This is my "personal" blog and I use that term loosely. This is more of my place just to post stuff I find either funny or pretty interesting. I have two other blogs that also consume my life so if you like this one or see that I follow you and this blog is nothing like yours then one of the others may be closer to your liking. If you want the links to either of my other blogs just ask me and I'll send them. Enjoy!!
Because treating people fairly often means treating them differently.
This is something that I teach my students during the first week of school and they understand it. Eight year olds can understand this and all it costs is a box of band-aids.
I have each students pretend they got hurt and need a band-aid. Children love band-aids. I ask the first one where they are hurt. If he says his finger, I put the band-aid on his finger. Then I ask the second one where they are hurt. No matter what that child says, I put the band-aid on their finger exactly like the first child. I keep doing that through the whole class. No matter where they say their pretend injury is, I do the same thing I did with the first one.
After they all have band-aids in the same spot, I ask if that actually helped any of them other than the first child. I say, “Well, I helped all of you the same! You all have one band-aid!” And they’ll try to get me to understand that they were hurt somewhere else. I act like I’m just now understanding it. Then I explain, “There might be moments this year where some of you get different things because you need them differently, just like you needed a band-aid in a different spot.”
If at any time any of my students ask why one student has a different assignment, or gets taken out of the class for a subject, or gets another teacher to come in and help them throughout the year, I remind my students of the band-aids they got at the start of the school year and they stop complaining. That’s why eight year olds can understand equity.
I remember reading somewhere once “we should be speaking of equity instead of equality” and that is a principle that applies here me thinks
Sadly it still is considered shameful by society for a boy (or a male of any age) to like and identify with strong female characters, which is why the message that these illustrations convey is particularly important.
Let yourself love who you love wholeheartedly. A good role model shouldn’t be defined by gender. A good husband supports others to love and find strength in anyone who gives them hope.
