Respect Your Classmates!
I understand that there are probably slight differences in the attention levels that girls and boys both receive in the classroom but I am not sure if these statistics are completely accurate. First, the attention level that each teacher gives his or her students is on a case-by-case basis. One teacher may be overly attentive and another could not give much attention to any of the students regardless of gender. There was a class I had called Technology in eight grade in which the teacher mostly sat at his desk the entire period on his laptop. Another time I had a homosexual teacher who oddly enough gave more attention to the males in his classroom, myself included.
In Red there are a lot of stories written by girls in school that talk largely about popularity and social status within the school. Popularity seemed to be an extremely important quality to have in the school systems that I grew up in. Like the authors in Red, there always seems to be a popular guy and girl in the class that hang out together and seem to be the “perfect couple.” It is interesting that similarly to the story by Laura Lowe entitled A Retelling of Black Letter Days… the most popular students in school usually turn out to be the ones who don’t succeed in the long run.
Another story in Red by Elizabeth Case, entitled Hey You, Freshman with the Face is another example of the social tendencies of girls growing up in the public school system. She talks about how she is so overwhelmed with the social elements of school that she overlooks schoolwork and often slacks off, causing her grades to suffer. These circumstances seem to be pretty common-place in schools today, girls are usually caught up in the social happenings between friends in school, usually more interested in these thing than class assignments.
In my own personal school experiences I remember in twelfth grade economics class the teacher used to give more attention to the girls in the class. For instance, he would always make comments about how they dressed or make jokes to try to impress them. It was strange because all of the guys in the class knew he was obviously flirting with them. What was even stranger was how some of the girls he would make comments to would stay after class and apply to be his “teaching assistants.” I remember after I graduated he ended up dating one of the girls and being in a long term relationship with her that ended some time ago (the relationship lasted 3-4 years). I found this out via Facebook and high school rumor of course.
In Red there are a lot of stories written by girls in school that talk largely about popularity and social status within the school. Popularity seemed to be an extremely important quality to have in the school systems that I grew up in. Like the authors in Red, there always seems to be a popular guy and girl in the class that hang out together and seem to be the “perfect couple.” It is interesting that similarly to the story by Laura Lowe entitled A Retelling of Black Letter Days… the most popular students in school usually turn out to be the ones who don’t succeed in the long run.
Another story in Red by Elizabeth Case, entitled Hey You, Freshman with the Face is another example of the social tendencies of girls growing up in the public school system. She talks about how she is so overwhelmed with the social elements of school that she overlooks schoolwork and often slacks off, causing her grades to suffer. These circumstances seem to be pretty common-place in schools today, girls are usually caught up in the social happenings between friends in school, usually more interested in these thing than class assignments.
In my own personal school experiences I remember in twelfth grade economics class the teacher used to give more attention to the girls in the class. For instance, he would always make comments about how they dressed or make jokes to try to impress them. It was strange because all of the guys in the class knew he was obviously flirting with them. What was even stranger was how some of the girls he would make comments to would stay after class and apply to be his “teaching assistants.” I remember after I graduated he ended up dating one of the girls and being in a long term relationship with her that ended some time ago (the relationship lasted 3-4 years). I found this out via Facebook and high school rumor of course.
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