What would you want to see in a feminist classroom?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

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.

Yes, US students are not taught conversational skills so much as motivated by the fact that participation can be a huge part of their final grade. I had a graduate seminar once where participation was 70%!

I very much agree with tethers that we should rethink the value of participation as an aim and assessment tool.

Why not more focus on writing? Especially given how much people bemoan the poor writing standards of today's youth....

I used to use the formal debate as a teaching tool. Partly this was to encourage students to think through a topic, organise their arguments and prepare for any possible challenge and partly to encourage a safe place to speak without fear of interruption.

I grew up in NZ where the native culture had no written language so developed a strong oral tradition and this has been adopted by the dominant culture in the form of debating clubs, speech making societies and oral competitions. As a child in school we were used to the formal debate with two teams of 3 (a proposer, a seconder and a closer).

I adopted this format when using it with UK teenagers to include a couple of non-speaking, note takers and point raisers on each team. They couldn't speak, but could pass notes/points to the speaking members of the team as the debate developed. Partly this was to include more students in the process and partly it was to give a part to the student with a speech impediment and to keep the normally dominant students involved but quiet. The audience, i.e. the rest of the class, voted for which team presented the best argument.

I encountered huge resistance from the students the first time we tried it. However, they came to enjoy the process and even ask for more opportunities to have a go. If you do try this you have to be very strict with the rules. 3 minutes per speaker, no interruptions, anonymous voting, no personal comments, only comments must be directed to the argument, not the person and must have evidence to back it up.

I'd say that when you split students up in to groups make them all male and all female groups so the men dont just dominate all the groups.

I'm going to come back to this thread and read it properly (leaping in at the end, not read it all, bad form!) but before I get on the train and while I still have a keyboard:
In university/humanities setting: FIRST DAY

(1) My classroom reads and discusses extracts from the harvard study about % of men and women speaking, and how once women speak for more than 30% of the time they are perceived to 'dominate the conversation' and 'talk too much.'

(2) I explain that, as class participation is part of their grade (and a way I see fi they've done the reading!), I will call on people to speak. I explain that this in an invitation which, like all invitations, can be politely declined with no need for any excuse or embarrassment.

(3) I explain the ratio of men to women in my class (often about even in a class of 22, but not always) and ask people to suggest ways that high schools do and do not prepare them to speak out in a university classroom (EG: private schools have more debate, public speaking, etc practice, and often smaller classrooms that encourage question-and-answer teaching, public school students are often NOT prepared in this manner but of course, that doesn't mean what they have to say isn't of immense value to the class.

(4) I repeat over and over again that when someone talks in class, whether to put forward an idea or to ask a question, they are joining in the class project of learning and understanding and exploring. I explain that it is your duty and your joy to speak in my classroom, and inside my classroom we pay attention to power dynamics that will encourage some people to speak more than others. This is why sometimes I ignore hands that are up and ask someone who hasn't spoken yet for their opinion.

(5) I re-iterate that it's always alright to 'take a pass', and that the class blogging requirement, and my office hours, are other spaces to practice 'talking in public about what you think.' I re-iterate that everyone should expect to graduate from my class confident and able to articulate and explore their thoughts with the help of other people. I point out that this is the real education they're getting at this university, and they will probably find they enjoy it.

Now to read the thread on my train! :)