How Does Gender Affect the Teaching Profession?

    As females in the teaching profession, we are subject to underpay and discrimination in the system. Before reading this module and the articles that came with it, I knew that majority of teachers were women especially in the elementary setting. What I did not know is that when it comes to administration and higher positions, a good percentage are men. In the podcast Gender Matters: Challenges Facing Women in Education, It states that "83 to 86% range of teachers are women," "54% of principles are women, predominantly in elementary schools," "And then at the superintendent level, it's been around 23%." Then it talks about the flip side of these numbers for the male population in the school system. These numbers just prove that there is a disconnect in the system. Males and females who are equipt for a position should be able to take it on no matter their gender. Females who have the abilities to run a school district should be in that position over a man who has no experience or qualifications. Unfortunately in the current school system women are not always seen as having authority over anyone other than their students. As a future educator, I want to be respected by all people in the school no matter the gender or position. I also want there to be equal chances for everyone to be in a position based off of qualifications not because they are a male or female. This might be wishful thinking but if we work together we can move towards a change. 

References 

https://the-harvard-edcast.simplecast.com/episodes/gender-matters-challenges-facing-women-in-education/transcript 

Do I Have the Full Picture?

     Do I have the full picture? I think in the schooling system, it is set up so the students, and staff, don't ever get the full picture. Since taking some of the education based courses, I have realized how messed up and bias the education system can be. 

    In the social studies class I am taking right now, I learned how majority of schools only teach their students one side of the story. History is not only one side, it has many sides and perspectives of all the parties involved. When the students only learn one side of a story it can create ideas in their mind about certain topics that might not fully be true. Textbooks created for the classroom don't help this idea of one sided learning, they write the text in a certain perspective and don't share all sides. For example, when Christopher Columbus is talked about in school, they are taught that he just found new land and colonized there. The students are not taught that he caused a genocide of the Indians who lived there before he came. The Indians were treated so poorly by Columbus and his men that many of them took their own lives to escape them, if they were not killed by his people before. 

    As teachers it is our responsibility to do the best we can to educate our students on the full picture. Whether it be bringing in outside resources or people to give them all perspectives on a topic, or teaching them our own knowledge, it is important that they get all sides to a story and not just one. Some teachers are restricted on the content they are able to teach, but we have to do the best we can to give our students the best content.