I have always said that I will treat each person equitably in my class. That means, I’ll treat you the way you deserve to be treated by the way you act in the classroom. That isn’t the same with the educational equity. The conditions for educational equity would be to treat everyone in the class the same. This I know is hard for me to do because of the personalities of the girls compared to the boys. This is not always the case, but usually the girls will listen and the boys are usually talking, sleeping, or acting like they aren’t listening to be cool. I can easily prove my point with the classes I have now. I have a class of 20 students first period where all but 4 are girls. That is my only class that I can actually ask a question and there is silence. No one wants to say anything. The males are either sleeping or not paying attention. Now, contrary to that come visit my 5th, 6ht or 7th period class where in all three classes there are 8 females total in all three classes. These classes are loud with students constantly talking, not listening, or busy doing something else. These classes are very loud and aren’t what I would call equitable. This shows the differences in girls and boys attitudes in the classes so of course I will have to treat them differently, but I’m not supposed to. That is something I would like to know how not to. If a student is disrupting class you have to get them to stop doing which is giving them he attention that they wanted. If you don’t get them to be quiet then that is inequitable to those that are trying to learn. So being able to give each student regardless of gender or ethnicity is equity, but I feel it is very hard to do. I would like to say that I can treat everyone the same and I try to get to each of the students, but the ones that are quiet and don’t cause any trouble when you have a class of trouble makers, it is hard to do. I do offer students time in morning or afternoon everyday to have one on one tutoring, but no one willing has come yet. So I do know that equity is something that I need to work on because I can name several students that I have probably not said more than 10 words to the whole semester because of all the other “squeaky wheel” type students. We also just went 7 periods from 4 period block schedule that doesn’t allow me much time to go around and answer questions like I used to be able to do. I know that is no excuse and I am trying to work on that, but where most of the good students are passing, I have put it on the back burner.
2 responses so far ↓
dancingnancy533 // February 12, 2008 at 5:51 pm |
There are so many different factors that happen within a classroom that it is very tough to maintain equity. Like you mention, one class may be very disruptive and set them back a day behind the other classes. We can only predict so many things and we all do the best we can to maintain equity among our classes.
As far as students go, a goal of educators is to get to know each student and find a way to connect with them. We all do the best we can to establish those relationships, hopefully with a high success rate, but sometimes we do not meet this goal. We’re all working hard and all we can do is our best to make sure everyone receives equal attention from us.
Angie Hinson // February 12, 2008 at 10:28 pm |
I agree with the connecting that dancingnancy speaks of. If I have connected somehow with a student, they tend to try not to disrupt the class.