The State Department just released a “guide for educators to create gender-inclusive classrooms” for use by teachers and schools around the world. While the document is titled “Creating Supportive Learning Environments for Girls and Boys,” the wording sometimes attempts to take into account recent trends towards multiple genders rather than the increasingly anachronistic binary definition of gender by referring to “all genders.”
Cathy Russell, the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, tweeted a link to the document on Thursday:
The State Department just released a guide for educators to create gender-inclusive classrooms. Learn more here: https://t.co/UW6Yt2orTU
— U.S. State Dept | Office of Global Women’s Issues (@GenderAtState) June 9, 2016
In a nod to reality, however, the document contains some interesting ideas that appear to clash with recent cultural and societal trends, including the Obama administration’s new directive regarding bathrooms and transgendered people in public schools. Under the heading of “strategies from teachers for creating effective learning environments,” the very first item on the list is “Provide separate and adequate bathrooms for girls and boys.”
Another idea in the document addresses safety concerns by having girls and boys obtaining permission to use the bathroom from a teacher or “leader” of their own gender.
The release of this document seems to be an indication that while the Obama administration continue to move the U.S. along the multi-gender path, there is a recognition that perhaps the rest of the world is not quite ready for the brave, new one we’re entering here at home.
