BY HEIDI ULRICHSEN
[email protected]
Violence against women, body image and gender equity will become regular topics of discussion in high school classrooms if a Parry Sound High School teacher has her way.
Shannon Mills taught one of the first women's studies courses in Ontario this year, and along with her students, she is fighting to have a similar course introduced to the province's high school curriculum.
The teacher spoke about her mission in Lively Saturday at an Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers Federation (OSSTF) provincial status of women meeting.
Mills and her students have joined forces with a London group called the Miss G project, who are also in favour of bringing women's studies to high schools. On June 1, the two groups will protest at Queen's Park.
"I had to put my course together from scratch, basically. It was difficult, but I enjoyed it," said the teacher, who took women's studies courses when she was in university.
"Women's studies would spread throughout the high schools if there was already a course, and teachers could just pick up the booklet and say here's the curriculum, here's what I need to do."
The teacher is optimistic her dream will come true because provincial Minister of Education and Minister Responsible for Women's Issues Sandra Pupatello has expressed support for the idea.
Mills, an English and history teacher, designed a women's studies course for her school after realizing how male-centric history can be.
"The curriculum does make an honest attempt to include women, but unfortunately, they seem to sort of get placed on the side...I teach the Grade 12 European history course, and it's very difficult to include women when you have to cover Napoleon and the kings and popes," she said.
"I know once I got to university, I enjoyed women's related courses, and I found it strange that I was never given the opportunity in high school to study any women's issues."
The course teaches students about women in the context of English literature, history, the media and family studies.
As part of their studies, students organized a school awareness campaign for the Dec. 6 day of mourning in memory of 14 women murdered in 1989 by Marc Lepine at L'Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal.
They also visited the provincial legislature, and learned that only 22 of the 103 Ontario MPPs are women. For their final project, the students wrote dialogues between dinner party guests discussing women's issues.
"We had girls who were interested in the fashion industry. Their discussion question could have been 'Which fashion has been most detrimental to women's progress?" said Mills.
"They'd bring in different fashion designers, and someone who was a victim of foot binding in ancient Chinese history...It was left open to what the girls personally enjoyed most about the course."
The students in Mills' course were mostly female. Two boys were enroled at the beginning of the semester, but one eventually dropped the course.
Boys need to know about women's issues if they want to become lawyers or social workers, so the course is useful for them too, said Mills.
"The course is open to young men. But at the high school level you do find a certain sort of macho attitude," she said.
"We started out with two (boys) and only ended up with one...The one male student really excelled. I think seeing one male student might bring more males into the classroom next year."
For more information about bringing women's studies to high schools, go to www.themissgproject.org.
