He said, she said

NEA Today, May 1999

Job:

Middle school teacher, San Francisco Unified School District

Bright Idea:

To Logan, gender equity means more than simply treating girls and boys equally in the classroom. Educators need to recognize how they learn differently and that each gender faces different challenges.

That's part of the lesson in the gender workshops Logan teaches for the National SEED Project (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity).

In her own classroom, Logan assigns a writing exercise that asks her students to imagine they were born the opposite sex. Through that, she wants them to understand how being born male or female has already shaped what they have become.

Girls in one class talked about how they were sexually harassed in school, physically and verbally. The students formed committees to research existing laws, observe what was really happening in the hallways, and take action.

The girls realized they weren't alone with their experiences and feelings. The boys realized they didn't have to take the bad rap for the few who were guilty-but could instead speak up for the rights of women.

"I honor their experiences," says Logan, "and empower them to do something about it."

Students need to have more choices in how they learn-whom to report on and how to do the report, for example.

Logan notes that including women in the curriculum doesn't mean teachers are necessarily emphasizing women. And women needn't have created a traditional milestone to have a place in history. Her students make group quilts to honor women-and they can choose famous women or a grandmother or even a favorite teacher.

"This is how you teach about gender," Logan says in Peggy Orenstein's book School Girls. "You do it one stitch at a time."

Logan adds that teachers don't have to be experts on a subject like women's issues to bring it into their classroom.

Give adolescent girls "permission to be whomever they want to be-to encourage them to stretch their ideas of who they can become," says Logan. And let boys know they can become allies for others who are marginalized, including girls and women.

Impact:

One of Logan's students, ninth grader Josh Haner, felt "cheated of time" at the end of that nine-week investigation of sexual harassment in schools. "The subject was not a closed issue," he said. Another boy joined his high school chapter of NOW (the National Organization for Women).

For More:

Logan chronicles her work in the book Teaching Stories (Kodansha International). Send E-mail to Logan at jlogan@jps.net.