Even in my French class at school, I never much liked the idea of “girl” and “boy” nouns. Not least because I was a girl and the boys were always cited first.Colour-coding vocab lists in pink and blue waseven worse. At an existential level, I was instinctively rebellious.
But I was also a sucker for words. I was seduced – and distracted from issues of equality – by the serious-sounding categories of “masculine” and “feminine”: the markers of intellectual rigour. Later, as head of languages at an independent school in Cambridge, it became a point of principle with me to use these categories with the primary-age children I was teaching. My whole approach was founded on confidence in their ability to rise to my belief in them: if you start by shying away from abstract concepts, you send out completely the wrong message.
So, in my idealist role as teacher, I willingly embraced both masculine and feminine and gave them equal billing on the page. Well, almost equal. The masculine still had pride of place on the left. The masculine was what you attended to first. On the face of it innocent, but in essence socially and culturally freighted. As Simone de Beauvoir wrote in The Second Sex: “Man is defined as a human being and woman as a female.” An add-on or ornament, a quasi-adjectival adjunct.
There was good pedagogical reason to follow the convention. It seemed as fundamental as putting the units to the right of the 10s in maths. Tidy habits make for a tidy mind. But the truth was it didn’t really matter – except in one, very human way. Swap the order, and linguistically nothing changes. But, sociologically, it’s a revolution.
Increasingly, it strikes me that, as a teacher, I must revise the way I do things. Slough off that cloak of compliance and adopt a new, more anti-establishment look. Put the feminine first, but not dressed up in pretty pink.
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Denne historien er fra November 01, 2019-utgaven av TES.
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Try not to get hung up on linguistic convention, chic@s
Languages are like water – they take the easiest route. And, like gender, they are fluid. That is why, as world languages evolve to reflect cultural change, a revolution is under way in the use of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ terms, writes Heather Martin
Three simple psychology tips for better behaviour
When a pupil is acting up, their motivations are often hidden from view. It’s possible that teachers themselves are partially at fault for setting the wrong tone in their interaction with others, writes Lekha Sharma, who suggests ways to remodel a school culture
This research could be music to your ears…
Schools should resist putting additional time and resources into yet more English and maths lessons and instead give children’s learning a research-evidenced boost by encouraging them to join a band or an orchestra, says Martin Leigh
Minority (school) report
Predictive technology – powered by increasingly complex algorithms – is finding its way into schools, promising to pre-empt misbehaviour, violence or mental health issues before they happen. But does it work, and is its use ethical, asks Simon Creasey
Giving school a spin again
In a bid to improve parental engagement, one Edinburgh school is putting parents in their children’s shoes to experience a typical modern school day – and the results are breathtaking, finds Emma Seith
Averting Pupils' Social Stigma By ‘Poverty Proofing'
Do your school policies unintentionally ‘out’ children from disadvantaged backgrounds? One charity says such occurrences are all too common and have proposed ‘poverty proofing’ as the solution. Lucy Edkins investigates
A Plant-Based Diet Of Learning
Aware of the mental health benefits of green-fingered working, Nigel Cox helped to set up an outreach course at his college to support people recovering from substance abuse and other personal challenges
Social And Emotional Skills In The Early Years
Children who are able to focus their attention, manage their behaviour and interact positively with others from a young age experience better learning outcomes later in life, finds Irena Barker
How Centralised Detentions Get Pupils' Attention
By adopting a consistent whole-school approach to rewards and sanctions, we achieved a marked improvement in attitudes to learning – and reduced teachers’ workload, says Calvin Robinson
Homework Truths
With some studies claiming that homework has little or no impact on pupil achievement, schools have been tempted to cut back on it or ban it altogether. But we shouldn’t write homework off, warn two gurus of UK education research. Steve Higgins and Lee Elliot Major argue that the evidence on homework has been misrepresented – and out-of-school study can, in fact, have a major impact on learning outcomes
