Equity and Gender

My junior year of college I completed my literacy practicum at one of the local elementary schools. We were there to apply the principles that we had been learning in our literacy classes in order to help children learn how to read and write. One of my classmates and myself were assigned to a kindergarten teacher who was not much older than we were. Although we did not do much direct instruct in regards to reading, I have never been in a kindergarten classroom that I thought was more developmentally appropriate for children. Every day the children would work at centers. These centers were a variety of activities to help children learn something. A few of the activities could be numbers. The others were letters. Some were life skills and others were a mix in between all of them. Each geared to help teach the children many different ways.

To some this might seem like a waste of time, energy and resources. Would it not be far more efficient to just have one or two activities that teach one principle?

NOPE!

Efficient, maybe, but effective. Not likely. Anyone who has interacted with children……wait, no, scratch that….anyone who has interacted with PEOPLE know that no two people are exactly alike. We all have different skin, eye and hair color. We all have different personalities. We all think different thoughts. We all have different likes and dislikes. So it should come of little surprise to know that the way we each learn is different as well.

What this kindergarten teacher was doing was making sure each child was able to learn in the way that they learn best. They were receiving an equitable education. No equity does not mean the same as equal. A post by Shane Safir defined both in simple terms that I feel explains them well. “If equality means giving everyone the same resources, equity means giving each student access to the resources they need to learn and thrive.”

So what does this have to do with gender?

I am glad you asked.

Gender is yet another one of the many traits that sets us apart. Yes, ladies and gentleman, females and males, men and women, boys and girls, the two sexes are different. And yes I say two because regardless of what gender you identify with or call yourself children are born into this world, except for one or two very, very rare exceptions, as either male or female.

There, now to further express my opinion on the controversial topic, yes, I do believe that man and woman are equal. I do not think that means we are the same. I do believe in equal opportunity however I believe it is important to acknowledge our limitations as well as our strengths.

Because of the way men and woman’s brains are wired, not only to we think differently. We learn differently. If we truly want to be able to give both men and woman equal opportunity we need to teach them differently. The first step to that is to acknowledge that the two are different. For example men, because of the way they think and the process, tend to be better at math. This does not mean girls cannot be but statistics of SAT and ACT scores do show that males tend to get higher scores. Well, at least male learn math better the way we traditionally teach it. A few schools have tried math classes just for girls and have found they are far more likely to truly learn when they are working together in a group.

Of course there are exceptions in every case. Just as I started out saying, every child is different. That includes gender. I feel that as a society by refusing to acknowledge our differences and use our own unique strengths because of it, we are holding ourselves back as a society.