Gender

The Writing on the Wall: Creating Greater Gender Equity through Classroom RE-Design Part II

Michelle — Wed, 20 Nov 2019 00:14:53 +0000

The Writing on the Wall: Creating Greater Gender Equity through Classroom RE-Design Part II

Michelle Tue, 11/19/2019 - 16:14

Jason Ablin

Mr. Ablin has been an educational leader in several areas, including implementing programs to integrate cognitive neuroscience into educational practice and utilize design thinking and learning through the use of educational technology. He currently runs Ablin Educational Services, working with clients to re-envision, mentor and understand gender in schools. He currently mentors students at AJU as well.

Early Childhood Education

Summary

So what can we do in schools to make the atmosphere of the school more gender balanced and fair? The first thing we can do is start to acknowledge that atmosphere really matters, much more than we think it does...

Show Summary

Off

This post originally appeared on the Educating Gender Blog.

So what can we do in schools to make the atmosphere of the school more gender balanced and fair?

The first thing we can do is start to acknowledge that atmosphere really matters, much more than we think it does. All of those teachers running around at the beginning of the school year with their tape measures and scissors and cray paper, they may have a concept, they may even have a theme for the year or they may even be putting up the same materials they have been using for the past 20 years, but they all think the design of the environment has an important impact on their students’ education.

If we start by giving these classrooms the credit they deserve, then we need more than a theme or an idea. We need to answer a few vital questions: How is my classroom going to function as the second (or third) teacher? How am I going to utilize the space to foster the best kinds of learning in my students that supports ALL parts of the curriculum? How will classroom design not just become a reflection and a mirror of what I am most excited about (and insecure about) in terms of learning as a teacher?

Here is where administrators and instructional leaders can help, not by telling teachers what their classrooms should look like, but by asking teachers great questions, specific questions, that teacher can use as a form of self reflection, BEFORE they put all of that work into their classrooms. If administrators meet with their teachers beforehand and start to think through these questions, and then use them as a way to observe the first 6 weeks of school, the results can be mind bending. You will discover everything from a piece of furniture that is blocking student movement and needs to be rearranged to language on walls which speaks to boys, but maybe not to girls to why is everything hung up at adult eye level when 90% of the classroom’s occupants are 3 feet tall? Here are a sample of thought provoking questions you can ask.

What is the process for keeping the room orderly and organized?
Is the room safe? Enough room for student movement?
Is everything clearly marked, coherent? Would a stranger know where everything is?
What do the walls reflect and why? From their (the students) physical vantage point, what do they see?
Is the space organic and flexible? Will the students see in April what they saw in Sept.?
Is the space under stimulating?
Is the space over stimulating?
Does your space facilitate critical thinking?
Does the room make clear our school’s fundamental core programs? (math, literacy skills, science, history)
And, is there a clear sense that all of these programs are proportionally emphasized and represented?

How will classroom design not just become a reflection and a mirror of what I am most excited about (and insecure about) in terms of learning as a teacher?

As you can see, these questions move from the mundane to higher order and, there is actually very little direct addressing of gender as an issue per say. It does not really need to be in order to re-consider how students will be impacted. I have attached an observation tool HERE which I use to great success in working with teachers. One of the fun exercises we do before school starts is to walk around the classrooms on our knees to recreate the experience of the students.

Even though I do believe that explicit questions regarding gender representation need to be asked, magically, you will see rooms transformed into spaces which better connect and facilitate the students’ learning needs. It will raise awareness, not just before school begins; teacher thinking will be altered throughout the year because of this process. The question of gender equity and sensitivity is just one major benefit.

Gender

Equality

Type

post

The Writing on the Wall: Creating Greater Gender Equity through Classroom RE-Design Part I

Michelle — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 18:57:54 +0000

The Writing on the Wall: Creating Greater Gender Equity through Classroom RE-Design Part I

Michelle Mon, 09/02/2019 - 11:57

by Jason Ablin

Jason Ablin

Early Childhood Education

Summary

When I started working for the first time as an educational leader in a school with an elementary level program, I realized quickly that setting up and decorating these learning spaces was a BIG DEAL...

Show Summary

Off

This post originally appeared on the Educating Gender Blog.

First week before school starts: “Will we have time to set our classrooms?” “Will they be cleaned in time?” “ Do you know where they put the classroom rugs?” “What’s our budget for materials and decorations?” “My throw pillows are worn out. Can I buy some more?” I wondered if I had walked into a school or an interior design class.

I would find teachers staying two or three days in a row before school even started, until 10pm at night, taping up charts, cutting cray paper, organizing shelves with pens, scratch paper, crayons. It was impressive what sweat and pride they were putting into these rooms, to make these spaces stimulating (perhaps over stimulating) and engaging for the students.

As I began touring the rooms after school began, I started taking photos of the classrooms. In fact every inch of every class. Over 500 photos. I then culled this down to 25 and at our next faculty meeting, I posted blown up versions of the photos around the room and I asked the teacher to take a tour, to gather information, and record it with the central question being:

“According to the walls of our classrooms, what do we teach at this school?”

I should also mention that all of the teachers in the elementary school were women. 22 faculty members and 11 assistants and not a man in sight, except for the Principal who happens to be a man, which is a statement in and of itself. As the teachers toured the room, slight smiles began breaking out among the staff. One teacher eventually put her head in her hand, realizing what she was witnessing. After we all sat down together, this is what the data gathering revealed. The school teaches 90% literacy and the arts, 4% history, 4% science and 2% math according to the walls of the school. Our classrooms reflected a very powerful message to our students, not about what should be taught, but what we thought and felt about what we were teaching.

“According to the walls of our classrooms, what do we teach at this school?”

If you asked any of the teachers what should be and actually was the actual balance of instruction, math would take a much more prominent percentage as would science and history. However, the teachers’ attitudes about teaching math in particular were literally on full display. And, the fact that all of our teachers were women made this reality neither shocking nor surprising. As role models, they are reinforcing their own poor and challenging experiences as math students, as many of them self selected out early from these learning experiences and then careers which necessitated advanced math. Selecting into education meant that they brought much of their anxiety, fears and senses of their own failures with the subject into the classroom, where they are the greatest role models for guess whom? The young girls in their class. It represents a generational dilemma of inherited bias. The walls are telling the girls exactly what they should think is fun, interesting, and exciting to learn and it sure isn’t math.

And the boys? Well, guess what they learn? That to identify with literacy is going to threaten their sense of maleness, so stay away! Rather take in all of the other gender triggers where men are accomplished in math and science, they are good at it, and that literacy is for girls, like my teacher, as duly noted on all the walls of the classroom she designed.

The walls are telling the girls exactly what they should think is fun, interesting, and exciting to learn and it sure isn’t math.

These types of biases not only show up, unintended, on the walls of classrooms but in Back To School Nights, where a teacher will launch into excited narration in front of their parents about the wonderful world of reading and writing and all of the exciting projects planned around these subjects and when the math slide on the powerpoint comes up, it is the cover of the workbook or explaining how parents should “handle” math homework. I have heard teacher tell parents: “We know what a struggle and how boring math is…” These are all powerful signals about what matters and what does not, based on gender.

And, the proof, again, is in the data. While some progress has been made around girls and math education, both in terms of access and perception, many women still report, who are accomplished at the highest levels of mathematics, that they feel inferior to men this arena. The more damning problem, one which we have largely ignored is how men are suffering under this gender paradigm as well. While men still post at the highest level of math testing and assessment they also occupy the lowest end of the bell curve. And the literacy picture is much more grave, with a significant amount of men graduating high school marginally to functionally illiterate. These numbers are no longer ignorable and the issues need to be addressed through the lens of gender. If we can make inroads with girls and math, we can do the same with men and literacy.

In part two of this blog we will examine a simple school process and tool to make us more intentional about classroom design and make the space represent the entire world of learning for our students. Check out a really straight foward method to tackle this issue in next week’s Educating Gender.

Gender

Classroom Design

Type

post