Part 8 Spain 

1. What happened in the teaching situation? Did it goes according to plan? 

Our activity has been to tell them a tale (“The John’s half”) and talk about it. Thinking about if there are things for boys and things for girls. Later, they have drawn the situation which they like a lot. Finally, I challenged them to carry out a housework with a member of their family (mum or dad) who he/she doesn’t usually do it. 

The activity was developed according to our planning. Students participated a lot and we could observe some curious situations linked to gender equality.  

2.What changes notice in teaching? 

Well, we are more careful with our language and intonation we use in the classroom. Besides, we pay special attention about our expectations. We are trying to separate them from us.  

3. Did you at a certain point in the teaching see any kind of power expression? How was this power expressed? How did this affect the teaching situation? 

Yes. Students told us some situations where someone had told them: “That is for girls.” It was very curious because we find two negative power expressions which were parents’ answers facing a situation: 

“Don´t cry. Boys don’t cry!” (he wanted a magazine, but his dad didn’t want to buy it…). 

“You can’t paint your nails, that is for girls”  

However, we found some positive power expressions from students part: “I can choose the colour of my t-shirt and I am always pretty” (The colour wasn´t a problem for her and any colour was fine for her and for everyone). 

“I choose pink because I like pink colour” (her election was not because she is a girl). 

4.What new insights do you bring with you, both from the teaching situation and from this course as a whole? Has the course in any way affected your way to behave as a professional preschool teacher? 

As we told you before, we have changed lots of things in our teaching. We pay special attention to the language, expressions and intonation we use in the classroom. Also, it is relevant to highlight “the expectations”. It is something that we haven’t realized before and it is very important to take into account. 

On the other hand, we are still thinking that our main problem or factor affecting to the gender equality is their parents’ negative influence. We believe that we should implicate them in an indirect way in different activities without labelling them as gender equality activities.