I listned to the NPR podcast.
The podcast’s main idea was that our students struggle with fitting in. I myself struggled to fit in, but we live in today’s world, and our students struggle with plenty of issues that don’t make it easier to fit in. Topics of gender, sex, class, documentation status, and neurodivergent are real, and these are things that we can not change.
Identity is something everyone struggles with on a day-to-day basis. As children, we’re extremely impressionable, and I think becoming a resource for students and allowing them to express and explore their identities can help nurture a better learning environment.
The podcast mentions menstruation and the current struggles young students and some adults go through. Educational lectures, despite students’ backgrounds, as mentioned in the podcasts, are crucial to breaking the social barrier. As a sixth grader, I remember being separated based on sex and learning about male puberty changes, but not of female bodily changes, and from my experience, it wasn’t talked about.
Issues arose later in my life, as being a high school and not truly understanding the menstruation process made me realize I was never taught. It’s one of those topics that no adult wishes to talk about. However, if discussed properly, it’d make for a more nurturing environment.
All students and adults still struggle daily, trying to figure out who and what they are. The issue of menstruation not being talked about gives more reasons for being alienated in today’s world.
What are your guy’s thoughts?
Topics such as menstruation should not be tiptoed around and be given to everyone. In my EPSY 446 class, we covered many topics revolving around youth development and how pivotal conversations between parents, educators, and students themself were. One of them was the lack of proper physical education. We, including myself, grew up with females will be taught about female “stuff” and males about male “stuff”. We didn’t bother saying certain words because it made everyone uncomfortable. Books tend to push ideas by saying “will” i.e. males will grow facial hair. This word makes a young adolescent believe that because they are male they need to have facial hair when puberty hits. If they don’t “achieve” this then they may feel different. They may feel left out from friends who do have facial hair. This also presents issues for transgender individuals. Over time, this will also affect their self-esteem. In text, books should change the language they use to present information and those giving information to students should also be welcoming.
ReplyDeleteAs you mentioned, creating a nurturing and open environment at school is essential. If schools were to have safe spaces from an early age, this can transition to high school, college, and even outside of school such as the home. More conversations about student’s identity and the role they play in their lives are necessary. Individuals can learn from experience and overall feel more comfortable.
Verbiage is very important and can make the different in these scenarios... I appreciate and agree with your point on using words such as "will" can lead to disappointments and disillusion in terms of gender. After all it's social constructed... not everyone will have facial hair. I think non gender conforming nouns and different verbiage is important and can make a substantial difference in transgender individuals feeling welcomed.
DeleteI also listened to the NPR podcast and was impressed to hear the voices of many young adolescents. Especially the middle school girls who created a podcast talking about how periods and menstruation need to be normalized. I agree with your point that we need menstruation to be more commonly known to any adolescent and that they should not separate boys and girls. I also liked that Marlen brought up transgender and non-binary adolescents who might have different experiences in puberty. To change this cycle in the education system, I think that we need to have all the adolescents in the same room talking about how each gender goes through puberty and the changes that will come. There should also be information on how sometimes people have less facial hair or that some women get their periods later in their puberty. Educators should also mention that sometimes periods are heavy or irregular, and that needs to be checked because it can lead to becoming anemic. There also should be a section where they talk about trans or non-binary adolescents and how to navigate having those feelings of not being comfortable in their bodies. The hope is that in the future, education on puberty will be much more progressive and promote adolescents' healthy development.
ReplyDeleteI was very interested in this NPR podcast. I found it to be quite fascinating because I have friends who have talked about similar topics recently and how we confront them in classrooms. Ultimately, in 2024 theres absolutely no reason to be splitting up genders during sex ed. The manufacturing of menstruation as a taboo topic is purely born out of this uanessacry split. We have to be more mindful about how we confront these challenges in classrooms and what we can do to make these much more open spaces.
ReplyDeleteI also listened to this podcast and it made me think back to my experience of learning the different topics that they talked about. A lot of these different topics I had to look up on my own to understand or some friends would explain it to me since I wasn't really knowledgeable on the topic and so it helped me to learn a lot about it. School doesn't really teach us much sex ed., my experience with it was that it was only about 1 or 2 units total and then we moved onto human structure and bones. The whole avoiding the topic or beating around it in my opinion harms us more than being blunt and teaching it as it is so that everyone can be knowledgeable and safe will benefit us all.
ReplyDeleteI also listened to the NPR podcast. The podcast essentially focuses on identity, however, it explores how someone may struggle with their identity in a variety of factors. Many people struggle with their identity as well as groups. The podcast first mentions the story of young ladies in school that are almost embarrassed of something as normal as mensuration (periods), products related to mensuration, and even just the conversation of it. young ladies in school had to come up with code names, for example, pads would be referred to as marshmallows. Its absurd that something that is used by half the population is is often an uncomfortable topic. All people should be more mindful of things like this, as well as other struggles with identity.
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