All students deserve an education that nurtures them, providing opportunities and experiences that inspire their creative and intellectual minds. Whether a student gets this education from a man or a woman should not make a difference. The fact of the matter is that in many cases the gender of a teacher does affect a student's ability to learn. In many instances, it also matters to some teachers if the student is a girl or a boy. Why would this be so? From research and personal observations and experiences, I will answer this question.

At the elementary school level, the majority of teachers are women. In an experiment form the University of California, Los Angeles, boys were found to have better reading scores than the girls when "taught" by a machine. When a female teacher was brought in to give the lesson, the girls outperformed the boys (Thomas 122). Why is this? Maybe it's the difference in the behavior styles of the boys and girls. David Thomas, in his essay "The Mind of Man", says, "Boys are, across all cultures, much more boisterous and overly competitive than girls. They seek out physical competition ... this makes them harder to control than girls." Little boys create more distractions by being loud whereas girls are more docile and less disruptive. Tony Mooney, a secondary- school headmaster, says, "Women teachers find boys too noisy... and reward more 'feminine' behavior" (qtd. in Thomas 121). I am one of those women teachers that like the quietness of girls. From experiences of the past, I would say that most other female teachers feel the same way I do.

I can remember several instances in the past involving situations that concerned my brothers in relation to their education. My brother John and I attended the same elementary school. Since I was four grades ahead of him, he eventually ended up with many of the same teachers I had during my elementary school years. I went to pick John up from his second grade class as I did every day. One day in particular though, his teacher, Mrs. Janet Nitahara, who by the way was one of my favorite teachers, called me in to discuss John's behavior. When I walked in to the class I saw my brother sitting in the corner of the room in a chair. Mrs. Nitahara said that he talked too much and needed to learn how to be quiet and behave in class like I used to. Needless to say, my brother did not do well at all in her class. Perhaps it was because of his behavior or perhaps it was because he had a female teacher. It could have also been that she was comparing my brother to my behavior because I was a "quiet little girl".

My brother was hardly the best-behaved kid in school. Yet when he was in the 6th grade, something changed. He had a teacher by the name of Barry Inoue, a young vibrant male teacher. John loved this teacher and Barry seemed to have a way of getting through to the boys in his class. This was the one semester that my mom never received a call about John. In fact, he ended up getting all A's and E's on his report card. He loved school that semester and learned so much in class. My question is, why was he more apt to do better with a male teacher than a female teacher? The reason I believe is because a male teacher tends to remember what they were like themselves, and in turn are more patient with the boys in the class. The issue here is the instinctive understanding that an adult will enjoy with a child who is going through a process which he or she went through too (Thomas 122).

I can also remember an instance when my second youngest brother started kindergarten. Here was a brand new school, one that I had never attended where none of the teachers knew me, let alone could compare me to my siblings. "Boo," as we call him, was ten years my junior. When he started kindergarten he had a teacher who obviously favored girls to noisy and obnoxious boys. About one week after school started, the teacher called my mom up and told her that my brother was too "busy" and that he should be put on ridilin. Now this brings up two things. First, the teacher had no right to tell any mother that her child should be put on this type of medication. The teacher certainly did not have a clinical degree to diagnose a problem of that nature. Secondly, why was it that only three other parents were told this, all with boys enrolled in her class? There were certainly plenty of little girls in the class. Was it just that the teacher wanted good, quiet little girls, or was it that she had just type cast the boys from the start of the semester due to her prior experiences with little boys? To make matters worse, when my third and youngest brother Andrew went to the same teacher some years later, she again called my mom and told her the same thing about him. Luckily my mom was smart enough to know the difference between a child needing medical and/or physiological help to one that was just a "normal boy".

What happens when the child leaves elementary school and enters the world of middle school and high school with six teachers a day? Will males do better in certain subjects because of a male teacher? Are girls likely to have higher scores in math when taught by a female? In middle school and high school, it used to be that science and math were subjects dominated by male teachers. Today, more and more females are becoming teachers in these subjects. I am one of these teachers. From test scores of my own students, I can tell you that the girls tend to always outperform the boys. Is it because I am a woman and the girls see me as a role model to do well? From my own experience I can tell you that the girls always ask for help in class. The boys want to do things on their own or in a group, usually with other boys. I have observed classes of my male colleagues and found something quite interesting. It is the boys who are asking for help more than the girls. Maybe the boys feel more comfortable asking a man for help and vice versa for the girls. Do the boys see a female math teacher, as someone not qualified to teach the subject? According to Christine Cosker, "Boys fail to be motivated because of their attitude to woman. But if boys ... valued their female teachers, then their progress would match that of girls" (qtd. in Thomas 122). Cosker certainly feels that the fault should be put on the boys entirely. She does not believe that the female teachers have any affect on the boy's performance. I would challenge her based on the experiences of my three brothers. Granted they were not angels, but I believe that their female teachers typecast them before they even entered the classroom.

So would it benefit boys and girls to be in single-gender classrooms or schools? Research from The California Department of Education states that single-gender education improves the achievement of math and science of girls and of the general performance of boys. It also creates a more relaxed setting for boys and girls alike (Education World). Approximately three years ago, a teacher at Darby elementary school did something that was quite interesting to me. My youngest brother was attending the school at the time and told me about a teacher in the school who had all boys in the classroom. I called up Mimi Steinburger, one of the teachers at Darby, whom I am friends with and asked her how Erica Zacharias ended up with 27 boys in her class. Mimi told me that Erica had requested this class just for a change in pace. "She had always thought of boys as a challenge and decided that she would try something different", Mimi said. Erica was a great teacher, always getting awards for her teaching techniques, and always getting praise from the parents of her students whether she was teaching boys or girls. Mimi stated that Erica loved the class full of 5th grade boys and that she really didn't change her way of teaching all that much. She did however add more subjects, such as science experiments and electronics that she thought the boys would like. All and all, she told my friend that she thoroughly enjoyed the class that semester. Mimi said that the class was extremely well behavied and all of the children left the 5th grade with very good grades. The boys did not fail because they had a female teacher. They did well because they had a strong teacher who brought out their best. The American Association of University Women found that when elements of a good education are present, girls and boys succeed.

Thinking back to my junior and senior high school days, I had only two math teachers who were male. All of my other math teachers were women. Did this female force drive me to do well in math? I often wonder about that because the math teacher who inspired me was one of the male teachers, Mr. Burr. He was my eighth grade Algebra teacher. I can remember that he made leaning math fun and exciting, something that is not always indicative of a math class. It did not mater that he was a man but instead that he was a great teacher. Another teacher that I liked a lot was my ninth grade history teacher, Mr. Diaz. He made me love a subject that I've always hated. Ironically, ten years after being in his class, I ended up being his daughter's teacher and to this day, still keep in touch with him.

I've always loved school. I did not care if my teacher was a man or a woman, I just wanted to learn. In fact, some of my worst teachers were females. So who is to say that one sex is better adapted to teach boys or girls? For some students, the gender of a teacher may impact their learning as it did my three brothers. Other students, like myself, will do well in any class regardless if a man or a woman is teaching it.

I believe that education is a life experience in which young people grow and mature. They need to have teachers like Mr. Burr, Mr. Diaz and Mrs. Zacharias who will build their self-esteem and give them the confidence to go out on a limb. Having caring teachers like this will create productive students and in the end, gender will not matter.

American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. "Separated by Sex: A Critical Look at Single-Sex Education for Girls." Report Finds Separating By Sex Not The Solution To Gender Inequity In School. 2000. http://www.aauw.org/2000/ssprbd.html 02 Oct. 2001

California Department of Education, The. "Fact Sheet: Single Gender Academics Pilot Program." Single-Gender Classes: Are They Better? 17 April 2000. Education World. http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr215.shtml 10 Oct. 2001

Steinburger, Mimi [Retired Elementary School Teacher]. Personal interview. Granada Hills, CA. 10 Oct. 2001

Thomas, David. "The Mind of Man." The Presence of Others. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 120-124