Saturday, March 5, 2011

Gender identities in the ECE classroom

"Playing with Gender" by Ann Pelo
Rethinking Schools, Fall 2005
accessed 3/5/2011

Summary: Teachers at a Seattle preschool work on understanding their own identities, and how those shape their ongoing work into understanding the backgrounds of their students. Pelo talks a lot about incidences of play in which the very young children are clearly exploring gender roles and identities, and it is interesting to note (especially after today's conference) that the students are doing it in the context of an environment in which they haven't yet been exposed enough to think of what they are doing as wrong, whether because it isn't "manly" or "womanly" enough, or because it is somehow otherwise inappropriate. It is an exciting opportunity to take advantage of "teaching moments" that the children are themselves creating.

Key Points:
  • the school takes a positive view of physically involved play, and this seems to help create a freer environment in which the kids can dress each other up or otherwise explore their identities through interaction
  • Pelo lists a handful of incredible utterances from her young students, including words that indicate a playful contemplation of how society determines that a boy is a boy, and a girl a girl
  • the teachers at the school all work hard, cooperatively, to better understand themselves and their students, and how to help guide and educate these very young children
  • given even very "simple" play activities among students, a discerning educator can draw out a wealth of material to prompt discussion and contemplation among her colleagues

Audience: general public, ECE educators interested in ideas in this area

Relevance: This is a big one! The article touches on all sorts of things that have come up in our class discussions, particularly in School and Society-- but also in Inquiry, and even in today's conference! The teachers at Pelo's school are tackling the same sorts of issues that Anita is asking us to think about: how does my culture shape the lens through which I view and teach my students? How might their own backgrounds shape their lenses? How can I work to educate everyone to our best abilities not in spite of, but while embracing these differences? The team she put together is working on what I think could be called an action research project, and as is the nature of action research (at least in my still-forming understanding of it), their conclusions are continuously updated; it is an ongoing assessment of their own practices and environment. Although the article ostensibly focuses on the forming gender identity roles of their preschoolers (and how fascinatingly fluid those are), she tackles much more than that. I'm going to stop writing because this is already too long, but I highly recommend this article.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for including this article. I took a class at PSU - an intro to Womens Studies - that touched on these ideas. We didn't have kids then and I had never considered the fact that we might inadvertently push gender roles on kids. I still don't fully understand. But I get the gist of it. Intersting!

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  2. This article reminds me when I was working in a preschool. There was a 2 year old boy with ponny tails everyday. One day when he was crying for his mom, another 3 year old boy asked his teacher, "Why that little girl is crying, I can't fell asleep!" Several month later, the 2 year old boy's mom decided to cut his hair. All the teachers were excited and happy, because he could be a real boy.

    I was thinking how to teach kindergarten students about gender. The environment that they are living pushes them to act boyly or girlly. It is interesting to see how kids dress up and pretend to be someone else. But to me, it is still hard to teach them about gender.

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  3. gender issues are particularly delicate. it gets problematic when parents aren't as open to the idea of letting young kids explore different roles and identities.

    i knew of a situation in a very open ece environment where the parents were not happy at all to learn that their son was wearing a dress during play time. it actually became quite an issue.

    so, what do we do if we end up either teaching in environments that are intolerant, or being confronted by parents because we are inclusive and open?

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