58 CHAPTER 3 | FRom IdEnTIFyIng ClAIms To AnAlyzIng ARgumEnTsdiscovered a syntax of sexism so elusive that most teachers and students
were completely unaware of its influence.
Recently a producer of NBC’s Dateline contacted us to learn more
about our discovery that girls don’t receive their fair share of education.
Jane Pauley, the show’s anchorwoman, wanted to visit classrooms, cap-
ture these covert sexist lessons on videotape, and expose them before
a television audience. The task was to extricate sound bites of sexism
from a fifth-grade classroom where the teacher, chosen to be the subject
of the exposé, was aware she was being scrutinized for sex bias.
Dateline had been taping in her class for two days when we received
a concerned phone call. “This is a fair teacher,” the producer said.
“How can we show sexism on our show when there’s no gender bias
in this teacher’s class?” We drove to the NBC studio in Washington,
D.C., and found two Dateline staffers, intelligent women concerned
about fair treatment in school, sitting on the floor in a darkened room
staring at the videotape of a fifth-grade class. “We’ve been playing this
over and over. The teacher is terrific. There’s no bias in her teaching.
Come watch.”
After about twenty minutes of viewing, we realized it was a case of
déjà vu: The episodal sexist themes and recurring incidents were all too
familiar. The teacher was terrific, but she was more effective for half
of the students than she was for the other. She was, in fact, a classic
example of the hundreds of skillful well-intentioned professionals we
have seen who inadvertently teach boys better than girls.
We had forgotten how difficult it was to recognize subtle sexism
before you learn how to look. It was as if the Dateline staff members
were wearing blinders. We halted the tape, pointed out the sexist behav-
iors, related them to incidents in our research, and played the tape
again. There is a classic “aha!” effect in education when people finally
“get it.” Once the hidden lessons of unconscious bias are understood,
classrooms never look the same again to the trained observer.
Much of the unintentional gender bias in that fifth-grade class could
not be shown in the short time allowed by television, but the sound bites
of sexism were also there. Dateline chose to show a segregated math
group: boys sitting on the teacher’s right side and girls on her left. After
giving the math book to a girl to hold open at the page of examples, the
teacher turned her back to the girls and focused on the boys, teaching
them actively and directly. Occasionally she turned to the girls’ side, but
only to read the examples in the book. This teacher, although aware
that she was being observed for sexism, had unwittingly transformed
the girls into passive spectators, an audience for the boys. All but one,
that is: The girl holding the math book had become a prop.
Dateline also showed a lively discussion in the school library. With
both girls’ hands and boys’ hands waving for attention, the librarian891011121303_GRE_5344_Ch3_055_079.indd 58 11/19/14 11:06 AM