Gender/Math

This topic stems from a conversation in my 11th grade class yesterday. After reading passages about Einstein and Marie Curie, the textbook offered the following question for classroom discussion. "Agree or disagree: boys are better at math than girls." I laughed to myself because obviously by now we all know that "boys and girls are equally as good at math, but boys have just been historically pointed towards the subject of math and science in school." Oh wait, I'm in Georgia. Oh wait, only the boys in this class know English. G, who is always kind, sort of stepped back on this topic even though he usually has a lot to say. This may have been because when M and L stated that they definitely agreed, I gave them the "are you crazy?" look. L's reasoning behind the agreement was that boys are just naturally smarter and more genius (it's especially good if you could hear the way he was pronouncing genius "gene-you-us"), and sometimes girls seem better but that is only because the boys are being lazy, but innately boys are better. And the girls who are smart at math just had to work really hard to memorize everything, and it took much more effort because they are not naturally as good. He goes on to use Einstein as an example, because Einstein was very bad in school but he was naturally a genius. Then M comes into the conversation and says that even if we look at their class, all the boys are smarter than the girls. And most famous scientists and mathematicians were men. This is when G, who I think notices that I feel uncomfortable, comes into the conversation and starts saying that maybe it doesn't matter who is smarter because technology is advancing so quickly maybe someday no one will have to remember anything anymore. We will all have computers to remember everything for us.
So, I am basically in shock here, trying to decide how I will formulate a good solid response that is not only incredibly intelligent (because I'm a female so now I have to really defend females everywhere), but in simple enough English that they will be able to understand. So I'm coming up with my answer when my co-teacher, N, steps in. "I agree with you, I think boys are better than girls at maths usually." This is when in my haed, I am thinking "WHAT!"
And I shake my head and said "I really disagree." And the second I open my mouth to continue on, the bell rings.
As we walk out, N is still bickering a bit with M and L, saying that she was very good at math growing up, better than most of the boys in her class. I tell N that it's just no true, and she says "well, in their class it is true." And then the conversation ends.
But what I wanted to say all along, was that of course this seems true. Of course it seems as though men are better than women at math and science, when growing up boys are tracked into the scientific and mathematical areas of school, more because of gender roles than because of actual intelligence. And historically, of course more men were scientists and mathematicians because women weren't even allowed into higher education until fairly recently. The famous women scientists were aberrations not because "wow, it's so crazy this lady is actually smart!" but because they were the few who could step beyond the baby-making dinner-cooking gender roles expected of them. And living in Georgia, I suppose I should not be surprised by this mindset, because many of the women here are in the role of housewife. When I am frequently told about girls who drop out of school because they are getting married and having babies (in high school), it's easier to understand why the boys don't think they are intelligent. Because maybe the girls are the smartest in the class when they are young, but then they give up education for a simple life of diaper changing and dish washing, and although that is a role that is necessary in the world, it won't win a Nobel Prize...
All this talk just makes me want to go do a crazy science experiment and show my students what's up!!!

Too much

Too much has happened without much of anything happening at all. I'm tired and I feel like I haven't written in a long time, which makes the idea of writing at all kind of stressful.
I went to Armenia for a few days during our Spring Break. It was a nice country and very beautiful, but the weather was bad for most of the time and we didn't get to see many of the things we would have liked to see outside of Yerevan. Yerevan was very different than Tbilisi. The traffic was better behaved and I didn't feel like I was going to get killed every time I crossed a street. The streets were wider and there were less people walked around it seemed like. It was a beautiful city, really, but I prefer Tbilisi even though I think most of my friends didn't feel the same way. In Yerevan, we ate way more food than we should have and a ton of ice cream. The hostel we stayed at was brand new and run by a couple who had two small children. On Easter they had a traditional Armenian Easter dinner for us complete with hard boiled eggs and wine.
This weekend I went to Saniore to stay with my friend Shannon again. We had a nice time even though the weather was awful and we mostly sat around her house. We did attempt making chocolate chip cookies which turned out pretty delicious, though they didn't taste "right" because not only is there no brown sugar in Georgia, no one seems to even know what molasses is.
Yesterday many of us TLGers got the day off of school to go to Kvareli Lake where TLG was hosting an event for us. Only 70 or so people could come and I, along with many of my friends, were able to sign up in time and go. It was a lot of fun and we got to go on paddle boats and some people rode bikes and there were swings. Then we were taken to a vineyard and had a feast with tons of wine and chacha. Most of us drank quite a lot of the wine and chacha.... Including our marshrutka driver.... but we survived.
I guess I will also mention that my life is incredibly random and I suppose the country is small. I don't know if any of you read the post where I mentioned giving my phone number to the random Georgian guy who sat next to me on a marshrutka... but yesterday while my friends and I were standing on the side of the road next to Gurjaani, guess who pulls up? Yeah, marshrutka guy. He got out and kissed me cheek and started asking me where I was going. I gave him a vague answer like 'some lake, I don't know what it's called, I have to go our marshrutka is here." It was incredibly awkward but I thought I had escaped unscathed until he called me a total of NINE TIMES from two different phone numbers. Lesson learned: don't give your number to random guys on marshrutkas.

"English Teacher"

Today was the day..... my first solo lesson. As far as lessons go, it sucked. It wasn't even a lesson. It was 20-something Georgian children ranging from grade 7-11  (and my 5th grade host sister) asking me questions verging on too personal.
I was told there would be 12 students, six from 7th grade and six from 8th grade. So I walked in expecting to give a lesson (not a boring grammar lesson, but an interactive conversation lesson at least), after letting them ask me questions (because we are told they will be very interested in us and our countries). But of course, because nothing ever makes sense here, I come in and sit down in front of the class, and more and more students start coming in! Soon there weren't even enough chairs for them all so girls were pushing chairs together to make some sort of bench/couch/chair combo. I forgot to mention, the class was at least 2/3 boys.
So... I started off as planned, making all the students tell me their name and age and something they liked to do. This went fine at first, but then every boy just said "I like football" and it became a joke so we all just laughed when someone said they liked football. The girls got more creative, and then one of my 11th grade boys started going on and on about how he likes hunting (he did the same thing yesterday in class).
After that I let them ask questions. This ended up taking the entire lesson and they asked some ridiculous questions and every now and then someone (usually one of the 11th graders) would blurt something out in Georgian and the whole class would start laughing hysterically. I didn't mind so much the interruption, it was more that I was just worrying what the hell they were saying. Some students were definitely embarrassed at points. I guess one instance was one of the boys (in Georgian) said he wanted to take a picture with me, and then another student translated for me.
There was also a few minutes when one student started going on and on about how much he hates Russia and Putin.
It was definitely an interesting hour.... And then after class I walked home and then went to Telavi to meet up with some of the other English teachers.
Andrea and I went to a restaurant for dinner and got pizza that was actually really good. And who did I run into there? None other but one of my 11th grade male students. He acted as translator as another guy hit on me for a ridiculously long time (even after I refused to give him my phone number multiple times). Then my student was telling me that it was an interesting lesson but I think he really  just thought it was weird. And he told me to "be careful" with some of those students because they are not good. And when I asked him why they all laughed so much, apparently they were taking pictures of me on their phones. Which is creepy but not the worst thing that could happen I suppose.
So..... off to a good start. Hah.