How Does One Respond?

Tonight's class was partially on the subject of school culture and how it affects the process of supervision in the classroom. The discussion was less than animated and dominated by the usual suspects. You know the ones...the sum total of their life experiences are so great that they simply must use any and all free air space to share them with the rest of us. Having had a particularly bad day at school and still feeling a little shell-shocked from the behavior of a colleague, I was sitting in something of a stupor. The endless drone of one classmate as he reviewed his own situation in his school was slowly lulling me into a gentle coma. Then I heard this:

I mean, like, I'm a man teaching in an elementary school. It's all women! It's hard to become a part of the group, ya know? I mean, like, what am I supposed to do, join one of their little knitting circles or something?

Seriously...

Where do you go with that? To pipe up over the audible gasps and, "Whoa's" of my classmates to point out that it is most likely his charming personality and tendency to categorize people by outdated gender roles that is keeping him from winning friends and influencing people seemed like too much effort at that point.

But I work in his classroom. Yesterday, I actually nodded off during one of his intellectually stimulating classes.

Perhaps I should bring some knitting along tomorrow. Just to keep myself occupied, dontcha know...

SA