14th March 2019

No classroom in the world can be homogenous. In any classroom every child or every learner is different. Each one of us has different appearance, different background resulting in different socialisation, different set of values and attitudes. Not only that, age make us react to the different complexities during the learning process, same is implied when we are teaching the younger ones.

How does age impact in teaching the younger ones?

Very young children are not capable of understanding many things that we can easily understand. There are stages of cognitive development that psychologists have given. Learning skills and capacities depend on age of the learner. Gender on the other hand, makes the whole life of an individual different. It decides how we perceive the world, which behavioural styles and strategies to follow when interacting with the younger children. Therefore, these factors are taken into consideration while teaching learning experience is planned for individual or group of individuals.

How can gender impact the level of teaching?  

Research has been done regarding the effect of gender on learning as well as academic achievement. Gender roles refer to culturally acceptable behaviour. As referred in the international teaching diploma program would also explain that gender stereotypes reflect those beliefs about characteristics associated with being male or female.

By and large in any community there are gender biases which are responsible for many types of injustice to a girl child. Attention, opportunities and reinforcement should be given in such a way that girls should gain confidence and motivation to participate. Any teacher is supposed to interact in such a way that both the genders get equal and positive respect.

However, with reference to an understanding of the education psychology it has been proved that teachers pay more attention to boys and girls in today’s world. Earlier there was comparison in respect to teachers considering boys can learn maths quickly and are best in solving the difficult puzzle while girls are best in crafts.

Issues and problems in classroom:

Educational psychologists have reported that student to student interaction and student to teacher interaction both depend on the genders of students. Actually, in reference to the researches it has been proved that there are no substantial differences in genders and whatever differences persist are not due to any biological differences.

While you are enrolling in the international teaching diploma program, you are aware of the fact that not only teachers but basically parents also discriminate among boys and girls. The expectations of academic excellence are more in case of boys and this definitely affects the motivation level of the female child.

Hence, in spite of having equal capacities, girls are comparatively neglected and their achievements are not taken seriously. As a consequence of all these things, girls start underestimating themselves. Their goals and aspirations are low and they work either for someone else or for gaining appreciation by someone else. Therefore, in tradition families self-concept of a girl is low and their outlook is pessimistic. Child rearing practices are such that social acceptance is the most important. Self-actualisation and use of potentials get a backseat in case of the girls there as teachers you are to solve this issue.  

Activities adopted by teachers to mitigate the implications:

Teacher should take due precautions to avoid any disadvantage to any member in the classroom. In day to day activities as teachers you should avoid the following and the same is shared by the international teaching diploma program,

a) Grouping students on the basis of their gender for academic activities

b) Giving different sports activities to girls and boys

c) Asking certain answers just boys or girls, say asking poetry questions to girls and maths to boys.

d) Guiding the students regarding their career only on the basis of gender

e) Giving more encouragement to boys for developing leadership qualities.

f) Giving gender specific examples of achievements or contributions to civilisations.