This is the rough draft of my presentation tonight. Well, I have a power point and I have this to give to people. It's not great, but it's not bad either. Much of it I've said before, but I wanted to share why I've not been posting. So here goes.

In preparing for this project, my first thoughts were with my problems with gender and the opinions that students have of me because of the gender I am. This is a teaching an learning problem to me as it presents problems when students have a lack of respect for me because I happen to be female. I asked myself �how can learning occur when there is a lack of respect for the person presenting it�. I wondered about the opinion that students would have of the information I was presenting if they did not respect the person presenting it. I then wondered how conducive the classroom environment would be to learning if I were being tested and disrespected throughout the lesson. As teachers we face this gender problem when we step into a classroom, but, as I was warned, no one does more so than the new, young female teacher, a group that thus far in my career, I have been a part of.

I pondered this problem and turned it over and over in my head. I had not yet had a chance to write about it when I found myself with a Saturday evening that I could call my own: my husband was out, the cat was sleeping and I could just kick back and relax. I had been rereading the memoir �Prozac Nation� by Elizabeth Wurtzel and had rented a few movies, one of which was �O�, the modern re-telling of Shakespeare�s �Othello�, setting the story in a United States High School. I was set to relax; I�d done an hour of yoga, I had a book I was deep into and a movie I�d wanted to see for a while. I could put aside schoolwork and enjoy my time alone.

When the movie was over, I could only feel fear. My yoga-induced relaxed state had completely dissipated and I was scared. It was a fear akin to that of the hand reaching out of the grave at the end of �Carrie�, yet this fear was not because of ghosts and ghouls jumping out at me. Instead it was ideas and realizations jumping out at me, making me scared and uncomfortable about the youth I teach everyday. I was deeply unsettled and could not quite articulate why.

�O� is the story of Hugo. Son of the Basketball coach, he is deeply jealous of Odin, the African American school basketball star who shines in his performances and is dating the school principals� daughter, Desi. Hugos� father declares that he loves Odin �like a son� and encourages his sharing his honours of MVP with a younger classmate, Michael. Hugo gets yelled at at practice and never feels that he is good enough for his father and his fathers expectations. He receives steroids shots and wishes to be like a Hawk. He recognizes his feelings for Hugo as the jealousy they are, however, instead of leaving it at that, masterminds a plan, first manipulating the characters Roger and Emily, and then manipulating Odin, to destroy those who of whom he is jealous. It ends with the deaths of Odin, Roger, Michael, Desi and Emily, some by Hugo�s hand, others by Odin�s. The final scenes show the chaos that ensued: the frantic principal not wanting his daughters face covered with a sheet, the sobbing basketball coach (we are unsure if he is crying for either the loss of Odin, the loss of his basketball dreams or the deeds of his son), the police and EMS personnel finding the bodies of Roger and Michael on the road. Throughout there is a voiceover of Hugo; comparing Odin to the Hawk he desired to be. We see Hugo being taken outside and through the cars to a police vehicle. The final shot of the movie shows us We see Hugo in the back of a squad car and see the final shot of the movie � Hugo looking out the back window of the car, surrounded by chaos and death while his voice over states �Someday, someone will look at me�.

�Prozac Nation� is the memoir of Elizabeth Wurtzel, a journalist and writer who details her voyage through depression. She was the product of a divorced home and her family had a history with depression. She was a high achiever as a child but fell into a valley, attempting suicide at summer camp and cutting herself in the school bathroom. When she is eventually sent to therapy, it creates more upset within her family and she, for this reason and others, does not �get better�. Upon entering Harvard, she becomes part of a drug culture, taking recreational drugs and partying, yet not finding what she needs in life. Her story continues through bad choices, good choices that went wrong and therapy until she is prescribed the new drug Prozac. The epilogue discusses her appearance back into a functioning social and professional life. Throughout the novel, she discusses what she wants in life She makes the statement that she was always trying to please her mother, yet always hurt her more. This memoir has been named a memoir of not just Wurtzel, but of many of her generation who grew up at the same time, and Wurtzel notes the number of people who have told her that they can relate. The film version is still awaiting release. This memoir is a story of depression, but also a story of a female who wanted to be heard.

The combination of these two works � both protagonists wanting someone to look at them and striving for the approval and love of their parents � made me think. I lost sight of my original teaching and learning problem and it became enfolded within this problem � students are internalizing differently. How can we, as educations teach them to become able to articulate without having to destroy those around them? How can we teach them that hurting someone � himself or herself or another, is wrong? And how can we bridge the gap that these two works are representative of � the male externalizing and the female internalizing their problems until something �gives� and a tragedy has come to a climax.

In thinking about this problem, I wondered how it manifests itself. My thoughts turned to two gendercentric problems that appear in our schools � eating disorders and school shootings/violent behaviour. These extremes seem to be on opposite ends of the female-male continuum and represent the internalizing/externalizing spectrum. Whilst there is some crossover, these behaviours remain mainly gender specific, with the exceptions being notable by those discussing them.

Eating disorders are, in many ways, a form of self-punishment. They are also a cry for help and a bid for control over factors that may seem uncontrollable � the way others treat them, the way that they appear to themselves and to others, or even the way that they want to appear to the world. The root of an eating disorder is rarely appearance � whilst this may be what is easily observant, it is not what is at the root or the reason that they go beyond a �simple diet�. 1% of all females are anorexic, 4% are bulimic. Only 10% of those suffering from eating disorders are male, making those cases ones of note (but also making them harder to locate within your classroom). Eating disorders can kill � two or three percent of those in treatment for eating disorders die of the disease, while twenty percent of those going untreated die. Very few have ever completely recovered from an eating disorder and forged a healthy relationship between themselves, their appearance and their diet. It can be hard to relax around that which you once tried to control!! Even if a person does not die from an eating disorder, they can face health ramifications for the rest of their lives that constrict and inflict on their way of living. For many females, controlling their food to the point of an eating disorder is their way of reacting to what is happening around them in their home and family life. Their internalizing of the situation they are in causes them to destroy themselves � if not through death than through creating an unhealthy vessel in which to live.

School shootings are a primarily male domain. Shootings within schools are not as commonplace as eating disorders. Yet for many, violence within their school is commonplace. School violence in general is also, however, unfortunately, females have been more active in that field. However, such as noting that an eating disorder sufferer is male, we note when a school violence perpetrator is female � especially when the violence takes a fatal form and involves an assault with a weapon. When it is violence committed by a female we are told this � when it is by a male, the gender is often not denoted. In a listing of school shootings, one is attributed to a female and discusses the fact that she was depressed. That shooting was not fatal. School shootings, like eating disorders, can be attributed to a wish for control and linked to the shooters treatment at school and how others viewed and acted towards them. They can be a bid for respect in a world where they are not respected. Eric Harris, one of the shooters in the Columbine High shooting stated in a video, "Isn't it fun to get the respect that we're going to deserve?�. Brooks Brown, friend of Harris and Klebold: "had to do with the injustice in our society and in the school." They reacted externally to teasing and reactions because of who they were. Surveys have shown that males feel more threaten in schools and have felt the need to resort to violence more often: In 1990 50% of 400 males surveyed said they�d carried a gun to school. The externalizing of the situation many find themselves in means that they destroy others � perhaps through death or perhaps through the threat of death.

Where does all of this come from? In general, we do socialize our children when they are young, giving girls toys that have to do with pleasing someone else (dolls to take care of, kitchens to pretend to bake in, etc) and boys toys to act outwardly and which can destroy others (guns, swords, cars, etc). Media enforces these ideas through outward appearances of those appearing in it and the stereotypes that are presented within it. Barbie is the female doll of choice - a doll which if it were real, could not stand. GI Joe is referred to decisively as an action figure and has continued to grow in muscles. A perfect female is tiny in most areas, whilst a perfect male is solidly large. Young boys are rarely seen as weak, even within television and movies, whilst younger females often need to be rescued. Romantic movies such as �Pretty Woman� and �Titanic� show the female as trapped � while their pseudo-feminist messages at the end were reported to redeem them, young girls watching were still taught that they needed a boy to get them out of the situation they�d found themselves in. And boys are taught that they must rescue the girl, no matter what.

Singers such as Pink and Eminem both have recently produced music detailing their plights � Pink singing about how she is a �Hazard to herself� and Eminem discussing his hatred for his mother and the occasion where he tried to shoot his then wife. Pink describes how she is a hazard to herself because of her attitudes and actions, as well as the hatred she has for herself and the hatred that others, such as her parents had for her. Eminem discusses his childhood and the hatred that certain social groups have for him. However, unlike Pink, he brings his message external, punishing those who hurt him by denying them access to his daughter and his life, as well as describing his violence towards his ex-wife. Much like the comparison of the protagonists in �Prozac Nation� and �O�, Pink and Eminem vary in their actions � Pink internalizes to foster a hatred of herself and begs �Don�t Let Me Get Me�, whilst Eminem states �to you I�m dead, I�m as dead as can be�.

How is this a teaching and learning problem? Well, we are teaching the students who are watching this media and who are growing up around those who are watching it and perhaps not critiquing it. We do not always know as teachers who we are teaching in terms of how they feel on the inside and what they are going to do about it. We could be teaching students who are in fear for their lives everyday or those who are conflicted about their lives, who they want to be and who they are. We have things happening in schools that teachers never know about. We teach children who hate themselves and hate those around them. Social Learning Theory teaches us that students learn from the media, which, if that is the case, our students are conflicted about the definitions of �man� and �woman� and who or what they should strive to be. What kind of learning can happen if we don�t address this to some degree? What kind of learning can happen if we favour one type of student over another � are we validating one at the expense of the other?

I can�t solve this problem. I don�t know how. I know how I can work towards making it better but I can�t solve it. If I respect all my students and they respect me, no matter what gender I am, then that�s a start. If I model strength as a person or show that no matter what gender, preferences or abilities, people have a right to choose their lives, that�s also a start. But what about what they learn in the movies or on television? What they learn at home and what they don�t learn at home? How do these messages translate into their lives that they can learn to question, discard and accept different ideas and thoughts? How can I teach them to speak out and express themselves when they are being taught from so many facets that that is not who they should be as a boy or girl? Examining this problem left me with more questions than answers. How can I help prevent my students from destroying other lives or the lives of themselves? Do I have a right to try or is it that I have an obligation to try? And, as a teacher, how do I teach for understanding when I have to teach the curriculum?

So often, after a tragic event, people say �I never thought it would happen here�, or �They were such a good family�. Perhaps we need to look at our definition of good and what is happening in and around our students so that that doesn�t have to be said any more.

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