Angelo Ruggiero

Gender Education Experience Paper

Monday December 1, 2003

Gender has never been an issue that I thought was a problem. I was always the one that got attention from my teachers and I was always called on. I never felt that I could not succeed and I never thought that a female might feel intimidated in the science classroom. Most of the science teachers that I had in middle school and high school were males; it wasn’t until my junior year that I had a female science teacher. She put a little more grace into the classroom and wasn’t as harsh on the students. The male teachers usually had a shorter fuse and would yell a lot sooner than any of the female teachers. I also recall when I would have a class that was taught by a “coach”. These classes were never my favorite. I see now that the coach always favored the guys that played sports and were only nice to the females that wore “flirty” clothes. Aside from it all I guess I was blind then; I never thought gender was an issue in the classroom.

It was finally brought to my attention that most of the pictures in the textbook were of males taking on the dominant role. Also in class all you ever heard were the males who contributed to the history of science. The first time I had ever learned about a female in the history of science was in my genetics class my senior year. Some of the females in class thought that science was not for them and it is the boys who can cut the frog or light the Bunsen burner. After seeing females in the classroom and some of their attitudes, I was very aware that things needed to be changed.

I know that my teaching practices have to favor both males and females equally. I have to make females feel comfortable in the science classroom. It was also brought to my attention that I do have the same style of classroom management that my teachers had while I was in school. I do not let them get away with anything. I have a very short fuse and once I see it I do not give them time to get away with it. There are a lot of issues that I need to work on as an upcoming teacher and gender is one of them. I will try my best to introduce female in science history just as often as I introduce males. I will push for females to take the leader position of their groups during activities and labs. Females should no longer sit back and observe science they should participate above their highest abilities.