Educating Children About Gender Disparity

posted on Jan 25, 2023

Schools form a vital part of a child’s life and have a lifelong impact on their developing minds. They play a major role in shaping students’ social and emotional values. This, in turn, shapes their mind, helps develop their cognitive skills, and, most importantly, groom them into responsible citizens. 

Being one of the well-known best CBSE school in Ghaziabad, we at Gurukul The School firmly believe that in today’s day and age, where a lot of focus is being laid on the holistic development of children, it has rather become necessary to instill the kids with social skills, morals, and values along with providing them with the academic know-how. To that end, we have taken up a noble responsibility to share awareness about social and gender discrimination, that’s a prevalent issue in our society today. In this article today, let us see the crucial role that our kids can play in helping to get rid of gender disparity on a broad level and how we can help them prepare for the same.

Teaching Primary Equality is Necessary!

This century has brought in many changes in the outlook towards society, and we must focus on raising our children accordingly. As parents and teachers, our aim should be to impart social values to our children, one of the most important of which is respecting people irrespective of their gender. Children should know what words and phrases they should use to address a person, as gender has become a fluid identity now. This understanding will help them broaden their minds and become more accepting of gender equality. They will learn to mix with people freely.

We have seen that gender stereotypes often get embedded in the young minds of children right since childhood and that basically occurs due to the biased behavior of the people in their surroundings. Thus, as responsible parents, you need to keep an eye that your children don’t develop a narrow mindset of considering any gender to be weaker than the other.

Make the Kids Understand & Appreciate Diversity

There’s no denying that everyone is not the same. There are people coming from various social classes, cultures, ethnic groups, and races and have different physical appearances. As such, it is important that, right from a young age, children are taught to develop an equal outlook, especially toward those who are not like them.

At our school, where children get to meet others from different socio-economic and racial backgrounds, our teachers ensure making the children aware of the diversity among us and how, as responsible citizens, we should accept these differences without any prejudice. 

Addressing the Problem of Gender Disparity in Sports

The primary prejudice takes place in regard to the physical and mental capabilities of male and female students. Often it can be seen that girls and boys are asked to participate in different sports. For instance, the soccer team is dominated by teenage boys, whereas the kabaddi team is meant mostly for girls. 

We at Gurukul The School firmly believe that regardless of gender, all children have equal rights to utilize their full potential in learning a new sport and practicing the same. There should be no division in the selection of accessories according to the sex of a child.

Experts say a gendered outlook towards the selection of toys stunts a child’s mental and cognitive development. Male children project aggression and other fear-resistive character traits due to playing games and sports that involve high rage and aggression.  Likewise, girl children are often encouraged to play games that involve nurturing, caregiving, sociability, and other cognitive skills involving the display of a tender attitude toward others.

This division shapes the minds of young adults in a manner that they grow up to believe that gender-specific job roles are nothing but normal. They fail to be critical about it and are often stuck with low-paying jobs that require only emotional labor. 

Men are often associated with the economic workforce, where they are considered to be the earners and women to be the homemakers. This discrepancy can be resolved only when both the girl and the boy children are encouraged to participate in the same sport and activities. This will strengthen both their analytical and social skills. 

Conclusion

We at Gurukul The School, one of the best CBSE school in Ghaziabad, believe that it is time each of us come forward to help our children break free from any such stigma like gender disparity which ends up stalling their development. At our school, we enlighten our students about “Reservation for Women in College and Universities,” “Balika Samriddhi Yojana,” and “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” to help our students that girl children are equally legible to enjoy their right to education and that they should be kept devoid of the same. 

In fact, every child has the right to receive a proper and quality education, and as a society, it is our combined responsibility to make sure that no child is debarred from receiving education. Our aim is to welcome every child, irrespective of gender differences, to the world of education and strive to create a future where there’s no place for any kind of discrimination!