By Douglas Penfold
Respect Yourself, Express Yourself: A Collaborative School Wide Project Related to Gender, Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sexual Orientation
Abstract
Engaging elementary students in direct teaching about gender, gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation is important, beneficial and necessary. Students need to be aware of and accepting of similarities and differences between themselves and others and must learn to respect everyone for their own choices, even if those choices are different than their own.
A Toronto District School Board initiative, Positive Space, begun by the Board’s Gender Based Violence Prevention Department, provided the impetus for a school library led project at Sloane Public School. The objective of the initiative was to develop a positive space within the school and to educate staff and students about what constitutes a positive space and how a positive space teacher representative could help students if there were questions or concerns about gender, gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation.
The conception and implementation of Positive Space program for students was very unique to Sloane P.S. The school chose a creative and impactful direction to teach students about positive space. Through the use of read-aloud books used school-wide during teacher-librarian partnering sessions, children engaged in purposeful discussion on stereotypes. Inspiration about clothing design had come from one of the books used in the sessions, and along the way, students had decided that sewing and fashion design were gender neutral. This led to a school-wide project in which students chose a clothing template (a dress, a tunic or shorts and a vest) and proceeded to create their own unique design. Different classes used different materials to bring their fashion designs to life in a variety of ways, and staff joined in to make their own fashion creations. Some students worked with community artists to create wearable art and their work culminated in a school and community fashion show and a YouTube video.
Teaching respect and acceptance at all ages of schooling is imperative and the school library through its leadership, collaboration and facilitation has been at the centre of this initiative.
Douglas Penfold, Sloane Public School, Teacher-Librarian/ELL Teacher. Douglas Penfold entered teaching in 1994 after doing some international travelling. He immediately went to Japan where he taught grade 7, 8 and 9 for the Ministry of Education. Upon return he went to work for the Toronto District School Board and began his Canadian teaching career as a grade five homeroom teacher. He has taught many things over the years including the English Language Learner Programme and Reading Recovery. His job as a librarian began in 2006 and has continued up until now. He has a passion for sharing books with kids, and always conducts his teaching with social justice in mind. This earned him the Elementary Teachers of Toronto, Excellence in Teaching Equity Award, last year. He is currently working on a special project entitled, Hear Our Voice. It highlights and honours the First Peoples of Canada.