Page 81 - Šolsko polje, XXXI, 2020, 5-6: Teaching Feminism, ed. Valerija Vendramin
P. 81
a. mladenović ■ feminist classrooms in practice
them on. /…/ When the classmates started borrowing rulers or pencils and sharing
with each other, the three boys started offering their stuff as well, which is something
they had never done before. /…/
Another positive outcome of the empathy lesson and one impor-
tant in the context of feminist pedagogy involves the use of non-verbal
activities, which is a good way of teaching and learning concepts, as Nina
explains.
Children lack the vocabulary to really get into the concept of empathy, but they can
talk about how it is important to be nice to people, to understand where they come
from. They don’t have the words, but they have lived experience. Sometimes, it is
beneficial to ignore the words and let them express their lived experiences as they
want to – could be through drawing, dancing, other language … You need to rely
and lean on the lived experience of the children.
This ties into what feminist pedagogy can contribute to the teaching
and learning process in the same way as was discussed in the case of the
floating-sinking experiment of Swedish preschool children. Classrooms
should be more than just places where conceptual understanding is be-
ing developed, focusing instead on a range of different competencies and
building new knowledge from them. This is what Nina discovered when
evaluating the lesson on empathy.
If we look from a language-learning perspective, it was the worst lesson I have ever
had. /…/ But if we look at it from another point of view, the kind of climate it created
/…/ and the following lessons … The three boys who hate English and are usually
not engaged or disrupt the others – they were calm, they were great, they were re-
laxed. Their interest in English increased. /…/ The effect it had on their continued
success as a group and as individuals made that lesson one of the best we had.
Travis Bristol (2015, p. 62) describes the case of disengaged and un-
derachieving boys and their grade-8 teacher. He uses the term “gender-rel-
evant pedagogy”, but essentially depicts a situation that may be seen as an
example of feminist pedagogy in practice. The boys were uninterested in
the content the teacher was attempting to deliver and were talking inces-
santly about video games. Bristol suggested that she could try to re-en-
gage them through their interest in video games. Instead of prohibiting
the boys from talking about their interest from outside the classroom, he
suggested including the complexity of video games in the content. This
method worked and underscores the point that feminist pedagogy prac-
tices (i.e. building on personal experiences and interests) can help when
students are not engaged or struggling academically. Nina says that in her
79
them on. /…/ When the classmates started borrowing rulers or pencils and sharing
with each other, the three boys started offering their stuff as well, which is something
they had never done before. /…/
Another positive outcome of the empathy lesson and one impor-
tant in the context of feminist pedagogy involves the use of non-verbal
activities, which is a good way of teaching and learning concepts, as Nina
explains.
Children lack the vocabulary to really get into the concept of empathy, but they can
talk about how it is important to be nice to people, to understand where they come
from. They don’t have the words, but they have lived experience. Sometimes, it is
beneficial to ignore the words and let them express their lived experiences as they
want to – could be through drawing, dancing, other language … You need to rely
and lean on the lived experience of the children.
This ties into what feminist pedagogy can contribute to the teaching
and learning process in the same way as was discussed in the case of the
floating-sinking experiment of Swedish preschool children. Classrooms
should be more than just places where conceptual understanding is be-
ing developed, focusing instead on a range of different competencies and
building new knowledge from them. This is what Nina discovered when
evaluating the lesson on empathy.
If we look from a language-learning perspective, it was the worst lesson I have ever
had. /…/ But if we look at it from another point of view, the kind of climate it created
/…/ and the following lessons … The three boys who hate English and are usually
not engaged or disrupt the others – they were calm, they were great, they were re-
laxed. Their interest in English increased. /…/ The effect it had on their continued
success as a group and as individuals made that lesson one of the best we had.
Travis Bristol (2015, p. 62) describes the case of disengaged and un-
derachieving boys and their grade-8 teacher. He uses the term “gender-rel-
evant pedagogy”, but essentially depicts a situation that may be seen as an
example of feminist pedagogy in practice. The boys were uninterested in
the content the teacher was attempting to deliver and were talking inces-
santly about video games. Bristol suggested that she could try to re-en-
gage them through their interest in video games. Instead of prohibiting
the boys from talking about their interest from outside the classroom, he
suggested including the complexity of video games in the content. This
method worked and underscores the point that feminist pedagogy prac-
tices (i.e. building on personal experiences and interests) can help when
students are not engaged or struggling academically. Nina says that in her
79
