First, dear blog readers, let me apologize for being like two months behind posting. Now that I’m in the full swing of school, I am busy and don’t have a lot of extra time to retroactively write these posts. I’m just typing up modified versions of my journal, in which I have recounted all the things I’ve done and what I’ve thought about stuff. I realized I was behind when some people just now realized that I chopped all my hair off. That was in October. But this is probably my bad. Anyway. Onward with the blog.
Yesterday was the conclusion of my first week of practice teaching, ending with a day of life skills. The form As told me they wanted to learn about gender roles. Perfect. I can go on and on about gender roles, being the gender role rebel that I sometimes am. I made some cards with some typically masculine or feminine tasks or qualities and asked the students to tape them up under the label “men,” “women,” or “both.” The cards had things like fetching water, cooking, being strong, herding animals, taking care of children, chopping wood, sweeping the floor, erasing the chalk board, drinking beer, being pregnant, etc. The first round, I asked them who normally does these things. The spread was pretty typical or gender roles here. Then I took them down and asked them to tape them up according to who is physically able/capable of doing these things. To my surprise, it was pretty much the same, except there were more cards under the “men” category. The point of this exercise is to realize, oh, everyone can do everything. I was confused if they had understood my question or if my English was not clear, but later the resource volunteer who observed the class said that they probably understood, but they are taught hat boys are physically unable to sweep the floor and that girls are physically unable to tend to animals or cut firewood, etc. I felt like I had kind of hit a wall, so I went through the cards one by one, giving examples of each. For “being strong,” I suggested that the women who carry huge buckets of water have to be very strong. The students saw my point, and I moved the card from “men” to “both.” I went through and suggested how I know of men who take care of children and women who cut wood and men who clean, and pretty soon all the cards were under the “both” category except the “being pregnant” card, which remains physically a female ability. I wasn’t about to make an exception by mentioning that transgender man who was on Oprah a while back who was pregnant. That would be too confusing at this stage.
I asked if ever a girl wanted to chop wood or to take care of the cattle, and some said yes. I told them that if they wanted to do those things, they should ask to do them and fight to do whatever they wanted. Both men and women can do things. What a revelation! The best thing I heard all class was some kid say at the end, “It should be 50/50.” Finally, some of them got what I was trying to say. Then I had a bit of extra time at the end because they don’t really like to talk in class, so I went on to try to explain the different between sex and gender, and how gender is a spectrum. If they were confused by the first exercise, they were completely lost in the woods with this next topic. Even if they didn’t understand everything, I felt like I at least sort of got through to them that you can be a girl who likes to do some things that boys typically do, and you can be a boy who likes to do some things that girls typically do. [Fun fact- colors aren’t really gendered here. Some of the cool boys walk around with pink backpacks and there’s not a second thought. If they were in an American high school, they’d probably get stuffed in a locker for that.]
Then the form B life skills class was about resisting peer pressure. I feel like a Mosotho co-teacher would have been helpful, because I was giving them English phrases to use in peer pressure situations, but they’re not going to use these in real life. Even though school is supposed to be taught in English, I think that life skills class should be in Sesotho so they know about things in the language that they will experience them in. Realizing this mid-way through the lesson, I changed my approach to teaching about body language, being assertive, and being confident in the face of peer pressure. I could tell they were enjoying this part of the lesson more. I thought that teaching assertiveness and confidence would be good to teach at my permanent school, especially to the girls and the other kids who are so quiet and will be walked all over.
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