Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 07:31:35 -0800 (PST)
From: Gene Thompson <gthompso@ccsf.cc.ca.us>
To: Pinhole Listserv <pinhole@exploratorium.edu>
Subject: Re: discrimination
In-Reply-To: <v01540b01b084d8c1558c@[208.201.229.134]>
I've heard about lots of situations where that's the case, especially in
depts with few women. I guess I'm lucky at my school, but our dept is
half female, and the classes are split by ability and qualifications
(there's lots of juggling going on), not by sex. As a result, of the 5
people teaching chem, 2 are women, of the 2 teaching physics, one is
female, etc. In fact, when you look at the life sciences, there are 8
people teaching life sciences, and the male/female split is 4/4. If you
look at the physical sciences there are 7 people teaching and the male/
female split is 4/3.
Our problem is a lack of classrooms so that none of us have our own room,
and all of us are teaching at least 2 preps. With class sizes up to the
riduclous this year (average chem class size is 41.2 students) we already
feel like we usually do in May of a hard year.
When I have heard from friends about discrimination, it's inevitably been
around physics and chemistry classes.
Ellen Koivisto
George Washington High School
gthompso@ccsf.cc.ca.us