MyGiftedLife.org

I was just curious about everyone's reactions to this Dear Abby column:

news.yahoo.com/s/ucda/20091210/lf_ucda/g...houtbecomingashowoff

I prefer the second response to the first. Spending all your time trying to make other people comfortable and spark their learning does not strike me as a real solution. I pause sometimes to make sure my classmates get a fair shot, but after that point, I consider questions fair game. There's only so much I'm willing to dampen my natural enthusiasm and curiosity to accommodate you.

Well, I think the pause thing is a good idea, but any good teacher ought to balance out so s/he is not calling on the same one every time. When I was in school, I raised my hand a lot, but so did others too. I didn't always get called upon, but I always knew the answers.

By middle school, I was able to ask

questions in class that will spark the imaginations of other students and deepen the discussion.

Unfortunately, that wasn't always appreciated, even when I got up to university. Some people just want the bare minimum. Very few wanted to participate in intellectual discussions.

I remember school being awful for me in general, but specific incidents to support my poor opinion aren't usually so keen in my mind... but ugh! thinking about this sort of thing is sparking specific memories of my experience around the same grade level.

Sometimes I'd get tired of waiting for someone else to raise their hand.
Most often I just ceased to care at all. I can almost sit here and relive the developing apathy and spite.

I remember having my hand up, and being ignored while a boy whose hand was not up was called upon, the teacher feeling assured that they'd have the answer. It was always one of the smart but reluctant boys.
I can't recall it ever being a girl...and not someone who might not know the answer... if that happened, well, the humiliation was compounded for that boy. You could see their faces on fire.

Ouch! I'm recalling this right now so well that I could tell you these boys' names!! It was always one of about 3 or 4 boys in most of my classes... (Can't remember the questions!)

There I sat, still with my hand in the air, or chose that moment that the teacher humiliated the boy and would raise my hand just to get things moving along, to get that awkward moment OVER... sometimes I recall feeling like it was appropriate to take the heat off the boy. I had no beef with the boy.The boys were usually ok with me, and with my coming in with an answer... they just really didn't want the attention on themselves!

But most of my satisfaction at being the one left to answer the question was that I successfully thwarted what I could see was some sort of gender bias and discrimination coming from the teacher.

There were a lot of teachers who disliked me, and the feelings were often mutual.
There were a lot of teachers that I identified as psychologically not healthy when I was 12 years old, I could tell they had what I called a "head-trip". it's why they go into teaching in the first place I think... to play god with a room full of children.

I have a similar theory about law enforcement officers too... but that's a whole other ball of wax.

You know TA. I think that's the crux of the issue too. The gender bias the teacher puts upon this problem.

I never encountered gender bias from my teachers and was never aware much of difficulties with boys at least as far as competitiveness over intellectual stuff. It was other issues like being picked last in gym because I stunk at any thing physical.

I always had male science teachers. I had a lot of encouragement from them to do well in their classes. With my 8th grade teacher I was highly encouraged my my science teacher to do well with my science project, took first prize in our school's science fair contest for Rollercoaster Physics, then went along with a few other students to regionals. He helped with some of the technical details but overall was just a big supporter.

With my high school biology teacher (also a male), I had been encouraged to join the scholastic quiz bowl and I was the strongest in all things science; and I was encouraged to take the quiz for the National Science Olympiad, and I got a medal for that.

I had a male history teacher that I really got along with well, and I think that was my favorite class in terms of discussion. It wasn't a fact drilling class, but a "here read this novel, like The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and discuss the issues of that time period and compare the ideologies of the US and German governments". It was absolutely stellar. If anyone really disliked me answering questions or posing questions, I was oblivious to it. I couldn't care less. The teacher appreciated it and so did I. Which leads me to the idea that if a girl wants to express her knowledge, so be it. It should be the teacher's place to make it fair and not call on that person every time, but by no means should a girl not respond if they have something to contribute and others aren't contributing much.

There was only one teacher I had conflict with, a junior high science teacher - a female - who humiliated me in front of class for not knowing something from the periodic table (I think). I forgot what she said, but I bet my friend whom I'm still in contact with remembers.

Boys also didn't want to date me. I never got the impression that I intimidated them, but more so I was just awkward and unattractive. That's okay, I forgive them. When I got to my junior and senior year of university, I had a group of about 20 friends, at least half of whom were male (most of them in math or engineering majors) and had dated 6 of them, and later when on to marry a 7th one from that crowd.

The article on Yahoo!News has expired, but I found it again: www.uexpress.com/dearabby/?uc_full_date=20091210

I have to echo some of the sentiments from other women on the forum who've found more support from male mentors than female ones. At school I found it challenging to sync with female teachers and later professors who were insistent on imposing social harmony (at the surface), discipline and the "by rote" paradise that had spurned them to pursue education. Another dimension that I have witnessed first and second hand is an additional tendency to project their expectations onto their students, and almost actively enforce what they do and don't believe a student's limits should be. I mostly attribute this to the 'chip on the shoulder' from becoming educated in tougher decades.

I find the duality of expectations have followed me into college where "good, but not too good" seems to seep into a situation whenever I leave my 'native' engineering area. People seem to want complacency, and are even more likely to tolerate challenges from males in general. Where there have been exceptions, these exceptions have almost never been from females.

Now that I'm back in school, I've been told my questions sometimes confuse people. Now, this is not me trying to show off, but asking questions to clarify and check my own understanding of the material. It's disappointing that this is viewed more as a problem or annoyance than anything.

If people took a chance on me, I'd drop everything and help them understand the material too. The other day, as I was sitting in the foyer of the college doing a last minute review of the material for my linguistics test, I got mobbed by my classmates. It was fun. I hope it helped. Explaining things helps me understand and remember better too.

Of course this requires willingness on the part of the smart kid and the ability to explain things in such a way that people can understand it, but I wish people approached us more often. We're not the enemy.

(Helping peers, by the way, one of the best ways teens have found of coping with being different: www.sengifted.org/articles_social/Buesch...lescentsAdjust.shtml )