Teacher told not to use gendered language

[Pregante]

In a teaching observation this month my department head noted as a point for improvement that I should try not to use gendered language when addressing the class. I use boys & girls or ladies & gents depending on the age of the students. She advised this was in order not to potentially offend any trans children. She also mentioned this to some of my other colleagues and gave them the same advice.

I care about my students and would never humiliate anyone. Is this just the norm now? What do I use instead?

It’s hard to have a collective term that isn’t gendered. Do the classes have names, like 7C or whatever? Or ‘year 7, can you listen please?’

Yes, it's generally the norm, I tend to avoid it.
"Let's make a start everyone. Are we all listening? Just a couple of people not ready to start. You can work with the person next to you." etc.
No mention of gender in any of those comments.

Yes, I often do that - address them by yr group name.

Send the head some info from 'Safe schools alliance', also you ARE being inclusive, trans children are still boys and girls.

Unless they mean nonbinary children.

I suppose you could use 'students' , but why is a trans child so special that the rest of the school has to change?

I'm not a teacher/in teaching and I'm sure someone will be along in a minute to advise what they do. For what it's worth I think it's an absolute minefield now and maybe something like "ok people" "ok you lot" would work. Hope that's helpful.

You're not allowed to say "you lot" where I work!😂

@MayaKovskaya that's crazy honestly feels like the whole world's gone crazy sometimes 🙈

Schools don't use 'trans' anymore, Kcsie prefers 'gender questioning'.

Just smile and nod, and carry on as you're doing.

Would making this change to your teaching have measurable/tangible benefits to your class of students? No. Would it be difficult and onerous? Yes. Not worth it.

How long have you been teaching? I've been at it a while and I learnt long ago that fads come and go, and if you try and adhere to them all you'll stress yourself out with no discernable benefit.

So now I always use the tangible benefit vs cost to myself calculation before I make changes to my teaching. With the result that I rarely change anything, my students are happy and make progress, the parents are happy, I smile and nod at the "assistant head of teaching and learning" types and we all get on fine.

Children? Ok children. Children let’s start now. Etc

Of course if someone identifies as a cat then that won’t work. They’d be left out. Probably be offended. Might complain.

Children and cat?

Of course that doesn’t work if someone identifies as a rabbit. Children, cat, and rabbit are you ready?

Oh but that doesn’t work if someone identifies as an adult. It’s difficult.

I wonder what the ‘safe schools’ advice is.

I remember when we were expected to make differentiated resources based on whether each student was a visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learner. Of course that all got debunked a few years later. Did I do any of it? No. Did I smile and nod and say "yes that sounds very impactful" at the right moments? Yes. Everyone was happy

Actually, I think it's been considered good practice not to refer to boys and girls separately unless you absolutely need to for a while now. Why do you need to say "boys and girls" at all ? There are a few occasions when it might be necessary, eg " If you're in the girl's football team come and see me at lunchtime", but otherwise I don't think it's usually necessary to separate them out in speech, especially if you are actually referring to all pupils.

Handy phrases to use at these zealous assistant head types

Yes that sounds very impactful
I'll look at how I can weave that into my practice
This is really thought-provoking insight, thank you

Don't commit yourself, just smile and nod, give them a bit of praise, and ultimately do nothing. They get a glow of pride thinking they are more useful than a chocolate teapot, and you get them off your back.

Oh how times change... When I was at school (1980s) my French teacher used to address us:
'OK, Les Thickos, let's get started...'

I don't remember feeling particularly scarred or offended!

If you are talking in gendered language you are more likely to be bringing your gender stereotypes into play subconsciously so best avoided. You are making a distinction between the children based in sex when I school that should rarely matter

Bet you say boys and girls more often than girls and boys - and the order will
Depend on the message

"Children or learners or people

The transgender thing is a red herring here

The biblical "O ye people".

And if you want them to shut up and listen "Harken, o ye people".

Or the Beowulfian "Hwaet!"

So why is it okay for leaders to say outright we have a 'gender' gap or that the focus should be on boys' progress and attainment as a whole school improvement plan target?

I used to call my class 'guys.' As is 'Ok guys, listen up.' 'Keep it down guys!' Etc
These are year 3/4 children.
I was told not to anymore.

I think if it’s just for the NB’s it’s not really going to prepare them for the reality of the outside world.

This seems like a real non-problem. Obviously it might be slightly annoying if you're used to saying 'boys and girls', but there are lots of easy substitutions which are perfectly natural:

Settle down, everyone.
Ok, Year 7.
Quiet, 8G.
Listen, guys.

I keep hearing 'team' being used in examples of what is supposed to be great teaching. 'Okay team, on three...' 'Excellent job, team!'

Saying ‘boys and girls’ is not ok but ‘guys’ is fine? That would be the word that you can use to describe a man but not a woman? How inclusive.

A friend of mine teaches at one of the top public schools and part of his remit is coaching the boys at rugby. He was called to a pre term meeting a couple of years ago and was told that one of the existing pupils, let’s call him Alex, had changed genders over the summer and now wanted to be called Alexa. This boy also wanted to continue playing rugby and in order to facilitate this and to make him feel comfortable in his new ‘identity’, my friend was informed that he must not use any male words whilst coaching, so no use of the words boys, lads, guys, fellas, chaps etc. All this for ONE pupil. As you can imagine, it was a nightmare for my friend. Luckily, it didn’t last long, as at the beginning of the next term Alexa decided that to further facilitate his new identity he wanted to move from boarding with the boys and into the girl’s dormitory, which was a step too far for the school and Alexa was shown the door. It helped that several of the girls complained about his creepy behaviour and parents with a lot of clout and money, made their feelings very clear. Yet again, people with money can insulate themselves from this insidious ideology, girls at the local comprehensive would no doubt be told to put up with it.

Right advice, bad reasoning.

Well, in my circles (London), 'guys' has very much become non-gendered. It was a male specific noun, but now it's used pretty widely for everyone and certainly for large mixed sex groups. It may be different where you live.