Gender

In the 4th grade, all public schools teach at least one of the same subject, YOU'RE BODY AND THE CHANGES AHEAD. They did this in such a way that built it up, made it a big deal and made it something scary sounding. We were going to watch a video, divided up into 2 classrooms by gender. Or parents would view the video first and then tell us what to expect, and the next day we would see it. I remember being shepherded into my math teachers class room with all the other 4th grade girls, while the boys were in the room diagonal across the hall. Me and my best friend ended up in the second row, fighting not to have to be in the front. I remember squeezing my best friends hand as if we were about to watch a scary movie, and then listening to the awful 'Just around the corner' soundtrack that went a long with a movie that is just a blur to me at this point. When the movie ended we had extra time before school got out, so we ended up discussing what we had just witnessed, and someone said...."I wonder what the boys saw...." At that moment I actually took notice of the fact that there were no boys in the class, that we had been made different, even if we were all learning something new and foreign to us.