Unhappy with school reading book

[Kinect]

DD is in reception & has three reading books a week. We have a little book to fill in with a note of how DD reacted. Yesterday's book was, "a princess & a dragon'. Story went like this princess, dragon, roar, help, prince, prince saves princess, they are happy.

I have written in the notebook that it is against my feminist principles to read the story with DD.

I am very unhappy about material like this being in school.

Should I take this further with the school?
Or is my comment in the notebook sufficient.

[ClayDavis]

I'm not sure the teacher would laugh at you. I'm normally a bit meh about these things but I think I know the book you mean and it is bad. For some reason the single short3-4 word sentence on each page seems to hammer in the message in a more explicit way than if it were a longer book that you might read to children.

[VillaVillekulla]

I sympathise OP.

I recently complained about a book which I thought was a) reinforcing really negative gender stereotypes and b) not age appropriate (all about rivalry and nasty snide behaviour amongst a group of girls who all fancy their male teacher - all well over the head of 5yo DD).

I really like some of the materials for teachers in this resource called Stereotypes stop you doing stuff. Maybe you could helpfully send a copy to the Head and your DD's teacher

[scallopsrgreat]

Well if you don't think they would be deprived why are you bothered about whether they are 'censored' or not?

*Disclaimer: I don't think showing children a wider variety of books and reducing the exposure to harmful gender stereotypes is actually censorship.

[scallopsrgreat]

That was to Flicktheswitch btw

[curlew]

You seem to be implying that crap books are a treat..............!

I suspect anyone who has had a girl child knows about the millions of mindless, practically illiterate, 6 words a page pink princess books churned out to appeal to to a small girl audience. And the equal numbers of fairy books for a slightly older group. Early books form a significant part of our children's mental furniture- don't we want that furniture to be good quality strong and beautiful?

[steppemum]

when I was teaching, I came across a list of books for promoting positive images of women.

It included things like paper bag princess, and Roald Dahls revolting rhymes etc.

When I read the list I laughed out loud, pretty much every book on the list had been given to me by my mum when I was growing up.

She was a great quiet feminist. She never censored anything I read (well, age appropriate until I was old enough) but she constantly fed me a diet of books that promoted good role models.

But talking about it and challenging the stereotype immediately breaks the stereotype open. I often just make a light hearted comment ''Oh look, the prince has rescued her, next time when he needs rescuing she can return the favour, bet she is really good at fighting dragons''

[IsabelleRinging]

I bet everyone on this thread read fairytales when they were young. It hasn't stopped you being strong independent feminist women, why would it stop your daughters?

Balance is needs, yes, but avoiding a certain genre of book altogether is unnecessary in in my view.

These stories are part of our cultural heritage.

[scallopsrgreat]

I would agree with you Flicktheswitch if the messages in those books stopped when they got to 6 (or whatever age). But they don't. Girls are taught to be more passive than boys. The messages of those books continues in other literature, films etc. Most rom-coms are based on similar premises of men doing dashing things and women falling in love with them. Women are portrayed as needing rescuing and protecting. They tend not to be the ones doing the rescuing or protecting (unless it is protecting children of course!). They are also reminded how much looks matter on a regular basis.

Marriage is promoted to women and girls as the natural route especially if a man does something perceived as nice. And women are portrayed as always wanting to be in a relationship with a man, obviously. That's what they strive for.

In fact as they get older there are more damaging messages sent to girls about what they should look for in a man. What characteristics are attractive, when in fact those characteristics could also be construed as red flags in a relationship.

So yes it does seem a small thing really. But children do absorb these messages and when they are reinforced throughout their life it does create imbalances and damage.

[scallopsrgreat]

Isabelle, women are still considered unequal in society and still subjected to damaging stereotypes that enforce that inequality. These types of books are a small cog in creating those stereotypes.

[steppemum]

fairy tales of course do have strong women in them - the wicked stepmother and the witch!

[WoTmania]

Isabelle - but in these sorts of cases we're not talking about traditional fairytales - it's new books using the same tired, outdated theme of female gets herself into trouble, female is rescued by male etc.

[Shallishanti]

when ds1 was in I think Y4 (many moons ago) he brought back an Enid Blyton book, the famous 5 I think. I was quite shocked the school had given it to him, as, IMO, they should be promoting quality! Anyway I said I would give him 50p if he could find a single instance of a boy preparing food for a girl in the book. Of course he couldn't, so we had a chat about that, and took the book back next day and spoke to the teacher about it. Not sure what she actually thought, but she professed to be shocked they had the book and invited him to chose another book.

[scallopsrgreat]

That's a good point WoTmania. There used to be someone on here who was really good about fairy tales, especially how they have changed from the original and been co-opted into more gender stereotypical stories.

[Spiritedwolf]

I am quite unconvinced by the "but its an opportunity for a discussion" argument. Of course, most /books can be an opportunity for a discussion, and it is something some parents (perhaps mainly of girls) will think of doing but that's not the point is it?

Children growing up today don't need us to have 'discussion' to tell them that boys can be courageous, active and save the day. These stories are told a million different times in a childhood - through toys, adverts, books, films, tv, role models, etc. Combating the comparitive dearth of messages about female agency with a simple "girls can do that stuff too" just isn't enough, children will make their own conclusions from the world we provide them with, whatever we say. I don't think it's unreasonable for schools to have a role in challenging society's sterotypes be they of gender, race, sexuality, disability, class etc by providing materials that reflect equality.

A while back, on a previous (not the current) thread about films with positive messages for very young girls, the OP had an interesting requirement. She didn't just want films which passed the Bechdel test, or had a fiesty heroine. She was looking for films which instead of having a women or girl having to struggle against societal expectations (say like Brave or Mulan), just assumed girls had equality in the first place. From memory I think she also wanted films that weren't focused on a romance.

Its amazing how few films suitable for young children fitted those requirements. Kiki's Delivery Service and Lilo and Stitch are the only two that come to my mind now.

Its not that there isn't a place for stories about girls and women striving to be treated as people, stories like Mulan and Brave can be inspiring. But they still reinforce that a woman having agency is unusual, something that needs to be fought for, the heroine is often subject to sexism in the film and that the prevailing view in their world is that girls aren't able to do heroic stuff.

Why can't small girls just take it for granted that they can have adventures and be treated like equal people? Rather than have most of the stories they read either deny them agency, make them a prize or make a big deal about how much they need to fight to be taken as seriously as boys and men are.

Good on you OP. I think that schools ought to take equality seriously. Its not censorship to be fed up of children being fed the same old sterotypes and wondering why a school is feeding children this. How many parents would have read this to their children without 'a discussion'.

I can't guarantee that they won't think you are a bit crazy, but I think its worth the risk if it means that the school thinks more carefully about the materials it buys for children.

[Spiritedwolf]

BTW those saying (and I'm paraphrasing) 'I grew up on fairytales, and they didn't harm me" might want to consider that they may well have influenced your opinion that women should "stop making a fuss".

We can provide our children with a cultural wallpaper of gender sterotypes, and ask them to ignore it and hope that will be effective. Or we can start redecorating. We probably have to do both but I don't understand why people think we should only do the former.

[ClayDavis]

If I'm thinking of the right book, I'm not sure Rigby Star pink level adds a great deal to the canon of children's literature so it could be binned quite easily.

It is possible that if the class has lots of pink level books and the teacher is relatively new to Reception that she doesn't know that book is there. I wouldn't go in all guns blazing but I don't think a quiet word would do any harm.

[Kinect]

I've uploaded - hopefully - the photo's I took of the book, unto my profile, is anyone is interested in having a read.

Thanks for those links, I'll have a look

[Kinect]

Does it work now?