Androgynes in education

[Nicky]

This is a pretty open topic - androgynes in education, here are a few questions to get you thinking-
Does anyone think education is binary centric? Do you feel left out?
Do you feel like you have missed out on learning within the system because of this?
Why do boys and girls learn different things? What was your experience with education?

I guess the most literal example I have is when you are at school and asked to form groups of either boys or girls. This just compounded the message that I did not fit in. I actually think being lumped with the boys switched me off from education at an early age. I made up for it latter but I never really got involved early on. I was treated as a trouble maker, punished plenty, considered stupid and accused of cheating on tests when I did well. I think this is the direct result of not fitting in the system, not being boy enough. From my perspective I was was quiet, distracted, forgetful and disengaged. I followed the rules the best I could, did not hurt anyone, loved reading, asked sideways questions, loved singing but somehow I was always picked out as trouble. The bits I was good at were taken away - I was booted out of the choir because I kept forgetting my swim togs, made to read easy books cause they thought I was stupid. What a waste. 

I went to an all boys catholic high school. I can't think of anything worse, except somehow I think I would have had a worse experience in a mixed school....instead of it being just one side of the binary, I would have been assulted from both sides. That's what school felt like for me. It was an assult on my being. I managed to survive but I was broken, godless, aimless with a fist full of grades that meant nothing except for their own sake.

Now my experience with tertiary ed was totally different. It allows you to be who you want to be. I had a great university experience. I could wear pajamas to lectures. I thrived. Tertiary ed for me was genderless. It seems like school was aimed at stamping me out with this good little christian boy cookie cutter and they were trying to chop off way too much, while my university was all about knowledge and creating the shape you wanted (though I think they were aimed at making me think a certain way rather than allowing me to find new ways of thinking despite what they told me - I think universities unwittingly stifle alternative thought).

[Jaimey]

hmmm.  I went to a small public school where we had all known each other since kindergarten, so I didn't really have those experiences.  In primary school, I played with boys almost exclusively.  In elementary, I think it was pretty even, but I usually had one really good female friend and we would move through different groups.  In middle and high school, I spent most of my time in band and academic team...nerdy kids don't seem to care as much about gender and stuff.  I think I lucked out.  Our drumline was mostly female, which is highly unusual (in fact, in college, girls were only ever allowed to play bass drum or cymbals...it was a lot more sexist there, but only in the drumline).  I think being in a small community helped in this case (although I know it can make it worse...we all got along all right). 

[Eva Marie]

I spent most of my time in school not fitting in, and getting the brunt of that in the form of taunts, being excluded, etc. To compund this my family moved around quite a bit when I was younger, so I attended several schools during that time. I was always the new weird guy in town which made fitting in hard if not impossible. My friends tended to be the other misfits.

I learned to pull into my shell, and once I made it to high school arrange my schedule so that I would have the least possible interaction with people. I became a loner, and pursued activities that I could do alone. I learned to become self sufficient. I was smart enough to coast thru high school, rarely doing homework but scoring well enough on tests. I found high school rather uninteresting.

Later on, unfortunately my family couldn't really afford college for me, so I went to the local jr. college while I was working a full time job. There was no joy in this at all, it was a lot of hard work late at night. I didn't really care if I fit in or not, I was there for the grades only.

I do see where a university environment can allow a lot more personal freedom than grade school/high school, and I guess that's good for those that can afford it.

[Pica Pica]

I went to a state run primary school in a very deprived area. (It's not every school the eight-year olds bring in knives to stab the teachers – well not in this country anyway). I was myself stabbed through a fleshy part of my hand with a pencil. I was worried I might get lead poisoning.

However, I was a bright child, although 'physically and emotionally immature' for my age (as my early school reports said.) The Head Teacher was a very enlightened man called Mr Wright, he made the symbol of the school a flame, because he believed that 'children are flames to be lit, not bombs to filled'. He was very against focused learning and like Samuel Johnson believed that a 'child should read where his fancy takes him'.

As an interested pupil he gave me some special duties in caretaking the 'museum', a shelf with a few historic prints and a piece of the Berlin Wall. I learnt the names of all the family names of the different royal families of England from a chart...it used to comfort me, all that history solid behind me and able to be understood. He let me take some lessons off to de-weed the school pond and things like that.

Not all the teachers were with his philosophy, some made me read easy books because they felt that unabridged Charles Dickens was too difficult for a nine year old, (nonsense, Dickens wrote very clearly).

I also asked sideways questions and thought sideways, memorably written in an old school report as, 'He often strays from the logical path to choose a more imaginary route, not always with a clear result but with plenty of enthusiasm for his chosen direction.'

Mrs Hutchinson and Miss Reed were particular encouragers, and Miss Reed's delight at the stories I showed her have kept me writing to this day.

Socially I was adept, though when we split into groups on the playground the division did go 'girls', 'boys' and 'other'. I was firmly in other.

We had the thick kids, so thick they had to have helpers, the ones that were ugly, the poor kids, the one that stammered and then a few others like me who had no clear affliction but somehow didn't fit in somehow. I have not sort after these people particularly, but the ones I have include a FTM transman and a gay policemen, looks like we were always bound together. There was little argument or disagreement between the groups, this may be because of the beneficial reign of Jordan, hero of the British Bulldog pitch, top dog at foursquare and also one of the kids on the clever table with me...we got on.

I really think of my primary school days as an idyll only ruined when a certain supply teacher used to come. She used to split the class in strict gender lines, I hated her and it. Half my friends were the other side, I wanted to sit in the middle of it. Wish I'd realised the significance then.

Of course, all this joy all ended when I moved towns and to secondary school. There children were bombs to be filled and I was very alone for the next five years.

[Nicky]

I was in other too. Particulalry at high school (which we call college). It was divided roughly as those that played sport and those that didn't.

I'm particulalry struck by your mention of writing stories. I wrote stories and was known for it in early school years. I would write horror. Perhaps that was a reflection of my inner horror? I still toy with the idea of writing today. If I did it would likely be gritty fantasy with flawed characters (though not so useless as that god awful white gold weilder thomas covenant).

[Lokaeign]

I was deschooled when I was 5.  Not going to say "homeschooled" or "home educated," since that would involve, y'know, education, rather than being screamed at and humiliated till I was 11 and then left to fend for myself. 

When I went back into conventional education I was 15.  I attended the local technical college (that's for like highschool-aged kids and adults going back into education, not university) and it was a nightmare.  I was harassed to a degree I can hardly believe.  There was little physical harm, although I got shoved and "accidentally" hit with bags; on one occasion I came round from a seizure (undiagnosed epilepsy) to find myself being kicked repeatedly in the bum by some random guy.  Not sure what that was all about.  Mostly it was verbal.  Insults, cursing.  Got threatened with violence a lot, including graphic threats of rape pretty much every day.  I had more femme days then than now but I was still non-gender conforming and taking a "male" subject, and boy I took some stick.  Because I looked off and wasn't sexually active, people assumed I was gay so a lot of the harassment was people talking about lemons, cutting up lemons (slang for lesbians), stuff like that.  It wasn't just lads my own age, it was adult men in their 20s and up as well.  I had two academic years of that.  I was on so many pain and psychiatric meds I used to fall asleep in class all the time,  took an overdose, developed an eating disorder, had migranes almost daily and threw up every morning out of sheer dread.  I graduated, but I didn't do very well.

It says something about my homelife that I didn't actually miss that many days at tech.

[Yochanan]

I hung out with the dudes until second grade, then I got a really good girl friend who kind of introduced me to the femme side of life. It was ok but I didn't take to it too well. I was the "tomboy" of my class. I never fit in. Until second or third grade I cried every day, and until about fifth I cried rather often, which made me the butt of a lot of jokes. I hung around with the cools kids enough that I pretty much got left alone, though.

In sixth grade I moved to South Carolina and I was awesome there. I was "the kid from California". I wore these awesome leather biker gloves and a belt chain every day, not to mention that I had a lot of awesome hand-me-downs from my best friend (a dude) and my sister. I think it was then that I started drifting away from people my age and hanging out with older people. I remember driving around with my sister and brother and their friends (5 and 6 years older than me). So I was pretty popular then.

Then we went back to California. I guess up until this point I was pretty much genderless. I didn't think about it, didn't care. Then puberty hit and I got into real middle school and life went downhill. I started dressing in revealing stuff and being ultra-femme. I wanted to be cool and I thought femme was the only way I could go. People saw me as, well, a slut. And I kind of was, starting about eighth grade and ending, uh, well, I'm still a slut a bit. My point is, I didn't know how to be a chick without being slutty.

Then I hit high school, got a boyfriend, and started wearing more boyish clothes (as he wouldn't allow me to wear my femme stuff). This went on for three years. I tried to act like the "girl" he wanted me to be, that everyone wanted me to be. I ditched him eventually to come live here with my mom, and then I started to put two and two together.

In college now, people are pretty accepting. Some people call me "Kat" and "she", and a few call me "John" and "he" even though I in no way pass. It's a helluva lot better than lower school, and I'm kind of going back to being genderless like I was pre-seventh grade. I like it. Makes me feel really good to just kind of do what I do and be myself.

[ZaidaZadkiel]

my education was basically reading, programming and day dreaming interrupted by this thing where lots of people more or less my age went. And I had to wear a uniform too!

I remember walking around the school yard, lost in thought, just not minding other people at all. Funny looking stones were more important.

I slept for most part of it, nothing really interesting happened.
I wasn't made fun of and only once someone tried to bully me, but I exploded on him and put my hands around his neck. This apparently was a good thing to do but I didn't know, I just wanted to be left alone.

In my family, there is me and two sisters. So I always knew I was a "guy" but since my father was never there and I was very sheltered, I didn't got to know what it means to be a guy.

Since then, I figured out what I think it means to be a man, and rejected most of it. But I also reject a lot of what it means to be a woman. So I reject gender roles, I guess. They're good for /them/ but not for me, I guess.

Just until recently I am trying to figure out what's up with people. And they don't seem to particularly care about me dressing all mixed. If anything, it seems that people like it, because somehow projects "confidence" (what is that?).

but I still am too ignorant about the "worldly" matters. But I bet most people can't do a kernel device for linux on a embedded arm processor :/
It's not that useful to know how to do that.

Oh yeah.
Since I am too much into computerstuffs, I decided, maybe wrongly, to just drop school altogether. It has been a very mixed choice. Because since I didn't have to go to school, I could geek out as much as I wanted and learned a bunch of things which people who are in my field, and my age, have no idea.
This makes me feel special.

But because I didn't had to go to school, I missed some non-academic lessons, like, how to deal with people. And discipline. And putting effort into things which I perceive as pointless. (really, how pointless it is to get a "grade" ?)

So. Idk. that's what happened to me. let's hope somebody learns something from that.

[imaz]

I went to an all boys school from 8 till the age of 15 and it was pure hell. My mum had outed me to the teachers which wasn't a great idea since I was considered Gay and a freak.

The Gay part really wound me up as I actually liked girls (and still do) and suffered massive homophobia even from boys who were actually Gay. P*sses me off to this day thinking about it. Later went to mixed sixth form college and was fine as I was in mixed school before the age of 8.

Boys and men on their own is not a situation I feel comfortable with to this day.

[Pica Pica]

at least there was no cage fighting in my scool.

Teachers 'Forced Pupils Into Cage Fighting'

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090320/twl-teachers-forced-pupils-into-cage-fig-3fd0ae9.html

[Lokaeign]

What garbage.  Wouldn't mind going into a cage with one of those teachers--let's see how they like it!

[Kinkly]

My first six years of schooling at a co-ed catholic school were very hard I didn't fit in and never had more then 1 or 2 friends I was picked on so much that I changed schools to an all boys Catholic school and it went from bad to worse I still didn't fit in and I was forsed to 'be a man' and 'toughen up' those were the wort three years of my life I changed school again to a co-ed Hi school that was the first nice experance of school i had I didn't fit in and i was picked on by some of the kids but I was not forced to do anything mucho toward the end of that year i got very sick droped out of school cutting my education short by three years of high school I tried going back but it was too hard from both medical and social stress reasons
I can think of many days at the all boys school that felt worse then being told  I probably wouldn't live another year- I was told that in 1993 not long before my 16th birthday after treatment hadn't done anything

[je]

School? Hmmm, I don't remember all that much about my school experience. Well, from what I do remember, it consisted of me being pushed around or teased, being disappointed in myself for doing horrid in class, having really low self-esteem because of those things, and sitting in the back of the classroom and listening in on other kid's conversations or sleeping or something of that nature.

I'd say this description was more accurate with middle school than high school. In high school, the differences were that my self-esteem was a little higher, and I wasn't teased or bullied near as badly as in middle school. Also, we had uniforms. They had just added those the year I escaped middle school. It was a welcome relief because I didn't have a good fashion sense and was teased a bit for that.

All in all, I hated school. It was a lousy experience.

[Shana A]

I was straight A student in elementary school, became more of an outcast in junior and high school. I did quite well in some subjects, English, art, but others that I didn't care about I did minimum of work to pass. One semester I almost flunked PE because I cut the class so much. Some teachers didn't like me because I tended to ask difficult questions.

I didn't fit in w/ other kids, and was sometimes picked on by a few bullies for being a sissy, effeminate. I had only a few friends, spent a lot of time alone, read a ton of books and immersed myself in music, both playing and listening. I hated school, and couldn't get out of there quick enough. I doubled up on classes so I could finish high school in 3 years instead of 4.

Z

[Mr. Fox]

I was considered odd, but I wasn't reviled or anything.  Teachers just loved me.  Although school wasn't always horrible, I've always considered it a waste of time.  I learned nothing in elementary school, and now in high school we don't don't learn anything in depth, and we even learn false facts.  Gender came up most pervasively in the sex ed portion of high school health class.  A guest speaker came in and taught us gender stereotypes (Boys and girls carry their books differently.  Is this societal?  No!  A woman carries books on her hip: JUST LIKE SHE'LL CARRY A BABY ON HER HIP!  Oh, it was disgusting).

[Kaelin]

Teachers are (generally) trained to avoid treating children differently based on gender, ethnicity, and so on.  However, they are prone to fall into lazy traps (boy-girl-boy-girl line-ups), express their own prejudices and stereotypes, or not have had the benefit of this education (their certification predates theses changes to the cirriculum).  Also, there are still a number of school policies (dress code and school uniforms) and activities (athletics: football, volleyball, baseball/softball) that differentiate according to gender.

As for me with education, school teaching gender affected me, but it was far from being the overriding problem in K-12 education.  In school, more of the gender issues came more from peers than from staff, and most of the issues with educators and administrators dealt with non-gender issues.  I did have some good teachers from time to time, but school was often quite ugly as well.  But then, other aspects of my life were also frustrating (media, parents, family, religion), including with respect to gender (expression, identity, and individuality).

[Constance]

I went to Catholic schools from first grade through high school.

During freshmen orientation at the all-boys high school, we watched a video where a "comedian" waxed poetic about how great high school was. "The best four years of your life," he assured us.

Yeah, right.

The physical violence was minimal, but the verbal torment was constant. Catholic high schools seem to be very binary by nature. I'm not exactly sure how my experience would have been in a co-ed school. Better? Worse? I can't say.

Sophomore year religion class was largely about morality with regards to sex and relationships. We were basically taught that men were slavering sex maniacs while women were much more interested in love. Apparently, there wasn't much of an in-between, which is where I would be.

Some alumni events were described as having "miscellaneous male bonding." Since I never went to any, I don't know what this phrase actually means. Chances are, it wasn't D&D, though.

[Fenrir]

I dunno, I was largely ignored in primary school because I was a daydreamer who read a lot of books. I hung out with random groups of people, and was a loner for quite a bit of it. I did get beaten up once or twice by someone from one of these random groups of people, but that was for no reason, as far as I can tell. (Fuuun...) But, of course, in primary school there's not much segregation by biological sex, so I didn't really have any issues.  I liked primary school.
My problems came in secondary school. I was suddenly plunged into an unfamiliar world where the people were no longer just 'used to me' and my odd ways. Rumours of my illicit lesbian relationships pretty much started straight away (none of which were true!  ) and I was teased by about half the year for being 'manly' and for my hair being a complete bird's nest. I didn't have many friends, and I hated the girl's changing room for PE where people would be able to comment on how I wasn't shaving my legs or doing any of the things that 'normal' girls do at that age. The teachers didn't care, and classes were so rowdy that I barely learned anything. At lunch I would take refuge in the library. I got really depressed, my grades were dreadful and my parents moved me to another school.
My second secondary school was worse, in a way, because while the teachers now cared and smaller class sizes meant it was easier for people to get to know one another, the year group was very much split into Girls and Boys. The boys were mostly chauvanist and hard to talk to. The girls, on the other hand, all conformed to the boys' expectations and acted flirty and stupid the whole time. And I mean, quite honestly, without exception. Incidents ranged from comments like "You're too clever to be a girl!" to being cornered by this big muscly guy during Art and asked at close range "Why are girls so weak? Eh?" and... basically got the idea instilled in me over those years that girls were stupid and worthless by not only the students but some of the teachers as well.  Lesbian rumours persisted.
Girls were also forced (by uniform) to wear skirts that were completely impractical because they were the type that blows up in even a slight breeze (so, you know, travelling to and from school buildings was just an exercise in exposing yourself) and all the stairs had gaps in so boys would loiter underneath to perve on girls. It was also really hard on me on 'male' days because there aint much you can do to feel masculine in a skirt! I started a petition to let girls wear trousers which got a simple and unreasoned "no" from the headmaster. 
So throughout, I was threatened with violence a couple of times, but apart from primary school never really got beaten up.
After that trauma, I pretty much went totally male for 6 months, including the start of sixth form (which is like, aged 16-18? For those of you who don't know). People were relatively fine with it because we no longer had uniforms and everyone looked different. I still got a couple of problems because the student population is about half traditional muslims and so people can have quite stereotyped ways of how 'males' and 'females' should behave, but I have good friends. I'm fine. 
(/end life story)
I can't imagine what it must have been like for some of you in single-sex education, I really disagree with it. I think it's best to be able to immerse yourself in both the worlds of male and female. I'm happy about where I am at the moment because I can pretty much be however I choose and it's a lot freer. I think it's the non-uniform, myself. 
I think there should also be a lot more done to educate children about the gender spectrum. I don't remember learning about it even ONCE in school. This is why people looked at me and thought 'lesbian' without considering any other possibilities. 
Anything that I've ever learned that is of any value I have learned either from books, my friends, or the internet. As a broader view on education, I think school takes up far too much time in children's lives (roughly 9 to 3:30 every weekday plus homework) with the specific, commitee-determined syllabus that is the same for everyone and largely irrelevant. While obviously reading, writing and simple maths is a necessity for everyone, I fail to see the point of forcing everyone to make metal candlestick holders.