Creating Gender Healthy Classrooms and Schools
Professional Development for K-12 Educators
- Learn about gender equity and what gender bias looks and sounds like in young children, adolescents, and adults.
- Understand how perceptions of gender impact student self-efficacy and self-esteem.
- Consider how intersectionality of gender and other biases influence student interactions, outcomes in academic performance, and level of self-esteem.
- Use provided tools and strategies to create a robust program/philosophy that supports healthy gender attitudes and behaviors in classrooms and schools.
What you will learn during the 3 Units of Study
- The difference between sex and gender and how the gendered brain influences thinking and behaviors in children, adolescents, and adults.
- How to take a fresh look at theories of development and learning through the lens of sex and gender.
- The interplay between sex and gender in children as a means to self-understanding.
- Implicit gender bias drives unconscious thoughts that influence speech, attitudes and behaviors. It is firmly established in children by the age of 6.
- Ways to identify implicit biases and modify behaviors through direct and thoughtful adjustments to teaching.
- The impact of intersectionality as it generates additional limitations on growth and opportunities in both childhood and adult life.
- Gender messaging from family, school, and popular culture that provide expansive or limiting ideas about opportunities.
- How specific modifications to school culture and curriculum can support self-efficacy and self-esteem.
- Productive ways to engage students and families in literature evalution through a gendered lens.
- How to organize teams on lesson updates and modifications.
- Evaluating classroom and school culture as it relates to gender norms.
- Development of lessons on gender equity for students across a range of disciplines.
- How to develop a systematic approach to assessments and gender equity action plans for classrooms, schools and full districts.
- Ways to use provided tools that help educators develop a personalized plan for their school and local community.
- Methods for ongoing reflection and evaluation.
- How to sustain a movement over time.
Extend new learning with the book:
Gender Equity in Elementary Schools
What people are saying about the book
I was drawn into this book and didn’t want to put it down. It focuses on the need for all educators—and really anybody—to reflect critically and deeply on the adverse impact of gender bias on children and its effect on their personal development and achievement in school. The author gives readers a practical road map to examine and understand gender-healthy practices in schools and communities that will be meaningful for generations to come. Gender Equity in Elementary Schools is an invaluable resource for teachers and school leaders; it can help educators drive positive, actionable change in schools. -- Peggy Brookins, National Board Certified Teacher, President and CEO National Board for Professional Teaching Standards
Being the father of two girls, ages 11 and 15, and having the opportunity as an administrator to have seen Dorothy in action with our students, it is wonderful to see her work in a book. Gender Equity in Elementary Schools is a perfect blueprint for schools. It assists teachers with activities and resources to create responsive, proactive schools and become transformational in their approach to develop gender equitable schools. The wonderful thing about Dorothy’s approach is to focus in class, at school, and the larger community to make change. -- Edward Escobar, director of Pupil Personnel Services, Bedford Central School District