“School Girls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap” by Peggy Orenstein

Context/Premise:
Girls, hidden curriculum, school districts, education, equality, aspirations, women, educators, strategies, neighborhoods, environment, confidence, cooperative learning, gender equality act, training programs, experience, women’s rights, discrimination, boys, ignorance, learning, respect, interactions, cooperation, talking, accepting, allies, behaviors, assumptions, and gender roles.

Argument:
Peggy Orenstein argues that teachers need to make their curriculums gender neutral so that boys will not be the only ones praised and recognized within the classroom and girls may value their importance in order to create more collaboration between the genders and address the hidden curriculum misguiding young girls.

Evidence:

-“Is it enough to simply call on girls more often or to introduce cooperative learning without changing the core of the male-dominated curriculum? Is it enough to change the substance of the curriculum lost to retain traditional classroom structures?”
It is not enough to just call on girls more, there needs to be something much more concrete done in order to truly incorporate girls into the classroom so that they are learning more than just the hidden curriculum.

- “the curriculum should be both a window and a mirror for students…they should be able to look into others’ worlds, but also see the experiences of their own race, gender, and class reflected in what they learn.”
I really liked and respected this quote from the document I felt as though it grasped a lot of what I understood this excerpt to be talking about. Students need to be able to see the world around them but also see how it reflects them as well. Hearing, seeing and learning about the world should also reflect what they know or feel they know to be true. Being what I feel as a strong woman, I want to learn about other strong women in society.

“It disturbed me that although girls were willing to see men as heroes, none of the boys would see women that way.”
I also feel as though girls easily accept men as heroes because it is something we have been accustomed to. Boys, on the other hand, find it more difficult to view girls in that way because girls are not constantly or typically shown in that manner. The boys need to be taught and opened to women holding powerful roles where men once stood. This is not saying that boys no longer matter, but instead, collaboration and cooperation needs to take place to gain allies among the boys so that gender no longer holds its stereotyped weight.

- “I think that boys need to learn how to talk to girls to. We have to be careful not to assume that all boys engage in this behavior. And we have to be careful that boys feel that they can take an active part in changing this kind of behavior, in changing the behavior of others. Because it’s not just a female job to change it, but a male job as well.”
This is all about how it is not simply the female’s job to change but it takes both genders to begin improving the over all society. I agree with their being males who do not all agree with the assumed male mentality. Keeping this in mind it can be difficult for boys as well because girls do usually assume all men think alike on a general term, but to think that it just as bad as some of the degrading things boys to do women. It is for that reason that being able to communicate and talk between the genders is essential in changing aspects of the community.