Page 83 - Šolsko polje, XXXI, 2020, 5-6: Teaching Feminism, ed. Valerija Vendramin
P. 83
a. mladenović ■ feminist classrooms in practice
individual positions and to facilitate social action. All of this is contingent
on a broader understanding of what education is and should be. For Nina:
/.../ education is not something that happens in the classroom – in the classroom you
sort of things that you learn elsewhere and that you bring in with you from the out-
side. The role of the teacher is to guide the students through this process, help them in
becoming self-sufficient and capable of using the knowledge for what they need, crit-
ically assess which sources to trust, expand their ways of thinking about the world ...
Make them into well-rounded people and not just providing knowledge.
Teachers have the means to create a platform for the students from
which they can grow as individuals and as a community, providing a
framework in which to organise, understand and contextualise person-
al experiences. This is why introducing feminist pedagogy into teacher
training programmes is especially important. Of course, we should not
minimise the effect of the many restrictions, regulations and curricu-
lum constraints, which often leave teachers unable to freely choose what
and even how to teach. But empowering future generations of teachers
with knowledge about the positive effects of liberatory pedagogies means
they will be more likely to expand their teaching methods and actively in-
clude at least some feminist pedagogy elements in their teaching. Still, it
is not just about informing them with materials on this content or theo-
retically introducing the topic, it is also about practice. This means tak-
ing it one step further and actually consciously using feminist pedago-
gy in the same teaching process that teachers-to-be participate in. As Lyn
Robertson (1994) notes, preparing teachers who have learned to use fem-
inist pedagogies is one way of breaking the cycle of male-dominated, hi-
erarchical pedagogies, especially given that teachers tend to teach as they
themselves were taught (Arends in Robertson, 1994, p. 11). It is not fruit-
ful or even sensible to draw conclusions based on one example only, but
if Nina’s directions are any indication of the general state of the current
teaching practices, then feminist classrooms are not too far from reality
for the future generations.
Literature
Andersson, K., & Gullberg, A. (2012). What is science in preschool and
what do teachers have to know to empower children? Cultural Studies
of Science Education, 9(2), 275–296.
Bignell, K. C. (1996). Building feminist praxis out of feminist pedagogy: the
importance of students’ perspectives. Women’s Studies International
Forum, 19(3), 315–325.
81
individual positions and to facilitate social action. All of this is contingent
on a broader understanding of what education is and should be. For Nina:
/.../ education is not something that happens in the classroom – in the classroom you
sort of things that you learn elsewhere and that you bring in with you from the out-
side. The role of the teacher is to guide the students through this process, help them in
becoming self-sufficient and capable of using the knowledge for what they need, crit-
ically assess which sources to trust, expand their ways of thinking about the world ...
Make them into well-rounded people and not just providing knowledge.
Teachers have the means to create a platform for the students from
which they can grow as individuals and as a community, providing a
framework in which to organise, understand and contextualise person-
al experiences. This is why introducing feminist pedagogy into teacher
training programmes is especially important. Of course, we should not
minimise the effect of the many restrictions, regulations and curricu-
lum constraints, which often leave teachers unable to freely choose what
and even how to teach. But empowering future generations of teachers
with knowledge about the positive effects of liberatory pedagogies means
they will be more likely to expand their teaching methods and actively in-
clude at least some feminist pedagogy elements in their teaching. Still, it
is not just about informing them with materials on this content or theo-
retically introducing the topic, it is also about practice. This means tak-
ing it one step further and actually consciously using feminist pedago-
gy in the same teaching process that teachers-to-be participate in. As Lyn
Robertson (1994) notes, preparing teachers who have learned to use fem-
inist pedagogies is one way of breaking the cycle of male-dominated, hi-
erarchical pedagogies, especially given that teachers tend to teach as they
themselves were taught (Arends in Robertson, 1994, p. 11). It is not fruit-
ful or even sensible to draw conclusions based on one example only, but
if Nina’s directions are any indication of the general state of the current
teaching practices, then feminist classrooms are not too far from reality
for the future generations.
Literature
Andersson, K., & Gullberg, A. (2012). What is science in preschool and
what do teachers have to know to empower children? Cultural Studies
of Science Education, 9(2), 275–296.
Bignell, K. C. (1996). Building feminist praxis out of feminist pedagogy: the
importance of students’ perspectives. Women’s Studies International
Forum, 19(3), 315–325.
81
