After reading a few articles I came across one that sparked my interest simply because of the title.   The name of the article is Gender Free Children: The Newest Fad in Public Education.  This article was written to explain “gender free” education by using the British Columbia Teachers Federation Handbook.  This handbook states that “gender is a spectrum” and gender identity a state of mind.   The people who support this type of education believe that comprehensive sex education is “the only way to combat heterosexism and gender conformity.” 

Psychologists believe that a person’s core identity or sense of self is based on three major components: gender identity, style of behavior, and sexual orientation.  According to these psychologists, schools are urged to establish a dress code to enable a student’s right to dress in accordance with their gender identity and the right to be addressed by one’s preferred name.   They also recommend that students in schools should have access to safe restroom and locker room facilities that correspond to one’s gender identity.   According to these gender-free proponents  teenage boys will be able to go into girls’ locker and shower room just by claiming that they “feel like a girl” today. 

The proponents of this approach to gender identification believe that  schools should likewise hire staff with diverse gender identities.   Moreover, students should never be addressed as  “boys” and “girls.”  It is further believed that the “gender is a spectrum” message should be infused into  all lessons and subjects.  The whole education experience is all about encouraging students to identify with various forms of sexism, heterosexism, homophobia, transphobia, privilege and oppression in their everyday lives. 

The campaign to create “gender free” children has already begun in the United States in Oakland, California at the Redwood Heights Elementary School.  In addition, schools that espouse this type of philosophy now exist in British Columbia and Canada.  

            What I would like to know is how you feel about this new philosophical  approach to gender?    Would you like to see this approach to gender orientation take hold in more schools in the United States?   Do you feel that there is a gender acceptance problem in our country?   Is this type of school one that you would like to seek out for your own child?   If so, why?  Do you think this approach to gender acceptance and orientation will be successful  nationwide?

             The article http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/nyregion/at-the-blue-school-kindergarten-curriculum-includes-neurology.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=general&src=me talks about the "Blue School.”    This is a private school located in downtown Manhattan.   What is unusual about this school is that the curriculum incorporates scientific research about cognitive development for the purpose of teaching students  more about the science of learning. The school uses their research tools in order to adapt them to what they do in school.   The teachers in the school hope that this instruction will aid students as they think about how they learn.   It is also anticipated that students will begin to see the connections between academics and emotions.   

            In my hours of observation I have come across many students who have emotional problems that require them to have an IEP.   These students frequently miss many class days due to problems such as anxiety and depression.   My question is this:  do you think a program such as this should be introduced into a high school setting in order to help out the students who need emotional assistance? Also, do you think this program would work in a high school or would the students have to be introduced to this approach to teaching early in order for it to become effective?  Do you think the whole school has to be on board for this or could you try something like this out on a smaller scale just your classroom?   Thoughts, opinions etc are welcome.

Amanda poses a question about block scheduling in high school

Block scheduling is a type of academic scheduling in which a student have fewer classes per day, but have those classes for  a longer period of time each day. This is in contrast to the standard one-hour class for eight or nine periods a day.  Students can either have four classes for half of a school year, and four classes the other half; or, the school can go on an A/B day rotation schedule which means that students will have each class every other day.

The argument in favor of block scheduling is that  block scheduling allows students to become more immersed in a certain subject because they have that subject for longer than a  forty-five minute period.  Block scheduling, it is assumed,  allows students to ask more questions and for teachers to go through a chapter more in-depth than if they were to breeze through it in just one class  period.  Further, many believe that block scheduling enables students  an opportunity to take better notes thus  tests can be more in-depth.  This allows the instructor  to truly check for student understanding on different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.  Students are not pressured to understand an idea or concept in a short amount of time; they are given an hour and a half each time they meet in order to understand a topic.   This approach, many educators believe, boosts morale and motivation on the part of students.

However, there are disadvantages to block scheduling.  Many critics say that more time does not necessarily mean more learning.   In some cases,  teachers  find it extremely difficult to hold a class' attention for more than forty-five minutes.

What do you think?  Should high school students  have only four classes a day for a longer period of time or should we  stick to the traditional eight or nine periods one-hour per subject per day format?