A PICTURE’S WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS
By: Laurie E. Beauvais

The overall objective of this lesson, in terms of infusing equity by gender in the classroom, is to show students, through development of statistical data about jobs in schools, the trends in jobs for male and female high school teachers. This data will reveal types of jobs, and discipline areas, that existed in the past, and where we are at today. From this data, some extrapolation to other career areas, and projections about the directions we need to head in equity can be done. This process should give today’s students better perceptions on the issues.

STANDARD: All students will be able to identify career areas which are nontraditional for their gender.

GRADE LEVEL: 9-12, Mathematics

1. Using school yearbooks from 1950-1959, 1960-1969, 1970-1979, 1980-1989, and 1990-the present, students will count the number of male and female teachers in each subject area, and the number of male and female administrators in the school or school districts, if the yearbook includes district administration.
2. Students will compile data and construct appropriate statistical graphs based on these frequency counts.
3. Students will extrapolate changes in job trends in education as they relate to gender changes.
4. Students will project future changes in job trends for women and men in non-traditional gender career areas.

TIME: 3-5 class periods

MATERIALS: school yearbooks (from the 1950’s to the present), graph paper, colored pencils, calculators

RESOURCES: Town library, School Library for yearbooks.

PROCEDURES:

1. Students are placed into groups.
2. Distribute yearbooks by time sequence among the groups. This will represent the time interval, i.e., a 10 year period).
   Yearbooks should be in consecutive year order (i.e., 1970- 1974).
3. Students will count the number of male and female teachers in each subject area and the number of male and female administrators, by year, by discipline/area and chart this data.
4. Data will be summarized and graphed over the given time interval established in procedure #2.
5. Groups will share data with one another.
6. Each group will construct double-line graphs to represent the subject area specific data that has been collected over the given time intervals. The horizontal axis will represent the time intervals and the vertical axis will represent the number of people. Students should use two different colors to represent males and females. Double lined graphs will be procured by year, by decade, and by summary.
7. Upon completion of graphs, students will summarize changes in job trends as well as project future changes.
8. Students should discuss their results with each other.

HINTS: Determine how many yearbooks your school and town libraries have available before you determine your time interval: This will also help you determine the size of your groups.

ASSESSMENTS:

1. Students will demonstrate understanding of constructing data through development of a data table from which they develop accurate double-lined graphs that transform the data from the yearbooks into visual representations.
2. Students will understand the basic statistical concepts of frequency, means, and percentages through their work in counting and recording via tables.
3. Students will demonstrate through their discussion of the results, understanding of the changes or non-changes resulting from the impact of gender equity in relation to jobs in schools and project these results as these may be comparable to other fields of work.

INTEGRATED ACTIVITIES: Students could construct graphs using the computer.