Blog 4: Critical/Feminist

“When critical theorists claim that knowledge is socially constructed, they mean that it is the product of agreement or consent between individuals who live out particular social relations (e.g., of class, race, and gender) and who live in particular junctures in time” (McLaren 409).

I love this quote because it deals directly with the fact that as teachers, we basically have multiple curriculums to present to our students. There is no such this as “the curriculum.” Rather, we have the main, hidden, and null curriculum, and this is where socially constructed knowledge comes into play. This quote reminds me of our “mall crawl” that we did a few weeks back where we had to determine what the mall was trying to present to its customers—what was overt and covert. Since this is an education class, I will give an education example. Knowledge is socially constructed, but can’t facts just be presented? Well, basically no. Every student is going to take differently constructed meanings from the information that the teacher presents. Also, the teacher can choose to present the information in any way she pleases. Take the Civil Rights Movement for instance. A white male teacher teaches a history lesson on this movement to a mixed class of white and black male and female students. The white male doesn’t fully understand the hardships that minorities had to and still do face. Also, he is male and can’t empathize with the struggle that women had to face as well in order to be recognized as fully participating American citizens. What this example proves is that class, race, and gender play into the curriculum; it can’t be separated. We are all different, and there is no possible way that we can walk into a classroom and pretend we are all equal. We all come from different backgrounds and have our own value systems. These value systems will affect how we teach and learn.



“Persons with compassionate will but little strong will tend to give themselves up for others. People with strong will but little compassionate will tend to dominate others” (Irwin 43).

At first glance this quote might not hold a lot of information, but it stuck out for me because I empathize with its truth. As I have discovered this semester, I have been labeled as a “push over.” By this I mean that I’m more willing to let things slide with my students because I just want everyone to be happy. I seem to lack discipline skills, not because I am afraid of the students, but because I want them to have a positive learning experience unhindered by the fact that I have to keep yelling or correcting poor behavior. I consider myself to be the person with compassionate will but little strong will. I am afraid of turning into the person with strong will who will dominate others. Irwin highlights each end of the spectrum but she doesn’t mention an appropriate balance. It can only be inferred that as teachers we need to find the middle ground between compassion and control.



“Research suggests that girls receive considerably less attention and reinforcement from their teachers than boys, starting at a very early age” (Irwin 57).

I completely agree with this statement. When I was in high school, teachers didn’t bother me or many of the girls. It seemed to be that the boys were getting all of the attention because it was the boys who were always acting up. I also see this today in the schools I am working in. The girls tend to be quiet and laid back, and the boys are the ones sucking up all of the teacher’s attention. The question though is why? Girls can act up too, and they often do and it still gets ignored by both male and female teachers. What I’ve experienced beyond recognizing behavior is the profound amount of encouragement given to male students. It’s as if teachers across the board believe that the girls are set in their ways, or on the right track, and spend their time getting the boys to get involved. For instance, at the school I’m working in right now, a teacher asked numerous male students if they were going to audition for the upcoming talent show. By the end of the day she had asked eight male students and only two female students. I confronted her about it, and she said she didn’t even realize she was targeting the male population. As she thought more about it, she said that maybe she had certain assumptions about her female students, those being that they would all audition for the talent show on their own without teacher encouragement. The lesson I learned from this is that as teachers we need to be cognitively aware of our assumptions about our students and to try not letting them get in the way of our teaching.


“Our schools attempt to teach the rational, ‘thinking’ side of knowing separated from the other forms of knowing…intuition, emotion, imagination, sensation. Our purpose in restructuring education is probably not to replace rational knowing with these other forms, but, rather, to understand that in the fully functioning human, all these modes of knowing work together” (Irwin 72).

This quote reminds me of a repeated discussion last semester from Educational Foundations. Our class spent a good amount of time discussing what kinds of knowledge should be included in the standard curriculum, and with this what kinds of classes to support the decided on knowledge. It always came down to a battle between rational, core curriculum knowledge and whether or not emotion should be incorporated. There has always been this stigma that we need to teach our students the facts without delving deep into emotion and intuition. For some reason it has been deemed a dangerous area. But why? Emotions make up who we are, and help us make sense of the world around us. And isn’t that what we are doing for our students? Helping them make sense of the world around us? Students are sure to learn information better if they can relate it to personal information, make connections, and comment on how a certain issue makes them feel. Knowledge isn’t truly knowledge unless we ask our students to make sense of it, not repeat it back to us. So by restructuring education, it is our goal to provide the information, but let our students be humans—not unfeeling robots.


“Time and time again, they [women] are told to keep their ‘emotional’ side in check and to follow the instructions provided to them by the more ‘rational’ body of predominantly male administrators (and educational researchers) who dictate to them practices and policies that control their classroom activities” (Hinchey 39).

Hinchey has a great point here, but I’m going to argue against it because I believe that there actually has been some great progress in the field. Yes, it has seemed that the administration has predominantly been male and the teachers female, and teachers have to answer to administration, but I don’t see it as administration equaling rationality and teachers equaling emotion. I think there is a blend between the two groups. There is always going to be a higher person; everyone will always have to answer to someone else. Today, there are plenty of female administrators. At the school where I have been placed, both the principal and the dean of students are females. They are warm and welcoming and communicate well with their team of teachers. I have sat in on numerous team meetings. I assumed myself that the teachers would sit and listen as the administrators rambled off a list of things that needed to be done, but it was more of an open discussion between teachers and administrators, males and females. It was really refreshing to see that I was in an environment free from the harsh dictation of practices and policies meant to establish control of the classroom. Education still needs a lot of improvement, but great strides have been taken and I think that needs to be recognized as well.



“The education of young children is so strongly conceptualized as a female profession that men may suffer from cultural suspicion about their intentions and/or their sexual orientation” (Hinchey 40).

It is ridiculous that we still think like this today, but there are people even in our profession that feel that male teachers of young children are just a little bit weird. I even caught myself doing it a few weeks ago at school. Kinsella has a male kindergarten teacher, and during a fire drill I said, “Wow, you don’t see too many male kindergarten teachers.” Even though I was making a blanket statement (it is true that there are fewer male than female teachers), I said it with a sort of judging surprise. That being said, it just demonstrates how much we teachers have to work on in adjusting our frame of mind. In order to be accepting of our students, we have to be accepting of our peers. It is difficult to erase the stereotype that was created long ago, and I’m saying this as a female! But what I really think that Hinchey is trying to say in this chapter is how uncomfortable society has made male teachers because of this put forth stereotype. I would hate to have to come into work every day feeling that my students or my students’ parents think that I have cruel intentions or relate my profession to my sexuality. If teachers cannot feel comfortable in their own classroom, then they cannot do their job in molding young students. Part of the hidden curriculum involves teaching/modeling to your students that it’s okay to be who you are and to be comfortable with yourself. Students are smart, and they can pick up on when you are not okay with whom you are and what you are doing. Stereotypes exist everywhere. It isn’t just about breaking down stereotypes of our students; it goes the other way, too.