Issue: Teaching and Learning Process

Education is a powerhouse when it comes to ideology, which is why we think highly of

those individuals who have overcome the walls of education, in other words, those people who
graduated and are successful in their own lives. But education is not really that refined as we
thought it would be. It also has many flaws that need refinement, it still needs further
development, and many issues that need to be addressed. One of those issues would be about
gender: the biases, indiscrimination, ideology, and sociality. To have a more specific issue about
gender in education, let us focus on the teaching processes and/or the ways of how the
students were taught by their respective teachers.

It is just a common sense that everyone is different from one another, it would mean
that their ways also differ from one another, just like their teaching ways or processes. One
teacher may prefer to give more activities, one teacher may prefer to give more researches,
one teacher may prefer to be more objective, and another may prefer to be more subjective.
There are too many different types of teacher, as well as different combination of biases or the
likes, that can be seen inside and outside the classroom. An example of those biases, or more
likely an unconscious bias, is their urge to teach boys in a step-by-step manner. What we mean
is that since boys are seen to be slow-learners, then the vice versa will happen at the girls, and
the girls will be slightly ignored while the attention will be redirected towards the boys.

Let us tackle more about the instances and teaching styles that have been said earlier
and elaborate it to some extent by giving some sample situations or sentences. First are the
activities that teachers often give to students to evaluate their application of the things that the
teacher taught his/her students. An example of these activities is the role playing, in which
students were assigned which role to act, like being the father or mother, princess or prince,
the boss or servant, etc. Another example of these application activities that may imply gender
ideology is the pairing system. It is more of a system, just like what the name implies, that is
normally used in application activities. Well, this system does not give any choices than boy-boy
and girl-boy combinations, which implies some sort of ideology and indiscrimination. And since
activities are more of an action type, some actions may involve with them sexism and
symbolism that goes against gender equality, like when the boys are given more attention than
girls because girls are thought to be more intelligent than boys.

The second is the researches. This process, way, or style of teacher through researches
does not really imply gendered things about it, but its construction through the use of language
is the bias and indiscrimination is what makes it gendered. Making a research will, of course,
require some subjects that need to be tackled, and since research is more of the written or
encoded type of activity, language is the most crucial carrier of gender biases. A lot of people
prefer to use more of ‘he’ than use the one accompanied by a ‘/she’, which at least nullifies
gender bias. Using ‘/she’ together with ‘he’ is some sort of inclusion of women in the sentence
that does not have a certain subject. For example, “he is not good at solving math problem” is
the bias sentence, while “he/she is not good at solving math problem” is the more appropriate
sentence since there is no certain subject in the sentence than an anonymous someone.

Being objective is seen to be being unbiased, but we are talking about gender here, so
that unbiased look to an objective person will be cancelled out. Why you ask? Because one may
see it as an objective judgment, for example, but does the ideology really have that objectivity
that you are talking about? You may think that your objective judgment as neutral in nature but
there is the thing that where it came from exist: the social aspect, moral aspect, principles,
ideological aspect, etc, it may be based on some of these. And even the textbooks that the
teacher refers to have their own biases so they cannot say that they are of the neutral party
then they refer to the textbooks that also has their own biases.

Some teachers may prefer to be subjective in approaching their students, they may
want to establish an encouraging and relaxing atmosphere but subjectivity is biased as well. As
what was dictated earlier, there are lots of teacher that teaches boys in a step-by-step process,
mostly in elementary education. Boys really are referred to as slow learners, and that is the
reason that most teachers focus on them more than girls, but that is their biases too. It is called
a bias because boys and girls should be given the same quantity and quality of focus because
they are both students. They may acquire better perception and intelligence than boys – this is
just a sample situation – but if left alone, their perception and intelligence will get dull. So, the
stand is to give them both the same quality and quantity of education that they rightly must
have.

In conclusion, there may be some teachers that have the biases, indiscrimination,
sociality, and ideology about gender that have been discussed, but there are also those who do
really stands in between the line of boys and girls, females and males, men and women, which
sees them equally and approaches them justly. Well, biases and ideologies cannot be avoided
since the mind and heart of a person can be both rational and irrational. In this world full of
sociality, you cannot prevent abiding with the social norms and policies, and even ideologies
outside of your comfort zone to be able to live. One cannot live alone, that is why socialization
is within arms’ reach, which is according to the ideology of the world, and one way of
socialization is through education.