applying the power/connection grid outside of family dynamics

So unsurprisingly enough I decided to focus a lot more of my blog post to the two out of text book articles as they were more interesting and I felt like had a lot more to offer than the book this week. I also chose to take a closer look at Gender and Family interaction as opposed to vowels and nail-polish as I had already been exposed to that piece last year with my previous anthropology class. Overall I find gender to be one of the most interesting topics to talk about as it seems to be a topic that many people are very guarded about, for good reason as no one wants to offend someone else, but gender is one of the topics that has the greatest impact on language development as well as how languages evolve and change over time. Anyway now onto the Gender and Family article. I overall found the article to be full of some very interesting topics but one of the largest ones that stood out to me was the power/connection grid. I find it interesting as it effects the dynamics of each individual family as a whole but also can always be changing and fluid as families can easily become closer or more distant to one another and in some cases can also have their power become more equal or hierarchical. I find this interesting and actually thought of what other circumstances other than just family could this grid be applied to. I think it has a reach much further beyond just looking at family dynamics and one of the most obvious to me was in the classroom. I feel like this translates very easily as in some classroom the teacher has total control and are very authoritarian in their control not letting students give much feedback which in turn also makes them kinda distant with one another and the teacher as they do not get to have that connection that allows them to feel included into discussion with one another. On the flip side there are classes like ours I feel like that allows us to easily be equal with one another. I feel like there are a number of different reasons for this but I think it makes us a much more connected classroom than the ones where the teacher lectures and the students only take notes. In our classroom, I never feel like I am being forced to talk or stay quiet and instead it is only up to each person's individual choice if he/she wants to speak. this I feel like also makes it a very equal space for everyone. In my opinion, having been in both styles of classrooms, I feel like this style where we are all equal for the most part and are able to freely bounce ideas off of one another and are not directly limited by the idea where the teacher lectures and the students only take notes and do not get a chance to drive the conversation; to be a style where ideas are given a chance to be shared more readily and can actually be changed as well as challenged in a way that really fosters intellectual thinking and discussion that is lacking in the other style.