Girls must speak first.

Good grief. The answer to equalizing participation and voice in a given setting is *not* to minimize the voice any particular group. You're diminishing your group as a whole.

Apply it in a different way.

Say there's one kid who never speaks in class. The kid is shy, scrawny, tiny-voiced, etc. So the teacher decides to "equalize" things by only allowing that child to speak first, making the others dependent on his performance. A question is asked, and all eyes turn to him, waiting for an answer. Do you really think that helps the kid?

I'm one of those people that always speak up in class. However, if i had a teacher like this i would either seriously consider dropping the class, depending on how much i needed it, or just never volunteer to answer questions. Apparently my input would not be desired so I wouldn't give it.

Some background. Last year, some dentistry students posted on a group devoted to rape jokes and other misogynistic material. Any which way, the university reacted by taking it down and in its machination handed out punishments to the students. Student groups were angry their voices were not heard or that their voices were not heard promptly. The university brought it to the attention of the Halifax police, I believe and the police investigated. No arrests were warranted.

These talks are a result of it. Some of the suggestions by the management professor appear to serve as iconoclast positions meant to drive a point home. Women are often not taking the initiative to speak up first in the classroom or they are not being selected to speak first in any equitable manner.

I'm less interested in being heard first than I am in being heard at all.

The first answer isn't automatically the right one or the one with the most weight. The greater test for equality in influence is whether or not a dissenting opinion is given place. If a male student speaks first, then so what? SO LONG as the other students (female or otherwise) are also given the chance to add to or rebut that initial response.

*First* isn't the most important position in discussion. In fact, it's often the position ripped apart by subsequent input.

Hold on.

While I don't disagree this may not be the best way to address the issue, I do disagree that the issue is as simple as 'if women aren't raising their hands...'

There's a longstanding, long-studied issue with boys getting more attention from teachers, and being more verbal in class. This isn't about particular classrooms or girls in any particular classes not raising their hands or, as it's college, speaking.

Even teachers educated in this issue, who think they're not doing it, pay more attention to boys when they speak up, ask boys more questions, engage them more, etc., etc., etc., in every grade.

Here's one paper -

...from preschool to college, males receive more instruction and teacher attention than females ...Studies have shown that boys are eight times more likely to call out answers than girls. When boys call out teachers are likely to listen to what they have to say, but when girls call out teachers are likely to correct them and say "When you have something to say, please raise your hand, don't call out." In their research, David and Myra Sadker and discovered that a classroom may be dominated by a few "star" male students. In a class of about twenty-five students, "star" male students receive approximately 25 percent of teachers' attention, leaving only 75% of the teachers' time for the remaining twenty or so students. This can hardly be considered equity. The Sadkers also discovered that "low-achieving" and disruptive male students received quite a bit of attention-mostly criticism. One of their most striking findings is that while girls in general receive less attention than males, "unlike the smart boy who flourishes in the classroom, the smart girl is the student who is least likely to be recognized"...

Wait time is the amount of time a teacher allows a student to answer a question after it has been asked. Studies that examined the amount of wait time teachers allow have found that lessons are quite hurried in general, but that males receive more wait time than girls. According to Sadker and Sadker, "waiting longer for a student to answer is one of the most powerful and positive things a teacher can do. It is a vote of confidence," that lets the student know that the teacher thinks they are capable of supplying the correct answer

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Here's another, college-based -

A large body of research shows that instructors:
--Call on male students more frequently than female students.
--Are more likely to use male students’ names when calling upon students and in attributing ideas advanced in
discussion.
--Ask male students more abstract questions and female students more factual questions.
--Are less likely to elaborate upon points made by female students.
This research has demonstrated that:
--Male students speak more frequently and longer in class discussions.
--Male students are more likely to blurt out answers without raising their hands or being recognized by the instructor
Not only are female students are less likely to take part in class discussions, but when they do, these students are
more likely to
▪ Be interrupted before they complete their response (sometimes by other female students).
▪ Make their statements less loudly and at less length.

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And another -

The teachers, from a midwestern elementary school, were observed and interviewed during the 15-week data collection period. Data were analyzed using the constant-comparison method. Results indicated that the teachers worked from a gender-blind position, meaning they believed they did not take students' gender into account when teaching. However, the teachers' beliefs did not match their practices.

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This is the same idea as the Progressive Stack.

It's a bullshit approach to a more complicated problem.

Vince524 said:

Let me put it this way. If girls aren't raising their hands, we need to find out why and address that, not punish boys who do raise their hands.

If girls are raising their hands and just not getting called on by teachers, then we need to address those teachers, but again not punish the boys.

It shouldn't be about putting one ahead of the other, but being fair to all.

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Did you read any of the stuff I posted?

It's not as simple as girls not raising their hands or raising them and not getting called on, not close. It's an apparently entrenched response on all three sides (girls, boys, teachers), that manifests in a ton of ways.

If it were simple to solve, it'd be solved, as this has been known and studied for decades. The school is apparently attempting to address it. Whether their method is a good one or will be successful is debatable, but it's not a simple problem or solution.

Also, I kind of take issue with the idea that having boys who want to speak wait until a girl has spoken = punishment.

cornflake said:

Also, I kind of take issue with the idea that having boys who want to speak wait until a girl has spoken = punishment.

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I don't.

If a student has the answer to a question, then said student should *never* be discouraged from giving the answer, so long as s/he follows the guidelines of the class. If that means raising a hand, then so be it, but to issue a blanket rule that Group X is going to always speak first only makes the problem worse.

We've currently got two "learning" threads going in P&CE. One, stating that girls don't speak up in class because they're overlooked in favor of male students. The other states that males do worse in school than females, and so they need extra attention in all areas.

Giving one group "deserved" attention over the other is punishing the other group by default. You're making them responsible for something they didn't cause, and you're breeding resentment between the two groups.

This is a akin to a closed environment with a pest problem. So, we'll bring a bird to eat the bugs. By bringing in non-native birds, we've not got a bird problem, so we'll bring in a lizard to eat the birds. By bringing in non-native lizards, we've got a lizard problem. So, we'll bring in a great cat to eat the lizards. But now, the great cats are also eating people.

Oops.

Stop trying to "fix" the problem by swinging the pendulum to the other side of the divide. Out attempts to fix it are making it more pronounced and more difficult to correct. Rather than focus on one group over the other, focus on both with equal attention, forcing the students to interact equally, and the unnatural divides we've created as a society will start to equalize on its own.

You can't fix this in the classroom alone; you can only start it there. There are too many external factors that "you speak first" doesn't take into consideration. Family, personality, society, etc.

When I was in school, I often raised my hand to answer a question. Even if no one else raised their hand, the teacher/professor would pick out some of those individuals and ask them to answer. In some ways, I felt it was unfair to me. But on the other hand, many of these students clearly knew the correct answer, or could arrive at it with some prompting. So I understand why the instructor chose to encourage them to answer instead of having me or another student who always raised their hand answer every single question.

There's a confidence issue involved, I think. Having the same few students always answer creates a bit of a divide in the class, encourages some of the more reticent students to just let "the smart kids" answer all the questions, etc.

This is one of those things where I wonder if surveillance cameras in classrooms, from kindergarten through college and maybe even to grad school classes, might be the most practical solution. In these types of debates there seems to me to be so many conflicting reports about what the problems are for both girls and boys trying to learn that maybe we need to see for ourselves.

I mean, when it comes to requiring girls to be called on first, I am firmly in the "It's ridiculous and totally inappropriate" camp. That said, someone somewhere wanted to implement this idea because they got this idea that when boys speak first it has a high likelihood of creating an environment where girls feel they can't voice their opinions and ideas. And naturally there are going to be reports of classrooms saying this is simply untrue.

Maybe we need do need a way to see what's going on. Are teachers deliberately not calling on girls/women in classrooms even when they have their hand raised for several minutes or longer? Are they told on a daily basis that their answers are wrong when they are right? Are boys/men in these classrooms raising their voices in a way such that it can be construed to be a method of intimidating female classmates into not sharing their answers or ideas? I think maybe if we could have first hand accounts and not just second hand ones it would be better.

Basically being Hermione Granger, I spent my entire time in school sitting with my hand in the air and I almost never go to answer because the teachers didn't feel I needed to be encouraged as I studied anyway. So not getting attention from the teachers was certainly not due to me not putting myself forward, I can tell you.

How to discourage the most able students - never pick them to answer questions.

Vince524 said:

A boy raising their hand to participate in class is doing nothing wrong and should not be taught that there's something wrong with what they're doing. It's a wrong headed approach from the get go.

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I could go off on the "having to raise your hand to talk" thing, but this probably isn't the thread for it.

Vince524 said:

The thing is, there's probably no one right answer. My daughter is also a little Hermione Granger. (Piss her off or get her excited and she even gets the accent. She watches way too much BBC TV) She'll raise her hand to the point where the teachers will say, "Someone else besides Danielle." My other daughter who is equally smart, (GPA just a tad higher, in fact both doing incredible. Yes, they take after their mom) hates to raise her hand. Both raised in the same home, both girls and the same age.

Some teachers are going to be an issue. We've dealt with a few. Sometime it'll be the kids and the home they come from.

But the answer is never to decide to exclude someone else. Sure, say you wan to call on kids equally, but not a rule of girls first. Some boys are shy and could use encouragement too.

A boy raising their hand to participate in class is doing nothing wrong and should not be taught that there's something wrong with what they're doing. It's a wrong headed approach from the get go.

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And there's the answer that no one wants.

You CAN'T divide students into male and female, and say that "boys do/learn this way" or "girls do/learn this way." There's no inherent difference that falls along gender-lines that way.

Students can be influenced by factors such as peer or familial pressure. They can be corralled by society and they can be steered by teachers who make assumptions, but none of that is dependent on the student AT ALL.

Every couple of years or so, someone comes up with a "revolutionary" plan to cater learning experiences to boys or girls. This usually mean something like allowing the boys to run around if they "have too much energy" inside cooler rooms and sitting girls in warmer rooms, and placing their desks head-to-head with "buddies." The assumption is that all boys find cooler environments stimulating, while the head-to-head set up is confrontational. The girls prefer to be warm and comfy and quieter - bonus points if the plan includes "sassy" notes on the walls to boost confidence.

It's garbage.

Kids like to run, and given the option most would prefer a room where they could play if they got bored with the lesson. It has nothing to do with their gender expression. I know that I always did better when the room was cold because warmer rooms put me to sleep. For others, the cold was distracting. Body temp doesn't run along gender lines, either.

You can't pigeon hole someone academically by their gender anymore than you can do the same socially, yet that's exactly what society wants to do - it's easier. It makes individuality a non-issue, and it classifies things into "normal" or "abnormal," no matter what the neutral state of being for a given person might be.

I think calling on students should be randomized, if at all possible. It's not like that would be hard to do.

Growing up it was a really frustrating problem. There were 2-4 guys in each class who were the only ones the teachers wanted to hear from in any detail. They were allowed to just start talking, too, which made enough sense since that was apparently their job in the class -- to lead and dominate all the discussions. I'd try for about the first month of each new class, and after that I didn't waste my energy raising my hand any more. One male teacher did like to call on me when it was clear I hadn't done the reading, though -- when me preparing for class meant nothing the other 99% of the time!

Even in the all-female college I went to it was a problem. Male students from other local schools were allowed to take individual classes on our campus, so you'd run into the occasional male in undergrad classes. Guess who became the voice you heard the most? Every. Single. Time.

I don't think this person's suggestions are very practical, but I'm a bit bothered by how the article appears to put scare quotes around "non-binary trans person." At least the article seems to use non-binary pronouns consistently.

Anyway, I do think there can be an issue with women not being heard as much, and I think it may not be a bad idea for professors to be mindful of seeking input from a wide range of students. But having a rule about not letting a male student speak first seems a bit simplistic and overly generalized to me, and I think it could end up putting female and other minority students on the spot. Feeling like you're being singled out to speak because of your gender, race, sexual orientation, or another personal characteristic can be uncomfortable.

I think there are probably some creative ways to encourage female students to feel comfortable speaking up that don't involve a firm rule like this. I also think that the context of individual classrooms can matter a lot. A lot of classes have one or two people who raise their hands very frequently and who dominate discussion. In some of my classes, those people were female. Letting the same woman speak first every time just because she's a woman wouldn't be very progressive, or promote free discussion in the classroom very well. I think there needs to be a more general effort to encourage students who don't speak up often to feel comfortable doing so, with acknowledgment given to the fact that factors like gender or race may play a role in who is and is not comfortable speaking up.

Cyia said:

I don't.
We've currently got two "learning" threads going in P&CE. One, stating that girls don't speak up in class because they're overlooked in favor of male students. The other states that males do worse in school than females, and so they need extra attention in all areas.

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waylander said:

How to discourage the most able students - never pick them to answer questions.

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DancingMaenid said:

I think there needs to be a more general effort to encourage students who don't speak up often to feel comfortable doing so, with acknowledgment given to the fact that factors like gender or race may play a role in who is and is not comfortable speaking up.

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If all of these studies are right, perhaps speaking up in class is actually a hindrance to education? Girls aren't chosen to speak up, and yet apparently do better in school than boys, who are more frequently chosen to answer questions.
Maybe if everyone just shut up and read their books and did their assignments, things would move along just fine.

Presumably the teacher knows the answers to the questions, so having the students shout them out merely reminds the ones who don't know the answers, or don't like to be the focus of attention, of their inadequacy, while wasting the time of the ones who do know.

It's like that exercise where all the students take turns reading aloud, to make sure everyone is reading the material or following along. The bad readers dread it (they know how they sound), and the good readers are bored and resentful. But it's a simple way for teachers to monitor progress.

I think any bright ideas that begin with "Women should...." are misogynistic.

The phenomenon of men being called on more often than women doesn't stop when we leave school. This article from the NY Times discusses the frequency with which women find themselves interrupted or shut down, or have their ideas co-opted by male colleagues, in business meetings.

As someone who's never had a problem speaking up when I have something to say, the part I found most disturbing was this:

[Yale professor Victoria Brescoll] asked professional men and women to evaluate the competence of chief executives who voiced their opinions more or less frequently. Male executives who spoke more often than their peers were rewarded with 10 percent higher ratings of competence. When female executives spoke more than their peers, both men and women punished them with 14 percent lower ratings. As this and other research shows, women who worry that talking “too much” will cause them to be disliked are not paranoid; they are often right.

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So why is it that apparently both men and women think there's something distasteful about women who talk too much? Could it be that we are socialized from an early age to reward boys for speaking and discourage girls from doing the same?

I agree with those who say it's unfair to hold boys back in every instance, but perhaps if teachers made more of a conscious effort to encourage and reward participation from girls, we might get to a stage where women's contributions in business and politics are given the same value as men's.

beckethm said:

The phenomenon of men being called on more often than women doesn't stop when we leave school. This article from the NY Times discusses the frequency with which women find themselves interrupted or shut down, or have their ideas co-opted by male colleagues, in business meetings.

As someone who's never had a problem speaking up when I have something to say, the part I found most disturbing was this:

So why is it that apparently both men and women think there's something distasteful about women who talk too much? Could it be that we are socialized from an early age to reward boys for speaking and discourage girls from doing the same?

I agree with those who say it's unfair to hold boys back in every instance, but perhaps if teachers made more of a conscious effort to encourage and reward participation from girls, we might get to a stage where women's contributions in business and politics are given the same value as men's.

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Exactly an example of how this is not at all about 'if girls don't want to raise their hands that's their issue and if teachers don't call on girls that's their issue.'

This is an issue that crosses a plethora of areas.

The above is related, I think, to the recent discussion about stopping the use of the word, 'bossy,' to describe girls.

Same as the discussions about Hillary Rodham's hair, or how she's a bitch, which should be ok because, as Tina Fey and Amy Poehler once famously pointed out, "bitches get shit done." It's not though, because when men act like X, it's strong, when women act like X, it's offputting, bitchy, bossy, etc., even among groups of highly-educated professionals.

It's not as simple as telling girls to raise their hands or oh well, or teachers to just call on whomever, or to randomize - it's about who speaks, for how long, who's taken seriously, who's derided, who, as pointed out in one link I posted, gets a few seconds extra to formulate a thought, etc., etc., etc. It's a pernicious thing, and while the idea of girls speaking first may seem offputting too, at least it's an idea.

I still like the idea of randomizing better than calling on females first, because 'first' isn't necessary, imho. Maybe even randomize and give 90 seconds to everyone or something to combat the time to answer problem you mentioned. The key, imho, is just getting treated the same way by the teacher during discussions, since that was the huge stumbling block in my classes. The pervasive nature of sexism really does have to be changed through more ways, but I don't like ways that 'punish' non-females, either. Equal doesn't have to mean special, imho.


Most of my classes involved discussion, not just giving a quick answer, btw. I'm sure the teachers called on their favorite debaters because it made the discussion more interesting to them, but they never even learned who else could hold a good discussion. They always went to their favorites from the first few days (not necessarily the absolute best students, but the very charming speakers who liked to jump in from the first minute).

backslashbaby said:

I'm sure the teachers called on their favorite debaters because it made the discussion more interesting to them, but they never even learned who else could hold a good discussion.

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I feel like the very notion of calling on people in discussion based classes is outdated. In some of my classes, it's funny to see students being constantly reminded they don't have to raise their hands to speak. Though of course those who are too shy to join in will often need prompting.