Resources

The group that I would like to work with as a teacher ally is women and girls in my classroom. Though there have been positive steps taken toward gender equality, you don’t have to be a genius to see that we live in a gendered society that benefits males more than females. This is true especially in the classroom. I remember having teachers in high school who would claim to be unbiased toward men or women, and yet their actions would speak far louder than words. My philosophy teacher would let the men in my IB 11 Epistemology class interrupt women with their opinions and would often give men praise over women even if the women in our class had a stronger argument.

It is this mentality that I strive to fix in my classroom as a teacher ally. Women are assets in both the classroom and in society and they should be treated as such in their education. One thing that I noticed while compiling this list was the variations of women that I could apply this goal to. Their are organizations the are geared toward women of color, women who have been sexually assaulted, women in poverty, single mothers, and many other categories in regard to scaffolding women’s education.

Unlocking Opportunity of African American Girls

I absolutely love this resource and anyone who is reading this should really check it out. One subgroup within the overarching group of women that I will support is women of color. This article, published by the NAACP focuses on providing educational equity to black women. This article takes the first several pages to illustrate the lives of these women in regard to their education, addressing the why these women face such barriers. Women of color face far more sexual harassment, racial profiling and stereotyping, and unnecessary punishment than their white counterparts. These women also fail to reap the benefits of programs such as sports and other extracurriculars due to cost, transportation, and other factors. After briefly covering these topics, the article provides tips and advice for teachers on how to change this toxic cycle of racial prejudice and supremacy.

Top 5 Takeaways:

• The NAACP has many resources for empowering women of color both in an outside the classroom
• The classroom needs to be the foundation for change in the lives of people who are vulnerable, specifically women of color
• Equity is the only way we can achieve access
• The only way women will reach out and try to make their lives better is telling them that they are capable.
• We need to acknowledge that there is both a racially and gender-motivated power dynamic that is oppressing women in order to effectively fix it.

Youth Voices

This website is a really awesome resource that allows young voices to be heard through writing. After entering the home page, you can choose a category in the right-hand margin and choose which topics you would like to read about. I chose “Women” and was pleasantly surprised to see what I found. It’s awesome that students of various academic levels and opinions have found a space to address real-world problems with one another. I think it’s so important to learn in the global theater because education is enhanced by learning from others. This website is a collection of student-produced blogs and articles.

Top 5 Takeaways:

• This would be an awesome project for my students to complete because it would empower them to address problems that they are passionate about. This would also be a powerful introduction to a gender studies unit, or even simply addressing women’s issues in society as they are reflected in literature (art imitates life).
• Students have opinions that need to be shared and appreciated
• Students are passionate and knowledgeable and should be treated as such.
• Education has been greatly geared toward the idea that adults have the power and should bestow it upon young people, but this resource flips the standard on its head so that students are learning fro their peers.
• There are plenty of women issues to be addressed, but even more importantly, there are plenty of strengths that women have had throughout history.