Educating in the Divine Image: Gender Issues in Orthodox Jewish Day Schools

Appendix A: Practical Educational Resources

Appendix A Practical Educational Resources Chaya, whose expertise is early childhood education, teaches a college course on play that raises many gender issues. In 2011, she shared with her class an incident in which a woman was in a dilemma regarding her five-­ year-­ old son who asked her to buy him pink flip-­ flops. The mother was concerned that children at summer camp would mock him, and despite the fact that she wanted to give him freedom of expression, she also wanted to protect him. Theboy responded, “Ifsomeonemakesfun of me, I’ll kill him.” The mother was quite upset, and did not know what to do next. Chaya suggested to the mother that she use this as an opportunity to discuss how we talk to people who make us angry in a way that they could hear us. The mother’s concerns about pink flip-­flops had multiplied and expanded—gender, bullying, and messages about violence and anger were all part of this story. When Chaya shared this story with her college class, she experienced some surprising push-­back from many students. They were adamant that boys and girls are different and that it is our responsibility to protect the boy who wants to wear pink by not letting them do it because pink is a “girl color.” Chaya challenged the students, but most were resilient. They insisted that girls’ colors are soft, and boys’ colors are harsh; boys like to fight with action figures, and girls like to play with Barbie; boys like to play ball, and girls like to play house. One student actually said that she learnedinherpsychologyclassthatifchildrenplaywithopposite-­sextoys they risk becoming more “girlish” or “boyish.” Another student said that she would not buy her toddler daughter a blue sweater because everyone will think she is a boy—even though her own admission disturbed her. The students have thus been entrenched in seemingly unwavering gender norms, and although many respond with acquiescence, perhaps some signs of distress lay just beneath the surface. Walking away from the class dissatisfied about the outcome of the con- 280 appendix a. practical educational resources versation, Chaya planned an exercise for the following session. Chaya posted a three-­ column “experience chart” in the front of the room. The left column was for “Boy Games and toys,” the right one was for “Girl Games and Toys,” and the middle was for “Boy and Girl Games and Toys.” Chaya conducted a free brainstorm, and asked the students to fill in the columns to the best of their understandings. Table App.1 shows the answers that they came up with. After the students finished these charts, Chaya asked them to examine what they had done, to see if they were satisfied. After a few moments, students began to change their minds. Slowly, they began moving items into the “boy and girl” column—items including Risk, Power Rangers, baseball, Ninja Turtles, Dora the Explorer, family (instead of dress up), hopscotch, and jump rope. Perhaps, Chaya suggested, boys and girls are not as different as the class had originally thought. Although one student table app.1. The gendering of toys, as perceived and outlined by Chaya’s students Boys’ games and toys Girls’ games and toys Boy and girl games and toys G. I. Joes Ninja Turtles A lot of wheels Risk Hot Wheels Tackle/wrestling Action video games Rescue Heroes Cars Baseball Power Rangers Action figures Lego My Little Pony Bratz Cabbage Patch Kids Dress-up Dora the Explorer Arts and crafts projects Beauty parlor Polly pocket Barbie Playing house American Girl doll Pretty Pretty Princess Hopscotch jump rope Lego puzzles Magna-Tiles Cards Capture the flag Blocks Dominos Charades GameBoy Dramatic Play Arts and crafts Board games Jenga Hide-and-seek Stuffed animals Tag Checkers Chess Video games Pokémon Yo-yos Computer games appendix a. practical educational resources 281 continued to argue, the overwhelming majority of the class became reflective and thoughtful, and suggested that society is more powerful than genetics. By raising the student’s awareness, Chaya began to change their thinking. This experience is but one of many examples of educational experiences in which we came upon or developed practical tools for working in educational settings to raise gender awareness. The following are some more suggested exercises that can be conducted with teachers or students —inclassorin professional development—toexploreissuesofgender . They are organized according to the chapter topics in this this...