Just read this from Claire. Then think about it next time you do a story. Then act.
Little girls feeling like they’re just a distraction in school is not okay. Until we do what Robert does and call out little boys who treat girls that way, invading our space when we’re trying to communicate-nothing’s gonna change. TPRS in Robert’s class might be the only chance girls get to be treated like they get to “show up.”
The fact is research on girls in the classroom is horrifying. In the average classroom, girls are 3 times more likely to be interrupted, and every study out there shows that even when we go out of our way to call on students fairly, we don’t really. Dale Spender did a study where girls only contributed 15% of the classroom discussion, but that number increased to 38% (still unfair) when teachers were actively trying to get girls to talk; although the boys reported they “felt neglected during the teaching experiment.” Other studies show when males (male instructors and male students) are asked to rate their perception on how much girls talked, while females were more accurate, the males in the room dramatically over-estimated how often females talk. They perceive us as verbose , if our talk time goes from 15% to 38% because we’re female, so we’re supposed to be quiet, right? And then we wonder why anorexia and teenage pregnancy plague our schools. And why girls grow up and end up in bad relationships where they are supposed to just be quiet.
