Dr. Sadker's Top Ten List of Compelling Issues in Education

Like Ruthie, I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Sadker last Thursday. I had wanted to take time to further synthesize my ideas, but time keeps slipping away from me, so I am simply including some of my notes and reflections about the experience. I had the opportunity to see Dr. Sadker twice. The first was for an informal discussion for research opportunities between STEM occupations and education. The second was for a presentation on gender in the schools directed toward students. The impression I came away with was, “What a wonderful soul.”

During the first meeting, Dr. Sadker used a conversational style to talk about potential opportunities for research relationships between education and STEM. Dr. Sadker talked about the community outreach program that Tufts had in engineering and was unaware that Tuft’s program was based on our Epics program. The discussion went on to talk about the Purdue Epics program in the high schools and possible ways to research and recruit women through this avenue. We also discussed ways to recruit more women as engineering and physics teachers. I asked if there were ways and ideas that he had about researching programs and skills that started potentially as early as elementary school that not only generated an interest in sciences, but also helped women succeed in the STEM fields once they graduated. I think I am thinking about leadership, perseverance, mediation, - ability to shift their dreams when a door closes- that could start sooner. We have been very successful getting women interested in life sciences, yet they do not continue on in industry… Perhaps we need to continue to generate more interest and have more women pursue these careers so that potentially we reach what Malcolm Gladwell might call a Tipping Point – but if we know women are entering and pretty immediately leaving these fields, don’t we as educators have an obligation to engage in a discussion of these women’s experience before we continue to recruit more women to the same experience? I certainly don’t know the answer – I am just interested in ways to ask the question… Dr. Sadker responded by saying this was one of the difficult questions.

In terms of career, Dr. Sadker said that he wasn’t called to his relationship and research with gender; he was pushed into it. His story was that his wife and he were graduate students together and when they would work together or take classes together, despite his protest to the contrary, people gave him much of the credit that belonged to his wife. Fortunately for their relationship, he realized this. His wife went on to write an article about the “invisible” student and from their earned a book contract. Issues of gender in education became their joint academic pursuits. Dr. Sadker pointed out that gender is both masculine and feminine. Gender studies are not women’s studies but rather gendered studies of the feminine and masculine. He pointed out that while men benefit economically from associating themselves with the masculine gender, they are stereotyped more strongly at earlier ages, have many health issues, and die years earlier. Things I don’t normally think about when I think of white male privilege.

Dr. Sadker also pointed out that it was very important to consider lenses. People say that there are more women then men in college, but Dr. Sadker reported that in terms of middle class men and women, the attendance rate for college is within 1% of the other. He reported that it is African American males and Hispanic males where we lose the male attendance rate as African American and Hispanic women in particular attend colleges at much higher rates than their male counterparts. Dr. Sadker also pointed out that the races were stratified by types of institutions. Many community colleges in urban areas may have a diverse student body whereas ivy leagues colleges are still primarily white. On top of being white and middle class, people consider themselves in the middle class earning anything between 13 thousand to 250 thousand a year. Maybe we need to talk about what is really middle class. I have to agree with that.

So on to the afternoon session.

Dr. Sadker discussed his top 10 list of Important Issues

10) Shifting academic and health issues gap.

• · Women are still drastically under represented in engineering and computer science. In fact, the number of women in computer science is dropping.
• · Eating disorders are on the rise for men
• · Steroid use in teens is on the rise, particularly for women
• · 81% of 10 year old girls are scared of being fat
• · In the age range from 11 to 17, the number one wish for girls is to be thinner

9) Need for Multiple Lenses

• · White middle class men and women go to college at essentially the same rates
• · Over 60% of community colleges’ student bodies are comprised of women
• · Skin color is a critical element in college attendance particularly for men of color

8) Gifted, Special Education, and STEM receive the most funding in education

· These are also areas with more male workers and students – where there’s more money, there’s more men

7)Glass Walls/Glass Ceilings

• · Currently the number of men in elementary education is less than 9%
• · Nursing is heavily female as well, if men do go into it they are promoted to supervisory positions very quickly
• · Women in medicine tend to go into the five lowest paying fields

6) Are Men a gender too?

• · Intuitive versus logical, logic assumed to be “better”
• · Men are mechanical and problems solvers
• · Men pay a terrible price for their gender roles

5) The testing issue

• · Knowledge and relevance is fleeting

4) Politicalization of Everything

• · Including and especially public school education
• · Take for example issue of evolution in Texas and sex education only in the form of Abstinence under Bush Administration

3) Who Commands the Language

• · College Admissions: Quotas, Affirmative Action, and Alumni Legacies
• · Ivy league only opened to women in the 70’s, (Columbia didn’t open up to women until 1980)

2) Single Sex Education versus Coeducation

• · Brains and Neuroplasticity - it is important for all of us to experience multiple ways of learning and knowing.
• · Men and women are more alike than different, they need to be educated in all types of ways to encourage all types of nerve growth
• There are more differences within the genders than between the genders

1) Speaking about Einstein and Newton

• · Synchronicity
• · 96% of reality is not seen
• · Energy is out there, we need to start moving it around
• · Recommended the book, The Living Classroom which talks about the role of energy in the classroom and connectivity

It was quite a discussion, with plenty of room for reflection….