Gender Spectrum Parenting

Hello Parents and Teachers,

I have been thinking recently about how children develop healthy gender identities. Last year, Nathan Shara from Seattle Safe Schools came and spoke with our parent group about biological sex, gender identity and gender expression. What struck me about his presentation was that before it, I saw gender identity as a particular concern of the LGBTQ community. After however, I recognized that all of us, LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ, are restricted and harmed by rigidly defined gender roles.

 For most children and adults, our gender identities match our biological sex, so gender and sex appear synonymous, and this synchronicity is considered “normal.”  Gender therefore appears (incorrectly) to be a biological imperative, rather than a social construction. For many adults and children however, biological sex and gender identity are not the same and growing up in a world with tight definitions of maleness and femaleness is a profound source of painful non-belonging.  As I noted above, this pain does not just affect those who are gender fluid, but causes all of us to limit ourselves. What man or woman, boy or girl could embody all the “ideals” of maleness or femaleness, and at what cost? Last year I was surprised to see that our kindergardeners had absorbed messages about what boys and girls were “allowed” to do and had started gender policing each other. One of my son’s male friends had been teased at school for wearing nail polish. Another made the observation that, as the after school chess club was entirely male, “girls must not be good at chess.”

Our children have taken in since birth hundreds of messages every day about what boys and girls are allowed to be, (and indeed, the message that one is only either a boy or a girl,) so it should not have surprised me, as it did, that they use these messages to make sense of their world. Often it is parents who are knowledgable about LBGTQ issues through personal experience, or who find themselves parenting a gender questioning child, who educate themselves and proactively strengthen their child to resist these messages describing restrictive gender roles. However I might argue that every child would benefit from learning to question these messages, not only to prevent teasing and bullying, but to allow our children to experience their full humanity.

In this effort of education and inquiry, here are two resources which provide insight into these issues: Gender Spectrum, a website providing gender sensitive support for children and teens, and Sociological Images, which provides commentary and insight into the social messages we and our children receive every day. The links will bring you to specific bookmarks within each site which I found particularly helpful for this topic.

Josie

Movie Night

Hello parents and teachers!


I want to bring your attention to several great DVD's which are available from our school library. (Did you know that parents can create their own library account and borrow material?) These DVD's are also available at the Seattle public library.

The first, That's A Family, gives children from a number of different families an opportunity to present their family to the audience.The families are adopted and biological, gay and straight parented, inter-generational and multiracial. It is appropriate for children and adults and can help start conversations with your children about diversity appreciation and empathy building.

The second DVD is Race: The Power of an Illusion. It was produced by PBS and is an excellent documentary for adult audiences. It is three parts of 50 minutes each. The first covers the myth of a biological basis for race, the second a history of race and the third a look at the results of this history in the present day. The school library just purchased this video and we may be viewing part of it in a workshop later this year, but it is available now for your viewing. Here is the link to the PBS website about it.

The Heterosexual Questionnaire

Hello Parents and Teachers interested in socially just parenting!

One of the things I read over the summer which has stuck with me was a short essay by M. Rochlin titled, “The Heterosexual Questionnaire,” from Privilege: A Reader, edited by Michael Kimmel and Abby Ferber. I have included part of it below from an open Internet source for you to read. Take a look.

1.       What do you think caused your heterosexuality?
2.       When and how did you first decide you were a heterosexual?
3.       Is it possible your heterosexuality is just a phase you may grow out of?
4.       Is it possible that your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of others of the same sex?
5.       If you’ve never slept with a person of the same sex, is it possible that all you need is a good gay lover?
6.       Do your parents know you are straight? Do your friends and/or roommates know? How did they react?
7.       Why do you insist on displaying your heterosexuality? Can’t you just be what you are and keep it quiet?
8.       Why do heterosexuals place so much emphasis on sex?
9.       Why do heterosexuals feel compelled to seduce others into their lifestyle?
10.   A disproportionate majority of child molesters are heterosexual. Do you consider it safe to expose children to heterosexual teachers?
11.   With all the societal support for marriage, the divorce rate is spiraling. Why are there so few stable relationships among heterosexuals?

What struck me about this piece, and will likely strike you as well, was how well it illustrated the concept that certain social identities are considered “normal” in dominant US culture.  Others, not considered “normal,” are made marginal or pathological.  Dr. Steve Jones described these as “one up” or “one down” social identities. The normalization or invisibility of a social identity can be difficult to see if you share that identity, but is often obvious to those who do not share the "normal" identity. This checklist which poses questions from a perspective of homosexual normality, highlights the often invisible normalization of heterosexuality.
We are given information continuously from birth about how these various social identities are valued in our dominant culture, so if you ask older elementary students, “Which is it considered better to be? A ___ or a ____?” they will be able to give answers in line with our dominant United States culture, even if they personally think differently. Some examples from Dr. Steve Jones of our dominant cultural norms:

Social Identity	“One up” group
Gender	Male
Age	Boomer
Class	Upper
Religion	Christian
Education	College+
Racial Identity	White
Ethnicity	European American
Sexual Orientation	Heterosexual
Mental function	Fully mentally able
Marital Status	Married
Language	English
Nationality	US citizen
Physical ability/ appearance	Able bodied, attractive

 Unfortunately, the value hierarchy of the dominant culture does not need to be taught to be absorbed, as children are already exposed to it hundreds of times per day in large and small ways. However what does need to be explicitly taught is the ability to recognize, reconsider, and eschew the validity of this hierarchy of social identities.
Take care all,
Josie

Curriculum Night

Hello Parents, Teachers and Colleagues,

Last night was curriculum night at our school where our wonderful teachers explained their pedagogy to us adult caregivers. Listening to the teachers describe their teaching philosophy prompts me to review with this group what I see as the fundamental backbone of social justice parenting- the goals of an anti-bias curriculum. These four principles provide structure for our self-education as teachers and parents and a framework for teaching our children. They come from the extensive work of Louise Derman-Sparks and Patricia Ramsey, and I have paraphrased them somewhat here. (For full details, look to their first book or their most recent.)

1. Nurture a healthy self and group identity. What does this mean in practice? Well for my family in which I am raising 2 white boys, it means raising boys with a healthy male gender identity and healthy white racial identity not based in superiority. For another family with different social identities, it may mean raising a daughter of color with a healthy female gender identity and a healthy black racial identity, without internalized racism or gender inferiority.

2. Support an empathic engagement with difference. This is the goal that is commonly thought of when we think of multicultural education. Ideally, it is integrated into a child's daily experience and promotes empathetic appreciation for our common humanity and our myriad differences. The development of empathy through this goal enables children to have the capacity to understand how bias hurts.

3. Develop the ability to think critically about bias. Children are inundated daily with messages about the relative worth of our various social identities in the dominant cultural hierarchy. Certain groups are "one-up" and certain groups are "one-down" in this hierarchy, which may appear so normative to us that we don't recognize the hierarchy unless we are a member of a "one-down" group. Children (and adults) need guidance to develop the ability to think critically about this hierarchy and not passively accept the norms of the dominant culture, especially if they have many "one-up" social identities.

4. Cultivate courage and action. This goal follows from the 3rd goal as children are natural social justice advocates with a strong belief in fairness. In practice, this goal involves teaching children about a variety of ways to act in the face of bias.

We are currently involved in fine-tuning the program for our Discussing Diversity series and will use these principles to guide our learning and our discussion. I am looking forward to a great year and hope you can join us!

Josie

School Begins Again!

Hello Colleagues and Parents interested in social justice,

A big welcome to Jabali Stewart who is our new director of diversity at our school! It is terrific to have him here and I for one feel very lucky. There is new energy and collaboration afoot to create a second year of our Discussing Diversity parent education program. Look for new information about the year's plan which will come out soon.

In the interim, I want to share with you a blog I have found, Coloring Between The Lines, written by a children's book writer and illustrator, Anne Sibley O'Brien. Recently she has been exploring some adult nonfiction looking at how to talk to children about race. Take a look:

http://coloringbetween.blogspot.com/

One of the books that shifted my perspective the most is the one she recently reviewed, The first R: How Children Learn Race and Racism, which is a sociological observational study looking at the way preschool children in a multicultural classroom manifest racialized power relationships. Many people believe that children are "innocent" to racialized inequality and must be explicitly taught before they behave in a racist manner. However this book suggests that children are aware of and are replicating racialized patterns of inequality from our larger society far far earlier and more frequently than adults are aware. While sobering, this realization has helped me know that we can't teach our children to celebrate multiculturally unless we are also teaching them about social justice, how to resist bias and how to be creators of positive change.

Looking forward to a wonderful year!

Josie

Summer Reading List- Part Two

Parent and teacher colleagues,

Here is the second part of a summer reading list- some books I recommend, all of which are engaging, well-written and have changed the way I think about educating our children and engaging the world:

1. Why are all the Black Kids sitting together in the Cafeteria? by Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum is an excellent and thoughtful exploration of racial identity development for children and adolescents.

2. If you read the book above and enjoy it, move on to Can We Talk About Race, also by Dr. Tatum. It is an expansion of four lectures she gave over a period of time on topics related to racial identity and education. Profound and thought provoking.

3. How to Rent a Negro by damali ayo is a sharp satire about the tendency of white folks to embrace "diversity" but to engage simultaneously in micro-aggressions and othering of people of color. Be prepared to be discomfited if you self-identify as white.

4. Whistling Vivaldi by Dr. Claude Steele is a review of the most recent science of stereotypes for non-academics. It looks at the negative effect stereotypes have on their target group's performance and how they can be overcome by simple re-framing.

5. Definitely not beach reading is The Everyday Language of White Racism by Dr. Jane Hill. This is an academic text by a highly esteemed linguist and I recommend it strongly. The first chapter is excerpted to the left under "documents you may be interested in."

6. If you are interested in more detail about the principles and framework of an anti-bias curriculum, look at What if All the Kids are White? Anti-bias Multicultural Education for Young Children and Families. This book gets to the practical aspects of implementing an anti-bias curriculum in a school where the majority of students are non-children of color.

Looking forward to next year and a revised and restructured program for Discussing Diversity!

Kindness/ Love is not a pie

Parents and Teacher Colleagues,

I have been thinking about this question: In the service of what do we strive for social justice? There are a lot of strong feelings that come out through this work; anger, outrage, shame. This is to be expected, because these are powerful dynamics, all have suffered, and many, many have suffered deeply. But it feels to me that working for social justice in the service of anger is limiting and risky.

Dr. Cornel West wrote in Race Matters that his goal was to speak truth to power with love. Dr. Hsiao-Wen Lo, one of the diversity speakers this past year, spoke of the need for greater compassion in this work, not just in the direction of people with privilege to people with less privilege, but from privileged people striving to be allies, to other privileged people who may not be as far along in the work. Her remarks were powerful for me, because the meta-message of what she said was, the work is the expansion of compassion and empathy in a fundamentally restructuring way. i.e. Love is not a pie. The generosity in how she framed the task with such inclusion and expansion was profound.

So I am thinking about what it looks like and feels like to do this work in the service of love. Love not in the context of "being nice" or "liking."Rather love of self and the expansion of empathy and dissolution of self so that love of self encompasses love of other. It is a powerful force of wholeness.

This poem, Kindness, one of my favorites by Naomi Shihab Nye, speaks to this expansion of empathy.

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.


Naomi Shihab Nye
from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems