getting down to it

I created an excel file with my observations of different hours in my field placement, and uploaded it to Google Documents here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?id=o02618036266631914408.8326339176739564236.00046417125121973341.6541284192680812311

To make the numbers meaningful, it's necessary to know that there are 14 boys and 11 girls in 1st hour, 12 boys and 14 girls in 2nd, and 9 boys and 20 girls in 6th. The numbers for first hour are the only ones that are really meaningful right now, but I'm planning on going back friday and monday to get 2 more observations in. I'm guessing they'll confirm what I already know, that to be frank, I was incorrect to hypothesize that being in the minority gender would deter those in that situation from participating in a voluntary environment. It ended up telling me a lot more about the environment than the gender issues within the environment.

The numbers for first hour technically support my hypothesis. On average, the boys outparticipated the girls by about 2 to 1, which is way above the 14 to 11 they should be averaging. But looking at the individual cases turns out to be more telling and compelling. There is a march of boy dominance for the first 3 class periods I observed, but in the fourth they only outparticpate the girls by a ratio of 11 to 9, which is actually under, not way over, the rate they should be participating at. That was the day I wrote about where Sancho got put out of class, and didn't participate at all for part of the day. Then in the fifth, the girls actually out participate the boys! I couldn't really offer an explanation for it, other than the overhead activity was particularly hard, and was the only chance the students had to participate that day. On a longer timeline, males tended to outparticipate females, yes. But this is meaningless if only one or two students is or are doing all of the participating.

Which is exactly what the environment engenders, to make an awful pun. No one being forced to participate is a great idea in principle, but in practice it encourages extreme apathy in much of the class, who treat it as a time to be idle, silent, and unengaged. This was made all the more clear on 6th observation, when there were an above average 44 chances to participate, 19 of which were seized by females and 25 of which went to males. However, one representative from each camp, Sancho from the males and Andrea from the females, answered 10 questions EACH! It was ridiculous; they were the only two people answering questions from the review sheet for a long period of time. More than one student took the opportunity to grab a quick nap, and were not reprimanded by the teacher. Most settled for slumping back in their seats and looking bored out of their minds.

There are several things this points out that need to change, which I'll get to writing about when I do my paper this weekend. These findings about the classroom environment (and the inadequacy of my research methods) ended up overshadowing anything I initially thought I was going to have to say about gender, and kind of took it over, at least in my mind.

I like how this blog turned out, though. I feel like I have a lot done already that I can draw on during the paperwriting-palooza that will eventually ensue this weekend. It's been a good experience, and I hope I can use it for something in the future!