As an early childhood educator, I can relate to much of Peter's comment. I
do question the word "dominate" somewhat and understood Peter as referring
to the word mainly in number not power. I am currently substituting and
upon an assignment in a sped classroom was told that the expectation was
that there would not be any problems because of me being male. Such a
comment was not gender neutral it put both me and women teachers in some
sort of space. As a male the expectation was I would have the ability to
control the classroom and a women would not. Some reform approaches like
Teach for America and allowing any one with a bachlorate to teach carries
many of those same assumption. An assumption that education is failing
because of its "domination" by women.
I personally think teachers in general should be more diversified (gender,
race etc.) but have a real difficult time with the space that puts me in as
a male and the space it puts women in. As a male it is assumed that I can
fill the void of lack of male role models that describe many of the
children that are in schools. As a male it puts me in a position of a
savior, in that, I can do what the women before me couldn't do. This of
course is not how I position myself in reference to being an early
childhood educator, but rather my awareness of the logic behind some of the
reform movements that are occurring in education.
It does bring up the line of questioning of how much of the legislature
mandating curriculum has to do with the "gender question". Our state did
not attempt anything as elaborate as California, it merely mandated phonics
courses in schools of education. It does seem that as the "gender
problem" enters public consciousness many of the decision that have been
historically made by academia are being moved to the legislature.
Just of few thought.
Nate
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Smagorinsky <smago who-is-at peachnet.campuscwix.net>
To: <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 1999 3:31 PM
Subject: Re: Krupskaya
> for what it's worth....
>
> Historically men have written the definitive texts and occupied academic
> positions. At least in some fields, men do not currently dominate. I
work
> in a Language Education department with 15 faculty, 11 of whom are women.
> Almost all of our GAs are women as well. I also coedit the main research
> journal from NCTE and I'd say that about 3/4 of the ms's we receive are
> written by women (if anything, that's a low estimate). Prior to our
> editorship, the journal was edited by a woman; prior to that, by a
> woman/man team.
>
> In terms of the future, I'd say that about 90% of the undergrads in our
> courses are women (again, possibly a low estimate). So dominance by
gender
> might vary by field.
>
> At 01:05 PM 4/8/99 -0600, you wrote:
> >Pursuing the philosophical lineage behind a given
> >intellectual phenomenon is for me one of the most
> >effective approaches for acquainting myself with
> >the culture that gave rise to the phenomenon. Sadly,
> >this scholastic approach is vulnerable to phallocentric
> >distortion since the feminine influence is rarely
> >committed to the historical record. The question
> >of intellectual history is inherently gender biased,
> >prompting Dianne to raise the question, "where are the
> >women?!"
> >
> >A small exception in this current line of inquiry is
> >Krupskaya (thanks Mike!). Nadezhda K. Krupskaya
> >comes to us in the literature by means of her
> >relationship to Vladimir Ilich rather than the
> >pioneering paths she helped to lay down within Soviet
> >education. Finding the details of her influence is a
> >bit of challenge. We learn that she introduced project
> >methodology into Russian education. But an inquiry
> >into "project methodology" immediately returns us to the
> >phallocentric record citing the foundational ideas of
> >Kilpatrick and Dewey.
> >
> >In Jay's words, "by asking what was missed when mostly
> >men wrote theoretical accounts of a practice conducted
> >by both men and women" we are likely to end up with
> >a much richer account. The challenge is to learn how
> >to incorporate this practice in our research.
> >
> >Martin R.
> >
>