Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Color Blind and Gender Blind
The Benedict article discusses some problematics behind color-blind teaching because colorblind teaching is really to treat all students like white middle class students which is more harm than good. I find this interesting reading the Allsup article where the male students said they did not even really pay attention to the fact that theyhad a girl working in their group. Of course they knew they did but it didn't really cross their mind particularly. This idea is sort of glossed over in the Allsup. Is this problematic? Should the girl be treated differently because she is a girl. Did the boys treat her as a boy? Is this discrimination, sexist or am I reaching on this one. I just find it interesting that color blind is a big problem and gender blind is not even mentioned. Maybe I will ask Allsup tomorrow.
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Yes, Joe. I was struck by that too. I think it is an issue that the one girl in the group thoughtfully described her experience with a group of all boys, and the boys weren't even aware that she was the only girl. I'm not sure I can articulate my difficulty with this but I'm working on it.... I'll report back.
Ok, here it is. The boys, in a position of power, don't need to be aware that the one girl is the minority representative. They don't have to modify their behavior to work with her because she assimilates to them. As she says, she was "patient" with them. SHE had to change to function in their group, but after a while, she said, she got used to working with all boys. At first, I am bothered by this because it looks like sexism. But what if the situation were reversed? If one boy was working in a group of all girls, the boy would likely feel he needed to be patient with their behavior, and maybe he'd modify his behavior to work more easily with them. The girls probably would be aware of a boy in the group, but they might not change their behavior because of it. In this case, the majority is in power and the minority yields to it. Those holding the power in any setting are the ones who are the same, and as Cathy Benedict says, the minority in that situation is the "other".
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