All kindergartners can observe in their environment that it is the female who usually wears pink and the boys tend to be the ones shooting baskets. The idea of a “real man” is more complex than the color of one’s shirt. Today, gender complexity is becoming more obvious to us, broadening our notions of what constitutes a real man or woman. A student who can see a pink shirt on a man and turn an old aphorism on its head is a student who will be a good problem solver in an increasingly complex world.
Teaching about gender equity or social justice is much more than teaching good values like respect and kindness. If our business is to graduate critical thinkers and creative problem solvers, we need to create an environment where it is not only safe to have your own gender preference, but also safe to have new and unusual ideas.
When interviewing teachers, I always ask what they are looking for in a school. In the hundreds of teacher interviews I have had in the thirty some years, most (but not all) candidates are looking for a school where intellectual challenge is an integral part of academic achievement. They are looking for a school where teaching is a creative activity. These teachers often report that in so many classrooms (private as well as public), teaching is focusing the students on getting the right answers rather than thinking. Thinking is usually guessing what is in the teacher’s head.
Recently one teacher reported on a school where, by fourth grade, students were afraid to think creatively about how to solve a problem because the price of getting the wrong answer is too high. By the time he gets them in eighth grade algebra, they are no good at creative problem solving. In his school, moreover, cheating is the smart way to be successful, because it is the surest way of getting a good grade. Creative thinking is too risky.
Not only will this approach produce a weak workforce, but it will also produce graduates who are headed for failure of one sort or another because their brains are not prepared for the kind of critical and creative thinking a diverse and changing world requires. A long and happy life requires that a person discover his unique being and his unique calling. For this, we need to create the conditions in which each of us can transcend the generalizations we have a tendency to make about ourselves. For this, we need to keep popping each other’s stereotypes the way the kindergartners pop soap bubbles on the playground.
