Learning Intention:
To describe the way in which gender influences how people relate to young children
Ask the class to think about the announcement of the birth of a new baby. What are the first questions that tend to be asked in response to this announcement? (Students may identify questions such as: Is it a boy or a girl? What is its name? Are mother and baby healthy? How much did it weigh?)
Ask students to work in pairs to brainstorm the things that might be different for the baby, based on whether it is born a male or a female. Use some trigger questions to get them started:
• What kind of clothes might the girl baby/boy baby be dressed in?
• What kinds of gifts might the girl baby/boy baby receive when they are born? On their first birthday? On their fourth birthday?
• What kinds of hobbies, toys or games might the girl child/boy child be offered by their parents, carers or family members?
Invite pairs to make fours to compare their answers. Invite some groups to report back on their answer.
Record the key contributions.
Ask the class to identify what they notice from looking at the responses. Useful questions include:
• What do you notice about how people act or respond differently to the child as a boy or a girl?
• To what extent might these actions or responses play a part in shaping the identity of the child (or shaping how the child grows up) as a boy or as a girl?
To understand the difference between the terms sex and gender
To understand the difference between the terms same-sex attracted, heterosexual and transgender
To identify actions that children and adults can take to contribute to a respectful, friendly and inclusive school
Begin this activity by asking students: What is puberty?
Ask students to come up with some definitions. Point out that puberty is the time when the male and female bodies begin to change. At this time, the physical differences between males and females become more evident. However, this is also a time of life when social expectations and pressures may also begin to affect boys and girls differently. While there are different responses to small children based on their gender, some of these responses may increase as they reach puberty. Explain that the changes in the body that fit within the category of changes that happen due to our sex – whether we are born with male or female body parts, and whether male or female hormones are starting to kick in-cause our bodies to change. However, many of the other changes that happen to us (for example to our relationships, feelings, behaviour, thoughts and dreams) occur as a response to our experiences of gender. Having the right understanding of this language (words) is important, and helps us talk about what is going on. Useful language and definitions include:
Sex: the difference in biological characteristics of males and females, determined by a person’s genes.
Gender: describes the characteristics of girls and boys, women and men that are shaped by our culture, traditions and history, and the way that societies organise what boys and girls, men and women are expected to do. This includes things like the way people are expected to dress and behave.
Gender roles and expectations are learned, can change over time, and can vary from culture to culture.
Gender identity: the gender that a person feels that they are. This might fit with what most people in society expect or it might go against them. For example, a person who is born with male physical characteristics might feel like they are a man, or they might feel like they are a woman.
Transgender: the word we use to describe people who don’t feel like they fit in the body they were born with and believe they really are a member of the opposite sex. They believe they are born into the wrong body. This may be someone born with female body parts, who feels like they are a boy or man, sometimes called a transman; or someone born with male body parts, who feels like they are a girl or woman, sometimes called a transwoman.
Sexual orientation: the words heterosexual (opposite-sex attracted) and homosexual (same-sex attracted) are words used to describe something different from gender. They refer to sexual orientation or who people are attracted to. The word heterosexual refers to people that are sexually attracted to persons of the opposite sex.
The word homosexual refers to people who are sexually attracted to persons of the same sex. Some people prefer to call themselves gay, lesbian or queer, rather than same- sex attracted or homosexual. Sometimes these words are also used as ‘put down’ (or insulting) terms. They should not be used this way.
No word for race, gender, religion or sexual preference should be used as a put down term. So that means ‘girl’ should not be a put down word, nor should ‘gay’ be used as a put down word.
Point out that we need words to help us understand differences between people. If we do not have words for differences, we may not be able to value and respect differences, or even to understand that difference exists.
But also we do not use words as labels to sum up everything about a person, or use as put downs, because we know there is more to us than just a name (label). We use language to share meaning and it is important to do this in a respectful way. Explain that the class will work together to map out what a school could do if it wanted to stop the use of put downs. This effort to stop put downs would include the disappearance of put down terms that refer to any part of a person’s identity. This then would mean no use of put down terms about race, gender, intelligence, fitness, religion, body shape, interests, sexual identity, wealth or sexual preference.
Introduce the fish diagram by drawing it on the board.
Explain how it works as a way to plan for change. The bubble the fish is swimming towards, is its goal. On bones of the fish we write all the different actions that will help us to move towards our goal. Each bone can carry a different action. Extra and important actions can be put on the tail.
Assign students to groups. Each group will draw their fish swimming towards a bubble with the goal written into it. On each of the bones of their fish, they should write different actions that will help to move the school towards its goal of Friendly school, free of put downs (example actions might be: make and agree on positive rules, always include others, respect everyone’s rights etc.). Challenge groups to aim for at least eight actions. At least half of the actions must be ones that can be taken by students. When the students have done the task, arrange for them to report back and combine their answers, making a School of fish. As they review the input, invite students to nominate the student strategies they think will be most helpful. Record a selection of the strongest nominations. Invite each student to put their name against the strategy that they will aim to focus on across the next week. (Find a time to review their progress after the week has passed.) Display the School of fish as a visual reminder of their ideas.
Divide students into groups, with boys and girls in different groups. Ask them to conduct a brainstorm into a two x two table (example at right). In the top row they identify what boys are SUPPOSED to like doing at their age (according to dominant societal expectations), and what girls are SUPPOSED to like doing at their age. They should then circle any items that are new or become stronger around the age of puberty around 11–13 years). Once this is complete, they should work in the bottom row to identify what other people might say or do to those who do not fit in with what is expected.
As groups report back, invite girls to report first on their mapping of what happens to boys, and vice versa. Then allow for the groups to correct or add, based on their experience of being located within their particular gender grouping.
To prompt critical analysis of the data, use the following questions:
• What are the differences and similarities between the gendered pressures and expectations placed on girls and boys as they reach early adolescence?
• Are there any expectations that get more intense? (E.g. boys REALLY must not cry or girls REALLY must look attractive.)
• Are there any gender ‘rules’ that are reduced? (E.g. it might become more acceptable, or not, to socialise with the opposite sex.)
• Are there any new or additional pressures?
• Where do you think these pressures come from?
Introduce the term policing as a word that can be used to describe the actions that people take to discourage boys and girls from being different from gendered expectations.
Discuss:
• What can it be like for people when others ‘police’ them about the ways in which they express their individuality and preferences?
• What personal strengths do people have to call on in order to support their friends to be the kind of person they want to be, even if that is different from others?
• What would it look like if people were showing respect for difference?
Affirm ‘gender fair’ values and work with the students to reconnect them with the actions they previously identified in the ‘School of Fish’ activity. (In which they mapped strategies to build a friendly school, free of put downs.)
Review the learning intentions, asking if the students believe they were able to:
• identify the ways in which gender norms place pressures on young people as they enter the life-phase of early adolescence. Invite some students to sum up what some of these pressures were.
• identify strategies that some peers and adults may use to reinforce or police limiting gender norms. Invite some students to point to some of the strategies identified that they find particularly negative, and to explain their choices.
Students learn about the concept of human rights as articulated in a range of United Nations declarations and conventions
Students compare the various human rights priorities and concerns addressed in key UN declarations and conventions.
Students recognise that because some groups have been more likely to have their human rights abused, there has been a need to create additional conventions or declarations to try and achieve better treatment for them.
Ask the class: What do you think is meant by the term human rights?
Human rights are the basic freedoms and protections that people are entitled to simply because they are human beings. They belong to everyone, regardless of their age, race, sexuality, citizenship, gender, nationality, ethnicity, or abilities. They aim to create a world that is fair, just and equal. Explain that in this session the class is going to focus on human rights and look at some key steps that have been made over time in relation to human rights. Explain that over time there have been several important ‘declarations’ and ‘conventions’ about human rights. A large international organisation called the United Nations has created documents that outline basic rights and freedoms to which human beings are entitled.
The declarations and conventions on human rights are created to support the further development of a world in which equity and equality are available for all human beings. In some of these documents the focus has been the rights of all human beings, however later documents or ‘conventions’ have come out to additionally focus on specific groups whose rights they believe have needed special attention, such as women, children or people with a disability. Governments of countries around the world can choose to ‘sign’ a convention. When a convention is signed, the government is demonstrating their agreement with the standards within that convention. However, this does not mean the country is legally bound to these standards. That takes an extra step – ratification. To ‘ratify’ means the government makes the convention law within their country and are therefore obliged to uphold the standards within it. When a convention is ‘ratified’ by a country’s government, they are saying they believe the standards set out in the convention are so important that they must be obeyed as the law.
Explain that the students are going to look at six key steps in the development of ideas about human rights. They will do this by looking into some of the most famous conventions or declarations of human rights made by the United Nations. They will work in groups with each group finding out a bit about one of these declarations or conventions.
Draw or display a timeline showing:
• 1948: Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• 1965: International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination
• 1979: Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women
• 1989: Convention of the Rights of the Child • 2006: Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities
• 2008: UN declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.
Divide students into six groups. Provide each group with one card containing the key information.
\Ask each group to engage with their information, and prepare to teach it to the class. They can arrange for one person to present the name of their convention, the date at which it was pronounced (came in to being), and someone else to give a key summary of the intent or aim of their document (or how it was aiming to promote human rights). Arrange the presenters across the front of the class so they present in historical order of date, from earliest to most recent. Give the presenter from each group a card to hold which shows the date and the name of their conventions. Invite the class, as they listen to the presentations, to not only take in what each group is sharing, but also to notice what is happening across history. Which rights are attended to first? What is happening later in time?
Discuss with the class:
• What kind of a world are these conventions and declarations designed to help us to create?
• Why do you think it was not enough to just have the first Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
• Why, over time, do you think the various additional conventions about race, women, children, people with disabilities, and sexual orientation and gender identity have been created?
• Are there any clues in the sequence with which these conventions have been created about which groups are still more likely than others to experience higher levels of discrimination?
Review the learning intentions, asking if the students believe that they:
• Understand that the concept of human rights is shared through a range of United Nations declarations and conventions. Invite some students to comment on what they learnt about the rights declarations and conventions are designed to achieve
• Recognise that because some groups have been more likely to have their human rights abused, there has been a need to create additional human rights conventions or declarations to try and achieve better treatment for them. Invite some students to comment on which groups more commonly have their rights abused or neglected.
1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
1989 Convention of the Rights of the Child
2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
2014 UN Resolution on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity