Case
No Women's Issues Please!

I am a novice middle school social studies teacher. When I was still a student in the middle grades education program, my professors taught me the importance of teaching students about the underrepresented groups such as minorities and women. I have been very sensitive to women's issues and their perspectives and contributions since I started my job two years ago. Last week, I was teaching my students how to conduct research using Internet resources. To practice their skills, I asked students to do research on accomplishments of a list of women I created. Students were allowed to pick whom they wanted to research. While my female students were very excited about this assignment, three of my male students openly protested the assignment and said that they did not want to waste their time researching about women. I have to deal with this behavior somehow because I will be integrating women's perspectives into my curriculum regularly in the future. I cannot tolerate this type of behavior continuously. I wonder if these children's home lives have something to do with their reaction to women's issues. What should I do?

Posted on: 11/22/12 | Views: 1620
Solution #1
Top Solution
I believe it is important to stress to students why we are teaching them certain topics, especially ones that they are not excited about. I think it would be a great idea to do some type of role playing and have the gender roles reversed. Ask the class to vote on something, but not allow the boys to vote. I also think some type of game where students had to guess if an accomplishment was made by a man or a woman would be a fun way to show the importance of equal rights. If the behavior continued, I would sit the boys down individually and ask them why they were feeling this way.
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Solution #2
Its not really what the children want, its what the teacher needs them to do. If I were in your situation, I would talk to these three boys and explain the purpose of your objective. Also, you may want to include men in your activities, not only females, because by doing you are separating genders. I honestly, don't think you should get involved in their personal space, The private sphere of their home should not be something that you should try to change. However, you can always educate them about the many things that females have done for the country.
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Solution #3
I would give the students a list of accomplishments by people in history and have them give their opinion as to whether it was accomplished by a man or woman. Once they have made their choice I would then have them conduct their internet research to find out who accomplished what. After their findings the class could have a discussion. I believe this would take the negative context out of the assignment.
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Solution #4
I will remind or inform them that many years ago women had no leading roles but to take care of home and the children. Mostly men went out to work. These were man made laws. The only providor and spokeperson for women were their husbands. There are still many old fashion parents that instill this in their children. Therefore, in their minds, women are still considered insignificant entities when it comes to having leading roles and accomplisments. I would strongly advise them to do some extensive research on how women so that they might see how women helped in almost every aspect of Amreican history.
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Solution #5
As dreadful as the boys in the class may find women's history to be, it is a major part of American and world history, whether they like it or not, it must be taught. I think that doing some activities such as role playing could convince the boys in the class that women are important and significant figures in history and daily life. Another activity that could be incorporated into a lesson could be a game in which the class is divided into two teams of boys and girls. The goal of the game would be each team of boys and girls to come up with significant events or accomplishments in history that involved men and women. The boys would create a list of female contributions to history and the girls would compose a list of contributions made by men in history. Once each team has created their lists, the class will share. This is a good way to show the class that both men and women can and have impacted history equally.
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Solution #6
Because your three male students were open about not wanting to complete the assignment and the girls were very excited about doing it, I would try to facilitate a group discussion and ask the boys to share with everyone why they do not want to participate. I think students' peers have a strong influence over one another and by having a discussion where you can act as a moderator, maybe the boys will understand another perspective. In addition to the females, other males in the class may have a strong (and influential) opinion about the importance of womens' rights and accomplishments.
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Solution #7
Another possible solution would be to incorporate the assignment during a study of women's rights, instead of during research. If you're in the middle of a unit on women's rights and have already discussed the importance, the males may be a bit more understanding. You may also start off the assignment by having each student list the influential figures in their lives, whether it be their mother, a teacher, a coach, or any other adult. You could then make a tally of how many women were listed compared to how many men were listed. If more women are listed, then that serves as enough evidence that women play an important role. If more men are listed, then that may lead into a deep discussion on how we view influential figures in America, and thus the importance of recognizing influential women.
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Solution #8
I believe that this shouldn't be up for debate. The students should do the assignment and it should not be changed just because the students dont feel like doing the assignment. What I would suggest is that if the students refuse to do the assignment then they receive 0s for the assignment and I do believe you should include men who have been great throughout history. I would do one week about the important females and then one week about the important males.

I would use this same solution in the classroom. Students have to know that you mean business, if you let them know that they can make you change assignments then when will it stop? I like the idea of having a female accomplishment week, and a male accomplishment week. I would probably alter the days instead of weeks though.

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Solution #9
First, I think it is very important to have students researching women's accomplishments in history. Second, I think you should have a debate. Take the boys who do not want to do the research or project and have them research good viable reasons why this assignment is a waste of time. Then have them go up again a group of girls in the class. Make sure the judges panel has equal amount of boy and girls on it for when the debate is over. Then have the class decide how important woman are. This might change the perspective of the boys who do not want to do the research.
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Solution #10
It is very difficult to deal with this type of behavior, especially if you suspect these boys' home lives may be supportive of this resistant behavior. I may assign these boys a specific influential male figure to research such as Franklin Roosevelt or Martin Luther King Jr. I would ask them to explore the most influential people in their lives and those that made their accomplishments possible. I would provide specific resources to lead them to discover that for example, Franklin Roosevelt wouldn't have been the same president without Eleanor Roosevelt. Martin Luther King Jr. may not have had such a successful impact if it wasn't for influential women such as Rosa Parks. Having these students discover this through researching these men's lives may help them realize the importance of studying women's issues.
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Solution #11
I understand the boys not wanting to do this assignment, but it should really be up for debate. However, I would tweak the assignment. Allow the boys to research men who have wives that have made tremendous accomplishments that have rivaled their husbands success. You could also include women who have made strides and male dominated fields. You could have them research the first woman admitted to Citadel Academy (A military school), this would probably be interesting to them.
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Solution #12
I would turn the topic into a debate. Have the boys do research on issues that went against the women's movement since they do not want to contribute to it. You could also have a group that does research on issues that do go against the womens movement.
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