Women in Education

My friend and colleague Gamal Sherif teaches at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA.  We are both Teaching Ambassador Fellows for the US Department of Education (Gamal this year and me last year), and members of the Teacher Leader Network Forum, part of the Center for Teaching Quality.  We are both also union activists - I'm NEA and Gamal is AFT.  What I love about our friendship is the differences: I’m a rural elementary teacher and Gamal is an urban high school teacher, yet across these differences we share so much.  Gamal’s asked me to share his latest blog post and I urge people to follow his excellent blog ProgressEd.  In December I cross-posted his piece Teacher Professionalism and Leadership

Part I:

Thanks to Meredith Bagjier, a colleague at ED who compiled a synopsis on the role of women in education. One interesting set of statistics:

• 2011 study indicates that 24% of [K-12] superintendents are women
• Improvement from 1992, when only 13% of superintendents were female
• Discrepancy remains: 75% of US school teachers are female

Part II:
It's no wonder that men are telling teachers what to do in the classroom because the graffiti in the male bathroom stalls on Wall Street has all of the answers.

America casts its burdened gaze on the "virginity tests" in Afghanistan or Egypt, but turns a blind eye to the state-sponsored rape of women via transvaginal probes in Texas. No, she did not ask for it.

Part III:
The level of misogyny is incredible. I saw a commercial the other day that advertised rugged men in the woods, drinking a rugged man's beverage. As if women couldn't be rugged, or nature was a domain to be conquered my manly men.

Check out Amy Morgenstern's video:

BecomingPlant from Amy Morgenstern on Vimeo.