The Minority Report

I am the only male in my book group (Margaret Finders’ book, Just Girls). The other members of our group are always eager to hear my opinion since mine is the only non-feminine view point. But, although I have never really stopped to think about it in as much detail or as critically as Finders does, nothing in her book has really made me stop and think, “Wow… that is fascinating!” When I was 12 years old I started working with children. I babysat for the neighbors. I helped with afterschool sports programs. I worked five summers at the church day camp. I have volunteered with the Boys and Girls Club and with Pathfinders (a church version of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts). I was raised with a primarily female influence. And almost all of my close friends are female. So, even though Finders uses a lot of research, data, and observations in her book, I was not surprised by anything she said.

 

I don’t feel like I learned anything incredibly life changing; but, that doesn’t mean I found the book to be a waste of time. Sometimes it is very useful to restate the obvious. For many years, my phone’s wallpaper had just one word: “breathe”. Seeing as how I have managed to survive all these years without even once forgetting how to breathe, this might seem a bit redundant. The point is that just because we know something, and do it, doesn’t mean that we can’t do it better. This book helped remind me exactly what many of my future students are going to be struggling with. It is a useful reminder that sometimes a lackluster performance might be socially driven, and not a lack of ability or interest.

 

In our book group we discussed what roles we thought we had been, or would be now. Many of us realized that we had been a part of the popular group without even realizing it at the time. Because I attended 7 different schools by 8^th grade I was able to experience both roles of the male-versions of “tough cookies” and “queens”. I definitely related to the yearbook examples. A couple of times I remember that a “kind benefactor” was responsible for purchasing a yearbook for me.

 

There is one point that I am still struggling with from Finders’ book. She stresses the idea of “gaining fluency by writing in a risk free environment…” (26). I think this is a great idea; if the students take advantage of the opportunity. I know that I would have just goofed off if there were no consequence for not writing, or for not writing anything substantive. How do we encourage without restricting?