Playing with Gender March 21, 2012
Rate the author on the following: clarity, interest, significance. Explain.
This article is one that truly troubled me. I believe that in order for people to be able to teach others about any given subject or matter, the one conducting the lesson should have, at least, a general idea of what he or she will be teaching. In my opinion, the teachers in Ann Pelo’s article were experimenting with these children and did not have the training necessary to conduct this research in the best way possible. Throughout the article, these teachers were trying to figure out what it was that they really wanted to research on and what aspects of behavior they were going to focus their research on. As I read the article I felt as If they were judging the children’s behaviors instead of giving them the tools to develop into more understanding beings. I also noticed that the children were unaware of the teachers’ research and were only being observed instead of thought about behavior. I understand that these teachers wanted to change the culture of their pre-school classrooms, but I do not think they were conducting this initiative in the correct way. Their greater problem was probably, the fact that they were dealing with children who were too young for their research. An example of this is the case of Laura and Jamie. Laura and Jamie enjoyed playing together. In their dramatic play, Jaime was always the leader and Laura was always told what to do by Jaime. Jaime’s leadership was so strong that Laura did not even move her own body, but instead, Jaime moved her whenever he wanted her to (or at least, this is how the teachers perceived the behavior); however, I see it very differently. Jaime was a few years older than Laura; in fact, Laura was learning to use her motor skills. In my opinion, what happened while Jaime and Laura played was not that Laura allowed herself to be dominated by Jaime, but instead, she was too young and weak to keep up to his energy. I believe that Laura used her early morning playtime with Jaime as a time for her to rest and have everything done for her, but the teachers were unable to see this because they were focused on the idea that she was letting herself be dominated by a male.
Based on this reflection of the article, I believe that the clarity, interest, and significance of this article were not clear. I also believe that these teachers will not be able to help their students if they do not find ways to talk to them about gender and society instead of observing them and not making them aware of their behavior.
Rosaly Cuevas
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