22/11/2017

Teachers in the UK have been warned - "Stop calling female pupils girls, it reminds them of their gender"

"Stop calling female pupils girls, it reminds them of their gender": Teachers in the UK have been warned  


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Teachers in the United Kingdom have been urged to avoid calling female pupils "girls" or "ladies" because it means the children are "constantly reminded of their gender".

Natasha Devon, the Government’s former mental health champion said this to the headteachers of the country’s leading girls’ schools. Speaking at the Girls’ School Association’s annual conference in Manchester, she said teachers should be using gender-neutral language when they address their students, and added that the same applied for boys.
Devon added that she would "never walk into a room in an-all girls’ school and say girls or ladies" because it was "patronising".

"Stop calling female pupils girls, it reminds them of their gender": Teachers in the UK have been warned

She said: “I don’t think it is useful to be constantly reminded of your gender all the time and all the stereotypes that go with it. I think actually in some ways boys are more constrained by the expectation of their gender.
"And whilst that is being challenged and changed I don’t think it’s helpful to keep saying ‘girls, girls, girls, boys, boys, boys’, because there is so much implication that potentially goes with that."
She urged teachers to instead address children as "pupils", "students" or "people". She said the using "girls" could "create a lot of anxiety" among children and teenagers. While, the term "boy" is linked with "being macho, not talking about your feelings, being told to man up". She said taking away "negative stereotypes" could "improve mental health".
Ms Devon continued: "If your narrative is saying girls don’t get angry, or boys don’t cry, or girls aren’t allowed to do this, or boys aren’t allowed to do this, then that is potentially going to have an impact on your well-being. So I hope that in taking away the negative stereotypes associated with gender, we can ultimately improve their mental health."
She also warned teachers it was best to avoid gendered terms because there could be transgender pupils in the classroom. 
Ms Devon added: "There are some schools I go into that are single-sex schools, but there are transgender students in the year. You can’t presume that because somebody presents as a gender that that’s what they are."
Meanwhile, TV host Piers Morgan has criticised Ms Devon's suggestion. He condemned it on Twitter, writing: "Britain is losing its mind."
"Stop calling female pupils girls, it reminds them of their gender": Teachers in the UK have been warned

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