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TOY STORE TEACHING Students Phoebe Crabb (left) and Maya Anderson (right) walk ahead of teacher Jaclyn Edwards. The class takes a field trip to Ambassador Toys at Town and Country Viliage to investigate gender bias in children’s toys in a local, real life case study. “I really enjoy it [the class], especially since we talk about really relevant stories and topics,” Crabb says.
“She’s trying to make it super relevant [to current events],” says senior Phoebe Crabb, who is enrolled in the class. “You kind of just have to be flexible because we would have one thing planned and then something would come up in the news an hour prior to class and we would just spend around 30 minutes just talking about it.” Redefining gender Gender Studies represents yet another fresh elective in the history department, following in the wake of Positive Psychology and Ethnic Studies. This diversification has been praised by other social studies teachers at Paly. “It is important in terms of looking at our history and currently where we’re headed,” says Ethnic Studies teacher Justin Cronin. “The more that you understand, the more that it’s likely that you will embrace people who are different than yourself.” While these conversations can certainly be enlightening, the lack of diverse opinions proves to be an issue in the classroom, according to senior Mary Fetter. “I wish we had some different perspectives in the class,” Fetter says. “Girls outnumber boys three to one and most of the class seems to be pretty liberal.” To bring in more varied narratives, Edwards says she plans to invite guest speakers from Stanford University, as she wants students to learn more about gender in the world outside Palo Alto. “I wanted students to see it [gender] in a global capacity in science,” Edwards says. “I wanted them to see it in all of these different lenses.” v
ENVISIONING WITH EDWARDS Social studies teacher Jaclyn Edwards designs and leads the new gender studies class at Paly. Edwards hopes to bring passion she has for the subject to students at Paly. “This class makes me giddy,” Edwards says. “It’s a small class and they’re quiet at times, but it makes me really giddy.”
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