Thursday, April 25, 2013
Educating Our Youth On Gender Issues
We talked about this briefly in our discussion today because we were running out of time, and I found that people were only talking about middle school and HS students when addressing the situation about when and what to discuss in schools. As an Early Childhood dual major I believe that the resolution of these issues we face everyday in our society begins early on. We talk a lot about gender neutral education in our early childhood classes, everything from toys, to books, to the language we use with our kids. I never really though about it, but our professors and cooperating teachers tell us to you the term friends or children, not boys and girls. Which I understood in terms of not saying 'guys', but I never really connected it to transgender & intersexuals. If you think about it, not saying boys and girls, not giving children books that have a girl playing a sterotypical 'girl' role and vice versa, you are opening their minds up and insisting that everyone is different. I find it so wrong that we have to decide on a time to appropriately 'start' educating kids on issues such as the ones we discussed in class (aside from sexual education). I think shaping children's minds and beating out what ideas and norms the media is inflicting upon them begins in early childhood. When a kid says 'purple' is a girl color, we are told to tell them that there is no such thing and every color can be loved by anyone, despite their gender. The big thing in early childhood education is sort of removing the stereotypes we often attach to any label you can think of. Of course this is not solely going to solve the problems we face, being that their parents have a huge impact on their developing ideologies and views, but it is an important start. A good example I have from my experience, occured during an internship I had this past summer. I worked in a daycare with children of American military service members, as well as children from Italian military service members. Not only could you see how these gender ideas that Americans put so much emphasis on, reflected in their children, but it was so interesting to compare that to the Italian children who were often in neutral colored clothes with haircuts that some Americans wouldn't consider giving their child if they were a boy or girl. How are we teaching our children to be sensitive to individuals who are deemed 'different' by society if we condition them to think these people are actually different, from the time they are born?
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I fully agree! I think it is so important to try to be as gender neutral as possible when it comes to children. Like you said, we need to teach them these things before the media and other people can really start influencing them. We might not explain to a 5 year old what interex is, but we can encourage all children to play sports and be creative. We can use gender neutral language, colors, clothes, toys, etc. We can correct them when they say things like "Pink is a girl color" and "You throw like a girl". This is a great way to break down gender binaires and expectations, and will allow them to be more open minded when they do learn about people in the LGBT community and people who may be intersex, transgender, etc. I think it also makes them more open minded in general, perhaps to people of other races and other cultures, people who are disabled, etc. Children are so easily influenced, and I think it is our job (as educators, parents, writers, whatever we do with our lives) to apply these things to the education of the future generations. Just like people our age are not nearly as racist as our grandparents/ great-grandparents, we can hope that in a few generations there will not be as much of a stigma attached to those who do not conform to the male/female system, or the idea of heterosexuality.
ReplyDeleteIt is so great to see education majors like yourself and others in our class discussing gender neutrality in the classroom as well reducing gender binaries. Children's minds are so malleable and although the learning starts at home, it occurs in school majority of the time, so I'd like to think the future educators can really have an overarching influence over these kind of issues related to diversity. The instance of intersex is not all that common, but it happens, so it needs to be discoursed.
ReplyDeleteI being an education major myself agree with your statement. I truly wonder how we are supposed to teach our children to be tolerant and accepting in an era where mainstream society says differently. You said that the process starts from the time they are born. So I my point being that in order for them to be the ideal tolerant human being we must teach them what's acceptable and what isn't from day one. These gender discriminatory attitudes will exist as long as we as a society allow them too. I think society is ready to change, but some brave souls need to step up to the plate and start to take a stand on the matter.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I never really considered young students during our discussion about introduced kids to a gender neutral world. It's most likely in part that I was once an adolescent education major. I agree with your point that we should consider them just as much as we do adolescents when it comes to gender neutrality. I think that we feel the need to address the issue at a later age because adolescents have already been exposed to the gender dichotomy of the Western world and can then apply what we teach the to deconstruct it. But in reality, subtly teaching gender neutrality to children is similar to teaching a child a second language or really anything for that matter. The younger you teach an individual something, the better they are to absorb it, retain it, and accept it as the norm later in life.
ReplyDeleteI find it funny that we use certain terms like you mentioned (friends or classmates) instead of the traditional "boys and girls" phrase. It sounds better and more respectful to use the former term instead of the latter in case we offend someone. I feel like there should not really be a certain appropriate age we should start to educate our kids about intersex. When our children are curious, we should talk to them about it. "Better late than never" in a way!
ReplyDeleteBy removing the stereotypical labels, we are showing/teaching our kids that we should accept people no matter their lifestyle~ don't judge basically! I hope we can help people not be too discriminating towards people in a generation or two. I agree with Mikey that it is tough to teach kids to be tolerant, when society says differently.