By Celia Burgess-Macey
PART 2: Feminists in Education Fight Back – national and local campaigns.
In the 1970s and 80s, there were an increasing number of local as well as national campaigning groups on the issue of gender and sexism that I was involved in, some at institutional and organisational level and others local and informal.
There were National Union of Teachers (NUT) guidelines on sexism and a caucus of feminist teachers campaigning for better representation of women and girls’ interests within the union (see publication by Women in the NUT Sexism in School in my personal archive).
The backing of anti-sexist initiatives by ILEA was crucial in spreading the word which they did in official publications, such as ILEA News. For example, the 15 May 1989 edition has a double page spread of photographs and report called ‘Jobs that Girls can do well’ which reports on the visit to Shacklewell Primary School in Hackney of young women students from the local Hackney Further Education (FE) college. These students introduced the girls in the primary school to bricklaying, carpentry, electrical work, surveying with a theodolite etc – all possible jobs that girls can learn to do well.
Frances Morrell was leader of the ILEA schools’ subcommittee and in 1982, organised a conference on girls’ education, which was reported in ILEA’s inhouse paper Contact on 30th April. The conference covered five topics: career education and guidance in schools; sexism in the primary school curriculum, overt and hidden; sexism in the secondary school curriculum, overt and hidden; external influences; education and the attitudes of men and boys. The paper carried a full report on the conference, including recommendations.
The Times Educational Supplement (TES) for 19 April 1985 reported on the Women’s History week that had been organised by ILEA’s History and Social Sciences Teachers Centre which, also in 1985, produced a series of events, exhibitions, films and talks on women’s history in conjunction with the Museum of London for the British Museum, London Transport Museum, the Imperial War Museum and the Science Museum. Dale Spender, the feminist author of Man Made Language, was one of the opening speakers ‘encased in suffragette purple’.
As an example of local initiatives, in May 1980 I attended a day conference at Haringey Teachers Centre in Phillip Lane, focusing on sex discrimination in schools and entitled ‘She’s bright for a girl’. I still have the gestetnered flyer in my personal archive.
There was an active anti-sexism group meeting at the Hackney Teachers Centre in Pitfield Street. Our collective support and discussion inspired us to make changes in our classrooms and campaign for the recognition of sexism in the school, in the curriculum and in books and resourcing. Without this collective support I could not have achieved what I did.
Also, there was a group in Hackney called Developing Anti-Sexist Innovations (DASI) which held a day conference in March 1982 at the Hackney Teachers Centre, Pitfield Street Annexe which I attended (conference programme in my personal archive) and after school workshops during May. There was also an anti-sexist education festival on 3rd July 1982 at Clissold Park School, where both my friend Ruth Nelson and Margaret Sandra worked, which is marked ‘primarily intended for women only!’ We were gaining confidence.
In 1979 a ‘Girls into Science and Technology’ (GIST) initiative took place in Manchester. It was set up to tackle lack of interest and underachievement by girls in science and technology. A team of teachers worked in eight secondary schools in the Manchester area using a range of approaches including visits to schools by women scientists, classroom observations, workshops and conferences. (Article on this initiative in my personal archive).
There was the Women in Education Group (WEDG) who produced a journal GEN. Looking through back copies of GEN journal in my archive I notice, for example, especially the double issue 1986 focussing on international and Black women’s struggles and creativity. The WEDG collective was formed in 1980 to provide an opportunity for teachers and others committed to anti-sexist education to ask difficult questions about equality in education and to develop strategies. Our impact began to be felt at institutional levels.
So, for example, in 1981 WEDG held a day conference (report in personal archive) sponsored by ILEA, the University of London Institute of Education (IOE) and the Schools Council. It was called ‘Equal Opportunities across the Curriculum’ and had a distinguished panel consisting of Frances Morrell, deputy leader of ILEA; Professor Dennis Lawton, deputy director of IOE; Linda Carr, principal education officer at the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) and Patrick Orr, Her Majesty’s Inspector (HMI) with special reference to equal opportunities. All of them were questioned about what they were doing to address the issues raised.
There were 21 seminars and workshops. More than 700 teachers attended of whom 150 were from outside London. There were workshops on science led by Graz Baran; on mathematics led by Val Walkerdine and Rosie Walden; on anti-sexist approaches to history, led by Carol Adams; on design and technology led by Ruth Nelson; on gender and language led by Margaret Sandra; on sexism in reading schemes in the primary school, led by myself, Celia Burgess; on the hidden curriculum, led by Kate Myers and Gaby Weiner; and on special needs education and many other topics.
It was very exciting and encouraging to get together as women in this way both to share our ideas, and to give support and set up networks. There was a strong sense that we were not only doing this for ourselves, but for the girls of the future for whom we felt we had responsibility. We were determined that things would change.
The fact that feminism was having an impact on teachers’ and parents’ consciousness is evidenced by some of the materials I have in my archive from the 1980s. The Poster Film Collective produced a series of posters on Women and History (1982). These three colour silkscreen prints measuring 20” x 30” were produced for schools, FE establishments, women ‘s centres and general use. The posters cover a range of themes, such as women and feudalism; witches, midwives and healers; the mastery of nature, and the age of science and reason; women in the industrial revolution; women and the struggle for the vote.
The result of all this organising and networking was that many of us gained confidence to make changes in our teaching and resources and to campaign for policy changes at school and local education authority (LEA) level. The policies on equality of opportunity on race, sex and class which were published by ILEA and many other LEAs and which so infuriated Margaret Thatcher (the Conservative Prime Minister) did not appear out of the blue. They were the result of grass roots actions at community and school level. Their successful implementation depended on that and not on top-down imposition by management. Some of the changes I made are:
Actions in my classroom
Sex discrimination starts very early on in children’s lives and as a feminist working in early years, many of my campaigns were around trying to counteract stereotypical expectations of boys’ and girls’ behaviour and activities.
In my classroom, I increasingly became aware of how boys and girls played differently. This was very difficult to challenge. One strategy I employed was to place the very popular building blocks in the cloakroom area of my hutted classroom which was separated off from the main area and to allocate turn taking so groups of a maximum of 4 children could go and play there. This meant that girls could choose to take turns. Occasionally a gender mixed group played. But the play still mainly differentiated by sex as girls and boys chose different things to do with the blocks.
I also encouraged girls to play in the ‘junk modelling’ area and made sure I gave them equal praise for their constructions made from cornflake boxes, toilet rolls and pieces of wood, which I got from a local furniture factory on Barretts Grove where I regularly went to pick up offcuts.
It was also important to me to give feedback to parents about children’s use of creativity and imagination, and to draw attention to how they have used the materials provided. It continues to be important for early years teachers to interpret the learning that occurs in play.
I also defended boys who wanted to play in the home area as fathers, especially, would sometimes object to this, thinking that this was inappropriate, not to say perverse.
In those days pre-health and safety and strict regulation, myself and the nursery nurse or class assistant often used to take my class out of school into the local area to sketch or to take photographs to make into books. Boys and girls used the cameras equally. The stallholders in Ridley Road market, who had been photographed by the children were very delighted and amazed when we took the book back to show them, because many of them had assumed that there was no film in the camera, or that such young children were unable to take photographs.
Another of the photo projects concerned African hairstyles. The girls in the junior school became aware of the presence of cameras in my classroom, and at lunchtime would come to have their hairstyles photographed with many different African cornrowed and twisted styles. I made this into a book, which I still have! I purchased two books on Black hairstyles from New Beacon, the Black Bookstore in Stroud Green Road which I placed in my classroom. These were very popular with the children.
Girls also made equal use of the tape recorder to undertake ‘Listen and Do’ activities, and to record their own stories, which I then transcribed. There was also another piece of new technology called a ‘Language master’, which had strips of card with magnetic tape implanted which could be recorded onto, which again was equally shared.
These small classroom actions were being repeated in many schools, but my main impact was probably the work I did in introducing non-sexist and feminist texts in the form of story books in my ‘reading corner’ and at whole class story time. Books like ‘A train for Jane’ about a little girl who wanted a train to play with and ‘Oliver Button is a Sissy’ about a boy who liked to dance. And books about non-traditional families like ‘Good Times Bad Times – Just Mummy and Me’ about a little girl who lives with just her mum.
In the 1980’s I completed an MA in Language and Literature at IOE. My dissertation was entitled ‘Gender and Genre – girls writing in the primary school’. I write more about the whole issue of gender and literacy in Part 3.
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