Rolling forward...

You know, there are a lot of stereotypes in our world. Not only our world but our own culture. I think the biggest stereotype in our culture is the stereotype for men and women. This is also another thing that I learned in psychology class as well as sociology. But in this class we've gone through a little more than the others. For instance: the gender roles and the expectations for how we will think, act and feel. Through gender development comes 4 points. One is biological development and this explains the differences in male and female brains. For example, the corpus callosum is thicker in females brains than in males. Secondly, there is social learning theory that was developed by Albert Bendura. His theory was that when a boy watches his father he starts to enforce his fathers influence. Not only that but a young boy or girl learns from observing, imitating and modeling their father or mother. Thirdly, cognitive development developed by Lawerence Kohlberg. This development is based on gender identity, stability and constancy. The last is the gender schema theory. In this theory, a male or female learns their gender schema from TV, peers, family or parents. Children eventually adapt to their gender cultural expectations. As they adapt their brain changes over time and this is called plasticity.

In the beginning of this post I talked about the gender stereotype but never really connected it to the subject. A stereotype is a fixed conventional idea about a gender. For example - women being terrible drivers. This is a stereotype. Now granted, there are stereotypes that shouldn't exist at all because whether we like it or not, we are living in a changing world. I mean, look at the past 100 years. A lot has gone on! Because of every war, the women have had to step up to the plate and take on jobs that men couldn't do because they were off fighting in the war. After the Great War, in the 1920's, the womens rights movement came to pass and that gave women almost equal power as men. But, I digress. One stereotype that shouldn't exist is a woman belonging in the kitchen. Fact is, some of the worlds greatest chefs are indeed men. Stereotypes will never die out. I know i've personally stereotyped a women or two on account of their driving and most guys do. I'm not saying I'm right in doing so but it's something i've grown up with in this culture. Especially from being from a small town you really don't have a lot going on that you can joke about. But a stereotypical joke is kind of funny once in a while. I've gotten a little off topic now... I'll go back.

A gender bias is favouring sexes. Unforutnately, I have had one or two teachers that definitely favoured gals rather than guys. This made it incredibly difficult to get good marks and make it to where I am. Being a teacher we have to learn to not favor either gender. We should be equal to both boys and girls! We should be good role models for our students because whether we like it or not, we are making a small difference in their lives. We should be teaching all students respect of all things! Now a student may have a sexual orientation that we don't really agree with. Thing we have to learn is that we're living in Canada. We are all free to bat for whichever team we like. We shouldn't promote whatever orientation a student may have but we also can't limit it either. To all teachers out there and soon to be, good luck and make the right choices!