Gender

 As a teacher I  plan to  create an inclusive classroom for gender-nonconforming youth by minimizing gender-segregated activities. For instance, some teachers for sexual education purposes might separate the males and females to teach them in a context more specific to how they identify with gender-wise. However, it may be the case that without your awareness someone who physically represents as female may identify in other ways as male, or both, and vice versa. It be a good idea to include everyone in teaching both male and female topics in sexual education for example because otherwise, the information that someone receives is chosen for them based on how they appear externally. Instead, it should be them who chooses with information they would like to learn based on how the student feels internally.

 

This is just an example of how I would try not to have gender-segregated activities but I also think it's important to be aware as a teacher how you treat the students and what you ask of them, not just what you actively teach them. How you interact with a student as we have learned in previous chapters effects what information passively gets picked up and forms part of their self-perception and cognitive scheme.

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As a student myself, I can remember the teacher always asking boys in the classroom to do my "labor intensive" things, like carry tables and chairs from the auditorium after an assembly for example. Although the males may be chosen for practical reasons because the teacher thinks that they are more capable of carrying the furniture, it does send a message intended or not to the students that this as a physical task is a "male role". Therefore, as a teacher I would try to be aware of these common expectations and views, and deliberately select females and males who I believe are BOTH capable of carrying the furniture, so as to not send an indirect message to students about what society typically considers gender-specific activities and tasks.