Why Do Preschools Have Hidden Curriculum

As a child, women and men are predominantly on the same page. With the exception of their shared interests and activities. As a child grows up, the classroom setting starts to highlight the differences between both boys and girls. Most often, education is catered towards girls and the learning styles that girls flourish in (Vincent & Ball, 2007). Girls outperform boys in almost every subject when they are elementary school age (Vincent & Ball, 2007) because in the classroom, it is taught that the qualities with being a good student are most often synonymous with being a good girl, and here is where you can see a dichotomy begin to occur (Vincent & Ball, 2007). Boys are conditioned from the beginning to understand that being a man, and being masculine is the polar opposite of what it means to be feminine. Early

When you send your children off in the morning to go to school, no matter what grade they are in whither it be elementary, junior high, or senior high, you expect that they will receive the best education that they can get. They should be asked challenging questions, encouraged and called upon to participate in class, they should also be given as much help as they need to secede by the teacher. However, this is most commonly not the case. Parents and the children themselves are unaware of what is going on because gender bias is not a noisy problem. Most people are unaware of the secret sexist lessons that occur every day in classrooms across the country. In this essay I will use two essay's from the reader:

Watters writes, “…individuals tap that cultural storehouse of knowledge simply by mimicking (often unconsciously) the behavior and the of ways thinking of those around them” (500). Children are sponges at young age. They take all that they see that’s happening around them. To have healthy gender development, society must avoid assumption that each gender is not interested in other gender’s activity. It also important in having a gender-neutral language, stopping the division among the children allows them to feel included, regardless of their gender. This also shows a variety of roles, allowing them to have the freedom to choose what they want to be.

Due to stereotypes influencing children in today’s society, in which people believe that only female enter the teaching position in the elementary industries, children’s today seem to believe it too. Children being children, they began discussing what they wanted to be when they grow up, of course the girls would say ‘I want to be a teacher or a nurse’, which is what society is teaching them to say, as well as the boys saying ‘I want to be a police officer or fireman’. However, what caught the teacher, the male coworker and myself attention was when one of the boy asked the male coworker ‘why was he a teacher? if he was a boy and that was a girl job’. I was stunned by that phrase because due to myself being young at the time, I did not realize until then that gender role and gender inequality was still going on in society. Society is somehow influencing the new generation to know the difference between what is a masculine job and a feminine job. These children were in the ages range of three through five and already having these sort of gender roles description sort it out at such a young age. The teacher did the right things and decided to do a lesson on gender role and inequality the following day. She wanted to make it as fun and easy as possible for the children to understand that they can be anything they want to be in

As Cheryl Maes—a feminist and sociologist that teaches at the University of Nevada, Reno—puts it, “How can we expect to raise gender neutral children, if we are gendered? ...I do not believe we can raise gender neutral children until we live in a gender-neutral world.” I believe that the point Professor Maes hopes to point out is that to escape the negativity presented by gender, that society as a whole must redefine gender socialization and present a more neutral

Mothers will overestimate a young boy’s ability to crawl and will underestimate the ability, even though it is the exact same ability, of a young girl. Girls are presented with mommy-to-be toys, such as baby dolls or a Lego set where she can build a house, and boys are given spaceships and other toys that relate to STEM education principles, which involve science, technology, engineering, and math concepts. The notion of the pink aisle, “experts agree[,]…does have a negative impact on girls’ interest in…STEM” resulting in math anxiety and the belief that they are inferior to boys in those subject matters (time.com). The actions adults take toward children, from choosing to pick up the child or leave them be when they cry to whether they give the child a Barbie or Captain America, genders the child. By the time a child reaches kindergarten, they know if they are a boy or a girl and they know that boys like blue and girls like pink. They also know that another child who goes against gender ‘stereotypes’ is unnatural and should be greeted with cruelty. For example, my youngest sister, Clara, has a sensory processing disorder, meaning that an abundance of sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and touches are completely overwhelming to the point of breakdowns and tantrums. For this reason, she wears mostly athletic wear; ruffles and even the tag on the back of a shirt is too ‘itchy’ and results in mass amounts of tears. The

Although June's observations aren't clear as to what they mean, they do suggest one idea. John Stossel summed up this idea saying, "So, could it be that when we treat kids differently, cuddle the girls, toss the boys into the air, that we're not being sexist? Maybe we're responding to the inborn cues from the kids" (Men, Women).

Taking the opportunity to observe preschoolers in a childcare setting will help identify whether gender differences occur among preschool children. More specifically, observing children in their natural environment will help determine whether or not boys play differently than girls. On October 7th, at the Child Development Lab’s playground while the children were having playtime at 11 o’clock in the morning, I had the chance to observe thirteen boys and sixteen girls aged 3-4 years old. After observing, I was able to conclude that at the ages of three and four years old, boys and girls do not play differently; at the ages of three and four, both boys and girls play in rocks, on scooters, sing, and play with kitchen sets.

Middle school years have a profound impact on a young teen’s cognitive development. Teens need motivation, confidence, and recognition during the developmental period. However, it is a common phenomenon that girls receive less attention from teachers. It is more likely that when sitting in the same classroom, reading the same textbook, listening to the same teacher, boys and girls receive very different educations. Since the Bush administration has approved the public schools to be free to establish single-sex schools, many socialists and educators believe that single-gender classrooms would a better option to employ instruction for specific genders (Stabiner 325). As a writer for the New York Times Magazine, Peggy Orenstein, in her observation paper “The Daily Grind: Lessons in the Hidden Curriculum” illustrates how gender bias occurs within the

The time we spend in school is a huge part of our lives. Someone could spend anywhere from 13 years to 20+ years in elementary, middle, high, and higher education. Since school is started at such a young age, people are shaped by their teachers and peers in how they act towards another and think about each other. Our teachers, although they don’t mean to, say things that can influence how we think about people or things. With children being so influenced by what the people around them think and do, its important for those things to be good. Early in life, children develop gender identities, and in our culture there are stereotypes that children pick up on because its seen as the “norm”. Males are supposed to be independent and competitive while females are more passive and supportive. Teachers can often impose these stereotypes onto their students, meaning no harm, but in the long run these gender roles can impact their future.

By appreciating how sex differences emerge - rather than assuming them to be fixed biological facts - we can help all children reach their fullest potential. “In the past decade, people have heard a lot about the innate differences between males and females. People have come to accept that ‘ Boys can’t focus in a classroom and girls are obsessed with relationships.’ That’s just the way that they were built.”(Eliot 1). Boys and girls, while having much in common, are also very different in their thoughts and mental aspects. Psychological gender differences could provide explanations for gender stereotypes, help to understand communicative and expressive skills,

The first paper highlights Gender and how it is portrayed in reading books within the classroom. Gender contrasts have been seen as an ominous flag for inequity, these conjectures might be because of the deeply routed beliefs in some cultures in which a discourse of equal opportunities is an unfamiliar one. Different genders gather in the classroom - but it has been evident in research that male students receive arguably more teacher attention however research shows that male students actually talk and interact more, then again it is seen as necessary to maintain gender distinctions so that women do not go without education – (traditional patriarchal attitudes do) thus ensuring good educational opportunities and securing a brighter, independent future. What is interesting is that the paper being analysed consists of gender representation in children’s literature, it shows how two different perspectives on male and female are created, interestingly enough the title of the paper reads; ‘Invisible

This week’s article provided interesting insight into science curriculum in a preschool classroom. I believe that children experience scientific concepts all around them every day, for example, weather and shadows, and that they are looking for information and the language to understand these concepts. This article furthered my belief that preschool children are capable of learning and exploring abstract scientific concepts. Furthermore, this articles supported my beliefs that although capable of understanding abstract concepts, preschoolers require teacher guided support in learning these concepts, as they often do not yet have the language require to explain the phenomenon’s they see happening.

Researchers suggest that some sex-segregation proponents are manipulating school boards and segregated education. This unawareness in turn, often causes schools to rely on brain research. (Cantalupo 730) It seems beyond dispute that boys and girls learn at different paces and in different ways. According to a

Prekindergarten marks the initiation of formal education for most young children in the United States. Educators in these classrooms often focus their teaching on the integration of learning and play. Children in prekindergarten, however, often learn more than material outlined in curricular standards. A child’s introduction to preschool – often their first institutional experience – forces them to adopt a “subject position” in this new social context (Mansson 8). That is, children become socialized by the formal school setting; they develop individual and group manners, classroom etiquette, and interpersonal skills. With these social lessons come a series of social beliefs, norms, and expectations, not least among them, gender and gender roles. As innocent and naïve as some may believe them to be, preschoolers are attentive and perceptive; they are not immune to the explicit and implicit ideas and messages about gender that surround them. Early lessons in gender, gender roles, power, and inequality become ingrained in young minds and often serve to frame – rather, to confine – ideas about ability, potential, and achievement. There exists a significant volume of research on various topics of gender in the prekindergarten setting, including gender salience, gender roles, and gender differences. Utilizing existing research and classroom experiences, this paper thus explores the nuances of gender as they manifest themselves in the prekindergarten classroom setting and provides