Gender issues in school

ESP-I, Don Leopoldo Gialogo Memorial School, Tapaz East District

AS YOUNG as the high school community, it is for sure that they do wonder, so what more are those in elementary schools that are more untamed when it comes to questions and more impatient to hear answers.

Because of gender equality developments, gays and lesbians have gained wider acceptance in recent years. High school students are for sure more aware now of the LGBT community (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) while elementary pupils are for sure ending up the day teasing classmates they see as “abnormal” for not being just boys or girls but boys acting like girl, and girls acting like boys.

Then apparently there is now that which I note in short as LGBT+++ community to include and not limit growing identifications for additional variants. The bisexual community welcomes the pansexual, omnisexual, fluid and queer-identified.

The transgender embraces the transsexual, transvestite, gender- queer, gender- fluid, nonbinary, genderfuck, genderless, agender, nongendered, third gender, two-spirit, bi-gender, and transman and transwoman. There are also variants for the unsure, curious, two-spirit and straight allies.

How do you best explain this to high school students when even adults are not following much of these?

Teaching our 21st century society’s expectations on gender equality is a subset of providing the necessary exposure, basic understanding, and efficacy with broader American society’s norms and expectations that students will need to make choices and succeed beyond school. Therefore, I would assert that there is a duty for educators to offer better exposure for — and clear, direct teaching of — the relevance, importance,

and new norms for gender equality.

However, as many sensitive topics have been and are successfully taught (such as sex education) while balancing the wide and strong beliefs and customs associated with human behaviors, gender equality also needs to be definitively taught with a similar balance of information without proscription or denigration. Besides the fact that equality — not sameness — for all is the law as well as the founding value of our country, here are five additional reasons why (and maybe how) gender education should be taught in our schools.

It is the responsibility of public educational institutions to expose, explain, and impart a working understanding of historic and current customs, norms, general laws, social standards, and cultural trends in the Philippines.

Gender equality is not only an aspect of Philippine culture and society but has becoming increasingly accepted as an integral part of modern industrialized cultures and societies around the world.

Gender equality can be pursued while accommodating and/or respecting many traditional gender roles and values. Helping students to understand that gender equality and norms continue to evolve and that there is a certain continuum — even as modern ideals are pursued — may allow such pursuit of ideals while not calling for wholesale or immediate rejection of traditional or alternative roles, norms, and gender values.

Any approach to teaching students to understand current Philippine norms should incorporate a tolerance and respect for the traditional values that many minority or immigrant populations may hold, despite their divergence with 21st century Philippine norms.