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?

Really? I find that very hard to believe unless you only ever taught in single sex schools.

Nope truth

But many people don't like to admit they may have absorbed gender stereotypes

What is to be gained by calling the boys and girls different things in a classroom ? Why can't you stomach them being called children? Why must sex/ gender be brought into everything ?

I guess you could say 'good morning everyone'. Or 'folks'?
'good morning class' sounds a bit old fashioned.

It sounds like there was very little you did even remotely wrong during the inspection and that was the only negative point they could think of to raise! Presumably if you did have trans or NB identifying students you would avoid gendered salutations.

I guess just go along with it to an extent. I can't imagine anyone would mind if you didn't though. Except the inspector.

It wasn't an inspection, it was probably just a line manager giving some general feedback. Nothing much to be concerned about..

@MayaKovskaya sorry, yeah I clocked it was an internal thing as opposed to Ofsted etc. poor choice of word on my part. Swap 'inspector' for 'line manager'.

We need to stop this nonsense. They are all girls and boys. Stop kow-towing to the activists.

It's not suspect. Google stereotype threat. There have been various papers published. If you tell a group that girls aren't usually as good as maths before a maths test, they tend not to perform as well (which is a worry with news reports reporting on white working class boys underperforming in schools.)

As someone who works in a male dominated field, I have been a recipient of many mails starting, "hi gentlemen" or similar, and of course I point out we are not all men. I know they don't (usually) mean to leave me out, it's unconscious, and based on assumptions about who should do particular jobs. But it's also why I favour using non-gendered addresses- obviously boys and girls does include everyone, but using words like "everyone" instead means it becomes a habit not to use gendered terms of address, and you won't leave people out when you're speaking to other groups.

using words like "everyone" instead means it becomes a habit not to use gendered terms of address, and you won't leave people out when you're speaking to other groups
When a group is addressed as “Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls”, who is in danger of being left out?
Not sure I agree with the other stuff, either; explicitly telling females they are less able than males is of course demoralising, that’s a different situation altogether.

Not sure I agree with the other stuff, either; explicitly telling females they are less able than males is of course demoralising, that’s a different situation altogether.

from what I remember (it's a long time since I read Delusions of Gender) it wasn't that the girls were told girls were poorer at maths. It was more that having to state their sex on an exam paper in a 'stereotypically male' subject like maths could result in impaired performance versus not having to do so.

I think avoiding phrases like "boys and girls", "ladies and gentlemen" is just making girls and women more invisible. The unintended consequence is that "male" becomes the default or we get phrases like "pregnant people". Sex distinctions are baked into the English language. We even tell our dog "good girl" or "good boy". I also believe the stereotype danger is way overblown. Otherwise how would women ever have campaigned for the vote, moved into male dominated fields, etc? Psychological experiments do not have a good reputation for replicability. Maybe "girls and boys" should be used more often in school to reinforce the sex binary.

Really? I don't recall any of my colleagues addressing their full class/hall full of kids in assembly as 'boys and girls' either. It sounds incredibly old fashioned to me. And no, I've never taught in a single sex school.

I work in a single sex school with some trans kids. I did once get the attention of a class by saying "right, girls..." then too late remembered there was also a trans boy and decided it would be worse to add an obvious last minute "and boy" on, but I did feel bad about it. We're meant to use non-gendered terms too. I tend to go for 7c, year 7 or people. It took a while to adjust.

But why distinguish and separate the sexes in the first place? If you're addressing a class/year group/whole school about something, you're addressing them as a group of children/people. Why feel the need to refer to them as if they're two separate groups, when the instruction you're giving them applies to all of them, whatever their sex?

I simply don't see a need to say anything other than 'good morning everyone'. 'Good morning boys and girls' and 'Good morning ladies and gentlemen' sounds very odd and dated to me. And anyway, doesn't Mumsnet hate the word 'ladies'?

This ⬆️

With respect, that's different. There's an exam. The OP is just greeting her pupils, or getting their attention.

Agreed. No one would point and say "that guy over there" about a woman. Because "guy/s" is for males.

Hmm ... "guys" isn't a neutral term. I suppose you could have said "listen up, *men", which would have been quite funny.

*insert common or collective noun of choice here e.g. troop, losers, squad, humans, earthlings, minions, etc

I'm interested to know why it's considered good practice?

What is wrong with saying 'boys and girls' or 'ladies and gents' for that matter?

Also I remember pulling up a male friend at university (early 1990's) for saying 'do you guys want to go for a beer?' when we were a group of girls - or possibly a mixed sex group. He argued that 'guys' covered women and men but was a Londoner. I was from the Midlands and as far as I was concerned, 'guys' meant male.

So using 'guys' as a gender neutral term is not a recent thing

thanks also for not policing my use of the term 'neating' which I now realise is not actually a word 😂

I’ve never said ‘boys and girls’. Sounds like something a panto dame would say.

I don’t know that I can think of a collective term for women on a par with guys or chaps. There is girls and ladies but that isn’t quite the same.

Yes, I've worked for a US company since the mid 80s - I picked up using 'guys' as a neutral term and only in the last few became aware of the objections. Which I can see the validity of but it's become habitual.

Well, it should be.

Another example was when they did away with the term ‘actress’ in an attempt to be ‘more inclusive’, for whom exactly? Most people assume that a man is being discussed if someone says actor, so again, cancelling out the words we use for women which doesn’t improve things for women!