Teaching in 2010

by missrandell

“When the Criminal Homicide and Abortion Amendments bill passed in Utah at the beginning of March, both Shine and Marie reached the end of their rope when it came to women’s rights and issues consistently being pushed backwards rather than moving forwards. They decided to have a day in which any blogger could write about women’s rights and issues and bring them to the forefront so that we could speak up and make all of our voices heard. Know it. Write it. Say it.”

Teaching is not a neutral act. It would be naive to think that all a teacher does is present information in a completely unbiased way. Sure, maybe the way the information is explained is nonpartisan, but the fact remains that the information itself carries a bias. Whose work are you studying? What culture is privileged? Do you give quizzes on Shakespeare or Maya Angelou? Do you ever mention that Oscar Wilde was gay? And if you do, does it matter? Who writes your textbooks? What dialect are your quizzes worded in?

I know this. Each time I have “The Racism Talk” in a class I’m teaching I know it. My bias is clear: racism and discrimination is wrong, and stereotypes are backassward. I tell students that I encourage free speech – and I do – but I always add the caveat “just keep it clean… don’t set out to offend“. I don’t want to tell a student coming from an ultra-conservative, far right-wing home that they’re wrong, but I want them to be able to participate in a discussion, not shut down when views that conflict with their own are heard.

So how does this tie in with women’s right?

Last week during a meeting with a member from the Faculty, I was used “as an example”. Juxtaposing me with another student teacher – a strapping young man whose head is somewhere around 6’4″ – the faculty member was trying to “illustrate a point… so don’t take this as sexist but it’s just the way the job market works.”

“Now, if I have a class of rowdy, basic-level teenagers and I’m looking to hire someone, who do I have a better feeling about? This big, good-looking guy or this skinny little girl? Who’s more likely to have the class take them for a run?”

Wow.

This may be true in terms of sheer physicality, but I would hope that whoever was doing the hiring would take the time to read my resume and talk to me, not just take in my hair color and dress size and assume that I’d be eaten alive by “the bad kids”. I understand the point being made was a true one, yet the underlying message seemed pretty clear:

We still have to work harder than men, and often our looks still speak for us. And that, my friends, is something to worry our pretty little heads about.