ethics - While teaching how should I give justice equally to both female and male students?

I am 27 years old unmarried male teacher. I have been a teacher (lecturer) for the last 6 months in an Engineering institution. My students are 4 to 5 years younger than me.

The problem is that while teaching I have soft corner towards female students. I don't understand whether it is due to opposite gender attraction or due to female students asking more doubts than male students. I help female students more than male students. I know that it is against moral ethics of teacher's profession. But I couldn't change my attitude. Now, I think that male students might have noticed this and they may make complaints against me to the principal.

So what changes can I make? While teaching how should I give justice equally to both female and male students equally? Or should I quit teaching?

Answer

Normally, the problem is the other way round.

For instance, one phenomenon is that I often found with male students is that they override/overrule/overtalk female ones. If that happens more than sporadically, I interrupt them and tell them to let the other student speak out (of course this cuts both ways). I mention this as a concrete example for a trigger/action based approach that works well to reduce imbalance. With this, I get good participation from the whole group.

You talk about "soft spots". Beware, this signals danger. Your student's gender should be strictly taboo for how you deal with them. It is absolutely essential that all your students feel equally respected. Is it that you give more time to females? Then actively allocate more time to males. Is it that you encourage females more? Balance this by introducing some competitive element (such as voting on responses, competitive problem solving); male students tend to like that (of course, I am generalising, it needs playing by ear). Intersperse your presentations with adventurous anecdotes of topic-relevant scientists.

Generally: make a point of addressing more of the neglected students. BTW, this does not only hold for gender, but also for preference by activity or ability. Activate less able, or less active students. If you do that well, you earned your badge as teacher.

Under no circumstance treat your teaching as a dating opportunity. It is not. Getting a jealous girlfriend might be an idea to help getting things under control - if you cannot do it yourself, it may be the way to delegate that job to her (and I am not yet entirely sure whether I am joking here).