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?

That research sounds extremely suspect.
Nobody needs to be reminded of their sex, it’s always part of our consciousness.

It's not so much reminding the girls that they are girls-it's more about reminding the boys that there are girls on the room.

That research sounds extremely suspect.
Nobody needs to be reminded of their sex, it’s always part of our consciousness.

Of course everyone knows their sex. But it has been shown that in a male dominated environment or 'stereotypically male' subject, differentiating between males and females can be deleterious to the latter. The young woman is in the class as a mathematician not as a 'female mathematician'.
Girls in a girls school otoh don't seem to suffer from being called girls - they are in an environment where they are the 'default sex' not the 'other'.

Yes. The idea that by avoiding using the words for girls, women, men, boys, we will magically vanish sexism sounds a bit unlikely to me.

I was hoping I'd get some 'just role your eyes and nod along' advice. I'll jump through the hoops when being observed but continue as I am otherwise. If I said 'can I have your attention learners/ learning people' no one would turn around.

You're determined to make it sound difficult, aren't you? There's no need to look for awkward alternatives like learning people.
I'm pretty sure that if you say "can I have your attention everyone" that they'd turn around.

OP, 'smile and nod' would have been my advice.

There are some arguments for avoiding 'gendered' terms, but I also think a hyperfocus on tiny 'micro problems' can actually end up distracting from the larger ones.

Probably more important to relate whole heartedly and sincerely to your pupils than to expend too much mental energy on using the approved terminology at every turn. Language policing is part of the chilling effect that I suggest is corrosive to relationships and society in general.

I had a conversation with my eldest son about 9 years ago when he was fresh out of university about this, and he started by saying that we should all just be gender neutral, wouldn’t it be much easier if we all behaved like there were no real differences between men and women. I had to point out to him that as one of the most privileged people on the planet, being a straight, white, male, that was easy for him to say, but until he showed me the plan for eradicating violence towards women and girls, we might need to hold off for a bit.

in fairness to him, he’s now highly embarrassed about how naive he was then, as he thinks this whole GI nonsense is an absolute crock.

There are arguments for trying to force change topdown by the use of language. And I think they're dubious.

Do we want to focus on always being correct and never saying the wrong thing, or do we want to focus on inspiring, intriguing, supporting, provoking, and helping children to learn?

Sanitising and neating and pruning our language and policing each other and telling each other off for 'wrong' words is not about learning, is it, it's about control and coercion.

Absolutely no idea why my last reply has been hidden. It was completely inoffensive.

If you used some keywords - like ones that crop up often in spam messages - or a bitly link etc, that may have autohidden it.

I would say management are determined to make things awkward, not me.

I use exactly that. ‘Right then you ‘orrible lot’. To which they all chorus back that they aren’t horrible and I tell them that I have plenty of evidence to the contrary.

I can remember my French teacher would greet us all saying 'bonjour, mes enfants' at the start of class, then when we reached sixth form or thereabouts she announced we were no longer children so she would now say "Bonjour, mesdemoiselles." (It was a girls' school.)
I doubt she would entertain anything else, I think the French are sticking pretty much to their very gendered language.

There was a programme on the BBC many years ago, about the difference in behaviours resulting from using sex based terms. There are also observational studies, one that springs to mind is female interviewees, walking down a corridor with pictures of male board members / CEOs on the wall, and how they performed better when there were no pictures.

The trans or non binary reason might well be confronting, but using non gendered terms can improve outcomes for females. Care must be taken, however, not to use default male terms. And of course, data analysis is important, and outcomes need to be assessed by categories that include sex.

Until women across the world, have equal access to money, decision making power and are equally as safe as men, we need to continue to analyse outcomes by sex.

There is no way I'd address a bunch of secondary school students as 'children' (even though obviously they are, technically) - it would sound very, very babying and patronising.

I don't address my classes using gendered terms. Not because of gender issues. Just because I've always used other terms 'Right folks/everyone/Year 7/ 7b' etc. I'd be pissd off to be told not to call them 'girls' though. It's a girls' school. It says so in the name of the school, so unless they are going to change the school's name, it would seem pretty hypocritical. Every student in the school is female, regardless of how they 'identify'.

I work in a male oriented field, at times. In one job we always received group / team emails started with
’Gents’

I wasn’t that fussed at first but after a while I sent a reply back saying we’re not all ‘gents’! They then started emails with ‘Gents and Kitty’ 😂. That just made me laugh as it wasn’t quite what I was getting at, but I left it.. they meant no harm (I was senior to most of them).

My point being in most cases it does no harm, and going on about it constantly only serves to sow division and discontent. A bit like the Critical Race Theory BS in the US.

Obviously where sex matters - toilets, changing rooms, sport, health care, prisons etc - that’s a whole different case.

*Kitty isn’t my name 🙃

Since lockdown & the increase in trans students I tend to stick with 'Year 8 settle down'.

We seem to have less trans (gender fluid) students in Years 7-9 so I don't know if it’s becoming less common now for students to transition? We do have a lot of EAL/Muslim/Asylum seeker students though & I've never met one who is identifying as anything other than their birth gender.

Overwhelmingly, outcomes for boys in educational attainment are the ones which need looking at. It isn't about giving girls a better chance, but is usually about bringing boys more in line. This means that texts and topics are chosen with them in mind, strategies to suit them are preferred, they get more attention and opportunity to contribute in class and have extra time and effort spent on them!

@Pregante

For context I'm 10 years in with the top results in the school.

I think they are just looking for something to add to the 'what to do to improve' section tbh.

I agree that it's concerning that we aren't allowed to use girls/boys any longer. I can't recall any trans or non binary students pre-2017. I don't know why it's become more mainstream. I'm sure they existed prior to then but it's not something that was necessarily common knowledge.

You use boys and girls or ladies and gents. If people get offended then they need therapy. You can’t change gender

Absolutely this 👏👏

But why? The children I teach are either boys or girls. I use all sorts of words for the class:
children
kids
everyone
boys and girls
blue group
It makes not a jot of difference either positively or negatively.

Until the population of your country consists of an official 'third sex', I'd continue to refer to boys and girls as boys and girls. And it isn't 'gendered language' it is 'sex/reality based language'.

Nonsense!