Consulting and Presentations

PAST PRESENTATIONS

We value the opportunity to share our experiences (successes and failures!) with other educators and parents. We presented a workshop about gender at the Collaborative for Education’s 2018 conference Transforming Education for Social Justice. Here is an excerpt from our parent and family handbook:

Self-expression and self-identification as well as working to create a safer, more welcoming space for all (children, parents, caregivers, teachers, and community members) to express and identify themselves, are important values at Farm Hands. One way to practice these values is to share gender pronouns instead of assuming which ones people use based on appearances.  For example, when introducing ourselves to a visitor we say, “My name is (Alya) and I use she/her pronouns.” When we use our own pronouns in our introductions, we invite others to share theirs, without asking people to share if they’re not comfortable doing so. According to the most current and comprehensive research (and based on our many collective years of experience with young children), gender identity formation most typically occurs between the ages of 2 and 5 years.  While most young children experiment with a wide variety of roles through their play, some focus more specifically on gender roles and express their need to identify with a certain character, gender role, or archetype by using a certain name, pronoun, clothing, color, or other accessory.  At Farm Hands Preschool we know that gender is a part of one’s identity that does not fit in a single category or as a fixed point on a spectrum between male and female, and we reflect that knowledge in our language and behavior.  We will not dissuade or ignore the expression of self in any way unless that expression is physically or emotionally harmful to another community member.  We challenge what we see in books and what we hear in discussions between all members of the Farm Hands community.  When we speak about people we use terms such as people, humans, folks, friends, or other gender-neutral terms.  When we speak about non-human animals we do our best to steer away from gender-specific words and pronouns.  Instead, we use the animal’s name (“that chicken”, “the sparrow”, “Juniper” (the goat), “Blue” (the dog)).  When we refer to bodies, we use specific body parts instead of gendering those bodies.  For example, we say “parent” or “grown-up” instead of assuming that someone identifies as a “mother” or “father”.  We say “bodies with uteruses” or “pregnant person” instead of saying “women’s bodies” or “mothers”.