know what they want for their child, with little regard to their desires.
I have enjoyed reading this book about working class children. I feel that it has opened my eyes more to another side that I would not have known. Deborah Hicks explained in Chapter Six, how she used several others’ research to help her in her study of working class students. I agree with Murdoch when she, like Bakhtin, says that “I can only choose within the world I see”. Currently I live in a middle class society. This is what I “see” in terms of education. When I previously made decisions about lessons, writing journal topics, and reading selections, it was my middle class students that I had in mind. Through reading this book I am now able to see another important group of children in my classroom. I believe that I will become more of a hybrid teacher in terms of literacy choices that I give to students, one that will allow more involvement of individual students’ cultural and home discourses in their assignments and lessons.

Amy Reep