25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them

164 Teaching Style and Behavior
friend of mine. She warned me
about my students and apologized
for the nightmare class that the
teachers had created. I ignored
the warning and decided to use the
“self-fulfilling prophecy” theory to
my advantage. When I met my students
for the first time, I was very
enthusiastic and excited. I told them
SCENARIO 21.2
Dark Comedy of Gender Bias
how pleased I was to have them as
students, because I had heard that I
had one of the best classes in the
school. I was amused by the way
they looked around as if to ask,
“Who is she talking to?” This class
far exceeded my expectations and
certainly those of the other teachers
that year.
In my eighth-grade industrial arts class, there were only two girls in the class, including
me. The teacher would always take our work and say, “C’mon guys, if a girl can do this
good, you guys better at least try to do better than they do.” His low expectations
because of gender bias could have been devastating, but although irritating, it proved
to be humorous too.
The secret is out. Research
findings have shown that
teachers’ expectations tend to favor
males (Block, 1980). This teacher’s
comments support evidence that traditionally,
girls have been expected
not to perform as well as boys in predominantly
male activities such as
industrial arts and sports. When
males are not performing up to par,
they are called “girls” in a very
derogatory manner. As this student
indicated, these messages are often
delivered with humor, but gender bias
is dark comedy with lasting effects.
SCENARIO 21.3
Justice for All
Insightful teachers encourage
their students to be more androgynous
in their thinking and behavior,
meaning that they do not favor masculinity
or femininity but respect
both. Resourceful teachers use every
opportunity to encourage androgyny.
They encourage girls to participate
in male-dominated activities
and boys to embrace more femaleoriented
activities. Students are
always praised for their efforts.
These progressive teachers might
one day make gender bias an obsolete
term.
My worst experience was staying after school in the first grade. I do not remember the
rest of the year. All I know is, my mom had to pick me up from school at least once a
week because I had a fever. When I got home I was fine. The fever was gone.