Breaking gender silences in the curriculum: A retreat intervention with middle school educators

Abstract

This paper describes a collaborative project between a university professor, a director of a statewide gender equity project and sixteen female and male middle school educators from nine middle schools across New York State. The project consisted of two retreat weekends designed to identify teacher silences related to gender socialization and to consider how these silences contribute to their teaching practice and relationships potentially influencing expression of voice, knowledge and development in students. Following the second retreat the authors interviewed the participants. The silences identified by the participants were connected to emotional knowledge. For the women the silencing was around anger; for the men it was connected to tenderness and grief. This affective silencing stunted the development and expression of knowledge for teachers and the authors suggest this silencing influenced students and curricula. The interviews revealed that in breaking these silences the retreats served as a catalyst for changes in both the perspective and teaching practice of participants. The authors also discuss the challenge of breaking patterns of emotional silences in a group of female and male educators. Central to the work of engaging adults with both themselves and others in personal and institutional silence breaking is membership in community where people can find support for the critique of oppressive cultural expectations which limit the full development of individuals, knowledge and the public space. © 1997, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.