I've been reading a lot of blogs about teaching in HE recently, which I won't link to because 99% of what they're talking about isn't really relevant. But I've noticed there's a big thing in US universities about how important it is to actively try to teach a 'feminist classroom'.
It's not about teaching feminist theory, or insisting all your students use that one ideology - it seems to be about ways to even out the different kinds of privilege different students may have.
I thought it was a really great idea. It got me thinking of how people say that schools are very biased towards girls (which I'm not sure I believe, and which wouldn't be 'feminist' if it were true). So, how would you construct a classroom that was genuinely 'feminist', in the sense of evening out privilege and making a space where everyone's voice can be heard?
I think if we could do it, it would have such a long-term impact - because I do believe adult women suffer when they're not given the tools of debating and confident speaking. And I do believe men and women are rewarded differently for the same kind of speech.
I have lots of ideas and I'd like to know what you think would be good, or what you think is bad in schools you know of/were in.
The most basic thing I do is body language and eye contact - if I am teaching a class where a student is very dominant of the discussion but not actually making good points or helpful interaction with the others, I stop making eye contact and I angle away from them. It feels very odd the first few times but it seems to work to stop the other students from feeling they have to shut up and let the noisy one speak, and the noisy ones don't seem to notice why the dynamic has changed.