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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To be cross at different home works for different genders

27 replies

captainbarnacle · 25/04/2014 13:48

School pick up in one hour and want to say something, but how without fuming?

Checked homework for my yr3 DS this morning, and it is stuck in his book to 'help teach me how to play football' with football clip art and an explanation that your pen friend (boy) is living in a remote country and doesn't understand football so you must write to him and explain the rules.

This looked odd - texted half a dozen friends and it is clear that the girls have a homework to explain tennis, rounders or netball and the boys have the football homework.

What the actual?? Gut reaction is fuming and want to speak with teacher and ask her if this is correct and if she thinks differentiation based on gender is justifiable. So many concerns about her before now, and worry how she treats boys and girls different in the class. AIBU?

OP posts:

OhNoYouExpedidnt · 25/04/2014 13:49

That is very ridiculous! Are you sure they didn't get to choose which sheet they stuck in their book?

I don't know why a teacher would bother to differentiate the sport?

TillyTellTale · 25/04/2014 13:55

Could it be simply that they were allowed to pick which sport?

As a child, I would have picked football, because I understood the rules of football, whereas I do not get tennis beyond "you try and hit it back over the net", rounders beyond "you use a badly shaped bat, and randomly run up and down" and netball beyond "you throw a ball in a net and only girls play it".

But I can understand the offside rule and comprehend badminton scoring fine

cornflakegirl · 25/04/2014 13:57

Maybe a little bit unreasonable. I completely get your point, but I probably wouldn't complain about it with a teacher that I was otherwise happy with. Although if I had a DS who preferred a different sport, I might encourage him to write about that instead, just to make a point! But, in general, boys are less keen to write, and do enjoy football, so I'd probably see this as a teacher trying to be encouraging rather than discriminatory.

If it's an ongoing concern, I'd speak to the head about the cumulative issues, rather than picking on this one thing.

Original poster

captainbarnacle · 25/04/2014 13:58

Am hoping they chose. But my friend has a DD who loves football and doesn't know anything about netball and rounders and she doesn't have the football one... Going to ask if there is any particular reason why DS has the football one....

OP posts:

TillyTellTale · 25/04/2014 13:59

So many concerns about her before now, and worry how she treats boys and girls different in the class. AIBU?

If I'm right, she's a brilliant teacher or follows a brilliant teaching plan. There is no single sport that the whole of a class will understand well enough to explain, and I'm guessing this homework is intended to channel children's interests in order to improve their writing composition. Individuals vary, and professional athletes all specialise in their own sport.

TheSkiingGardener · 25/04/2014 14:00

Ask politely. If it's been done on gender lines then I would go nuts, personally, but in a quiet reasonable way!

Original poster

captainbarnacle · 25/04/2014 14:00

My boy is not less keen to write and doesn't care much for football. I fail to see why sweeping generalisations need to be made and why there is a choice of sports at all - why not just one homework asking them to explain any sport they like?

OP posts:

TillyTellTale · 25/04/2014 14:01

If I'm wrong, do query it, though.

My friends used to make me play rounders, and I never got it. They resorted to just telling me what to do throughout the game as it came up.

BettySwollocksandaCrustyRack · 25/04/2014 14:04

Well maybe they do it according to what sports they play at school....rightly or wrongly at DS's school the boys play typical box sports like football and rugby and the girls play netball - both play hockey though I think.

My DS wouldn't have a clue if you set him homework about netball and I would think it ridiculous if they did.

PorkPieandPickle · 25/04/2014 14:05

I don't see why the sheets wouldn't be the same and ask the dc to explain 'a sport of their choice' it seems very strange to impose a choice of sport that the dc may not know anything about! I would have been crap at explaining netball at school, I hated it!

TillyTellTale · 25/04/2014 14:06

I fail to see why sweeping generalisations need to be made and why there is a choice of sports at all - why not just one homework asking them to explain any sport they like?

Well, I was thinking perhaps no generalisations had been made at all, and there had simply been a choice of titles.

One homework asking them to explain any sport they like can be a little too open. You end up spending ages trying to decide what sport will be easiest, instead, so having a narrow range of subjects helps. I am, of course, speaking from the viewpoint of having been an extremely reluctant writer.

Walkacrossthesand · 25/04/2014 14:06

Maybe encourage your friend with the football-loving DD to encourage her DD to do a penpal letter about football and send it in with a covering note explaining why - a more powerful way of making the point, I feel! And if your DS dislikes football he could choose any of the sports on offer & do the same?

kim147 · 25/04/2014 14:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

redskyatnight · 25/04/2014 14:08

My DS has zero interest in football and would not have wanted to do that homework. But he would have had zero interest in writing about tennis, netball or rounders as well. He might have been interested in writing about cycling or karate, though I guess they don't have rules in the same way. So (if you're correct about the homework based on gender) I object to the assumption that all boys like football and want to write about it.

steff13 · 25/04/2014 14:10

Perhaps the sports were randomly assigned and your son just happened to get football? Or is it possible she specifically chose a sport for the child that he/she wasn't interested in, so that they would have to read up on it before writing the paper?

RinkyTinkTen · 25/04/2014 14:11

No, YANBU, why could they have not just picked a sport regardless of their gender?

This whole gender separation thing pisses me right off and not just because someone thought DD was a boy just because she wasn't in either pink or a skirt

PoundingTheStreets · 25/04/2014 14:16

I am frequently astounded by the amount of low-level casual sexism inherent in a lot of schools. Some of the reading books my DC came home with over the years were absolutely shocking in terms of their gender role depiction, for example.

A large part of it comes down to money (doesn't it always). It takes money to update reading stock or buy in new material so that topic work which works perfectly well in terms of reading/writing skills can be made more acceptable in terms of equality and diversity.

Then there's the small matter that teachers - like nurses, police officers and any other public-facing worker - are simply members of the public, and as such come with their own idiosyncracies and prejudices. Casual sexism is so prevalent in our society that it would be a minor miracle if otherwise excellent teachers didn't fall foul of it and perpetuate it to some degree. We do it every time we buy pink/cute wrapping paper for a girl's birthday present and having a football topic for boys/tennis for girls is not really any different. Often it comes from a good place where people are trying to be 'nice' and 'tailor' something.

Which isn't really an answer suitable for AIBU but...

edamsavestheday · 25/04/2014 14:19

Wouldn't surprise me if this was unthinking sexism of the 'football is for boys, netball is for girls' variety. There's a lot of it about, even in schools where it really shouldn't exist. They know to make racist assumptions but seem to be stuck in the 50s when it comes to gender.

cornflakegirl · 25/04/2014 15:38

My school uses members of the local (professional) football team to help promote literacy among the boys. If they run book groups, it's almost exclusively girls that turn up. Get some footballers in, and suddenly the boys are engaged. Not all of them, obviously, and some of the girls will be just as keen. But in general, it helps. And the data shows that the boys do need the extra help.

But I would still hope that the teacher hadn't given the children free rein of which sports slip to choose.

IceBeing · 25/04/2014 15:44

I would go nuts...having first checked it wasn't a choice...

Original poster

captainbarnacle · 25/04/2014 18:45

Yeah well I did go a bit nuts....

Spoke to teacher - asked her if there was a particular reason why DS had a football homework. She breezily replied 'oh yes, all the boys have football and all the girls tennis and netball'. I asked her if she thought that was a good idea and didn't it reinforce gender stereotypes. She then kept repeating that well, the children could choose which sport to do now. I said that wasn't the point - that she had differentiated based on gender. She said 'well, the boys won't know they have a different one to the girls'! I walked away muttering. So cross she couldn't even see there was an issue.

Another friend saw her later on, and bumped into the Head who wasn't happy. Finally we all got a text message saying there 'had been miscommunication about the homework and the children could choose which sport'. But it's been such an eye opener into the casual sexism in the classroom... She even said to my friend 'well I didn't think the girls would be interested in football'! Hello?!

OP posts:

PersonOfInterest · 25/04/2014 19:03

Good for you for mentioning it.

Why would she even bother her arse to differentiate?? She could have just put 'a sport that interests you' in the first place. Everyone wins.

I hope she has a think about it though and changes her approach in future.

Original poster

captainbarnacle · 25/04/2014 19:14

It's the first time I have lost it with a teacher. I'm a teacher (secondary) so feels even worse :(

OP posts:

fuzzpig · 25/04/2014 19:42

The defensiveness and backtracking would piss me off as much as the sexism.

A lot of this kind of casual sexism is, IME, done more in an unthinking way that is the result of an entire lifetime of internalising those sorts of messages (that's not to say it's ok of course, now there is more awareness it needs to change - and that's exactly what OP attempted)

BUT I know that for example if something like this happened in my DCs' school, they would sort it as soon as it was politely mentioned. I have faith that they'd respond well and not try and cover it up IYSWIM?

spanieleyes · 25/04/2014 19:56

In a mixed football team of 11 , our captain is a girl,our best striker is a girl and we have 3 other girls who play. I couldn't possibly set football homework just for the boys!!

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