Enforced gender stereotyping at school

their work

That was a typo, honestly. Dear lord - I should rip up my post!

I hate teachers who make kids rip up there work. It's such a needlessly belittling thing to do. And making a fuss about the colours she wrote in was petty and unhelpful. All I'm defending is the colour coding for gender. I do it in Power Points etc but don't tend to make kids do it in their books. Blue and red aren't strictly necessary obviously, but they are standard. A girl once challenged me on it (good for her!). I said "Is red a 'girly' colour?" She said no and that was that really.

I don’t prescribe what colours to use for noun genders in my subject (though I actually don’t colour code by gender generally, as we have to worry about case endings). I colour code for them but would always allow a pupil to use their own preferred colours in their work, as long as they are consistent. If she wasn’t told she had to use particular colours, it seems OTT.

And I know it’s just language and grammar, not gender stereotyping in life, but I have to admit, I’ve started learning a new language recently and am purposely not using blue vs pink or similar for m vs f nouns and pronouns. I am hyper aware of gender nonsense now and I don’t even want to add to it in my own exercise book!

Oh, I don't suppose for a moment it was a deliberate learning strategy on the part of the OPs DD!

Not necessarily... Sometimes the 'unexpected' can help memory. Knowingly subverting a stereotype might actually work better than mindlessly following it

I'm a bit sceptical about that in the context here. I don't think the OP is over- reacting to what happened as a whole. If the teacher's reaction is accurately described she is a terrible teacher, particularly given the comments by Knittink and Acopyofacopy. The blue/pink is a part of it but not the major part.

Racecardriver most people of any age are going to be upset if a teacher or employer ripped up their correct work for no good reason. That is the action of a bully.

Also does she normally have issues with this teacher? The teachers reaction seems a bit loopy unless it’s been exaggerated.

1. Your daughter is far far too soft if she is getting upset by something like this at her age. I had to reread it thinking she was 7 not year 7. This is the most pressing issue for you to deal with.
2. The teacher probably just thought your DD might get confused later on because of the gender connotation of pink and blue if she didn’t remeber which she had used.

I have found using blue for women pink for men makes people realise they hold silly biases and expectations. Really useful when presenting sex differences

You aren't over-reacting at all, especially since it made your daughter cry. Teachers are sometimes control freaks who can't deal with a non-conformist.

I'm not defending the teacher's ridiculous and unpleasant overreaction at all. But I'm a (feminist) MFL teacher and I colour code for masculine and feminine in blue and red (I deliberately avoid pink though). If it makes it any better, I always bang on about the fact that grammatical genders have very little to do with actual sex/gender, and that the gender is usually concerned with the way the word itself is formed. There is nothing actually 'female' about 'la table' for example.

perhaps wasn't the best choice , given the purpose of the exercise was to aid memory.

Not necessarily... Sometimes the 'unexpected' can help memory. Knowingly subverting a stereotype might actually work better than mindlessly following it.

I did Latin, French and German but didn't do this sort of exercise for any of them.

Having read Acopyofacopy"s post I think you are picking the wrong fight. The teacher's enforcing of gender stereotypes seems considerably less important than her poor teaching ability and inappropriate and aggressive response.

It would make far more sense for the teacher to allocate the colours and have consistency in the class. Children will look at each other's work books. The point of the exercise was to imprint the correct gender to nouns. I think that could be done more effectively if the whole class knows cats and dogs are blue nouns and tables and houses are red nouns.

Thanks acopy :) really interesting

nope, year 7 is 11 at the beginning of the year, turning 12.

here colours are blue for girl, orange for boy, as those are their favourite colours at the moment.

As described by the OP teacher sounds dreadful. I do agree that if OP's daughter was given the choice of any colour she wanted but still chose pink and blue but turned them round , that it perhaps wasn't the best choice , given the purpose of the exercise was to aid memory.

On another issue why do posters assume everyone is familiar with the English school system rather than give their child's age?
How old is year 7?

Scotland has a Primary 7 where pupils will be 11 at the beginning of the school year. Regardless of how much the OP (and her daughter) disagrees with gender stereotypes I would be surprised that an 11 year old had not noticed the pink / blue coding. However as I'm not familiar with the English school system (and I can't be bothered googling it) possibly a "year 7" pupil is younger.

It seems a slightly odd choice of those 2 colours out of all available. Possibly the teacher thought it might confuse other pupils if they saw the OP's daughter's list. However the teacher does seem to have handled it very badly.

Nothing I think the coding predates colour blindness inclusion. The purple for plural is annoying, too, as it is almost indistinguishable from black.

I would be fuming about this as well. As you say, it's one thing to ignore the teacher if they had been told specific colours, but that wasn't the case.

I think your letter is good.

Acopy that's really interesting (been a long time since I was at chool!).

What happens about kids with red / green colour blindness? In my work this comes up a lot and it seems odd they have chosen those colours. Or is it just so longstanding predating people worrying about that sort of thing and too late to change it now?

PurpleOva

Blimey OVa tell me that was a piss take please.

Grammatical genders in MFL are colour coded (and have nothing to do with male and female).
The usual code is
Blue = masculine
Red = feminine
Green = neuter (obviously not for French)
Purple = plural

A lot of times, especially at the beginning, students need the colour coded to embed grammatical gender. Allowing students to choose their own colours was not the teacher’s brightest moments, as there are set conventions. I doubt it is a case of gender stereotyping, though, as it is quite tedious to make students understand that no, the table is not a girl!

If they get Gendered Intelligence in, thats the battle to pick OP. Though I would be taking my school fees elsewhere.