One Teacher's Approach to Preventing Gender Bullying in the Classroom

This teacher is doing it right! 

 

Give this article a read about a teacher's approach to preventing gender bullying in a classroom 

Link to awesome article!!

Ok... so now that you've read the article, I wanna just say, isn't Allie awesome? She's 5 and already she's doing what she wants to do even though it's not "normal" (even though she's a perfectly normal kid... even better, she just knows what she's comfortable in!)

This teacher has put in a tremendous amount of effort to make her classroom accepting of everyone. She's reading books that deal with gender stereotypes, she worked with the kids and talked about what toys are "boys" and which are "girls," but by saying it's ok to play with the toys from the other gender starts kids off with a new thought...

I'm getting ready to teach high school, so what I wonder is how can this relate in a high school setting? When I was student-teaching at in October, one teacher did a presentation for the GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance) where the students wrote down all the words that bullies use - similar to Miss Melissa there was one page for girls and one for boys. For girls we found that a lot of the words used had to do with her looks, her smarts, and sexuality. For boys, the words were 'girly' put-downs, gay-centered, and about physical strength. We talked about how these words made us feel when they were used against us. It was a great discussion - all the students were really into talking about it.

Don't forget to email me if you know of someone who's doing something right for children and youth! redcardi.love@gmail.com

And comment! What do you think? Do you have any other ideas of what teachers can do to break down gender stereotypes??

Stay Beautiful,

Lisa