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Pay careful attention to the experiences of your students and invite these experiences into your classroom through discussion and writing assignments. Be aware of what is happening in the hallways, playground, cafeteria and school grounds, where most incidents of oppression take place. Both boys and girls are pressured to conform to stereotypical ideas of gender. They need adult support to expand their boundaries.
Some Ideas:
When you can't find the materials you need to be inclusive, invite your class to create them. For example, Bread and Roses has a wonderful set of posters on Women of Hope: African American women, Latinas, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders and Asian American women. It would be great to have a corresponding set honoring Men of Hope. Make it a class project.
Order a catalog from the National Women's History Project (707-838-6000). They are rich in resources and ideas.
Consider attending the National S.E.E.D. (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) summer program, which brings teachers from all over the country and the world together for an intense workshop on gender, race, and class. Teachers then return to their own schools to lead year-long seminars for 10-20 colleagues on making the curriculum , teaching methods, and school climate more gender-fair and multicultural. Call Emily Style in New Jersey at 973-763-6378 or Peggy McIntosh in Massachusetts at 781-283-2520 for information and registration.
Give your students strategies for dealing with oppressive incidents and teach them to be allies for each other.
Recognize that the oppression of women is related to the oppression of people of color, gays and lesbians, poor people, and other marginalized or targeted groups.
Teach them that there is a rich history of men and white people working for social justice. (See Herb & Judy Kohl's The Long Haul). Being white or being male does not mean students have to accept a tradition of sexism or racism.
Ask yourself, and teach your students to ask themselves, whose point of view is being expressed here, who is being left out, and what would they have to say if their voices were included?
Ask yourself when you are teaching a unit in any subject, "Where were the women and what were they doing?" Often curriculum is "womanless." But life is not. (Adrienne Rich and Gerda Lerner)
Remember that you don't have to be an expert to practice inclusive education. Find out what you need to know alongside your students. They can be invaluable resources.
Read Emily Style's "Curriculum as Window & Mirror" in Seeding the Process of Multicultural Education. Think about how you are balancing curriculum as window (looking into the experiences of others) with mirrors (seeing yourself reflected in curriculum).
Read Peggy McIntosh's White Privilege and Male Privilege, and Interactive Phases of Curricular Re-Vision, available from the Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
For ideas on making a woman-centered quilt, writing essays on women, guided fantasies on switching genders, and more, read Teaching Stories, by Judy Logan.
Continue to question your own assumptions about gender. As Peggy McIntosh says, "We are all part of what we are trying to change."
Contributed by Judy Logan
Judy Logan is an educational consultant, former teacher and author of Teaching Stories, (Kodansha, 1999)
Buy the book from Amazon.com
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