This year rooms 25 and 19 are getting together each week to have our health lessons in single gender groups.

In the boys lessons we look at stereotypes of boys and men in the media and discuss how what we see on TV isn’t really what life is like. When we first started these lessons we shared our ideas on how we see ourselves growing up as men. We realised that we were focussing on the things we saw in movies and that these were really negative. Since then, we have looked at the positive things that we see about the real life men in our lives are like and what we want to grow up to be. At the moment in our lessons, we have writing key statements and creating posters to be a part of the ‘Rise Above the Pack campaign run by the YWCA. This campaign is about being a role model in the community, not being a bystander and being respectful toward everyone. Having these lessons in same gender groups has meant that more boys have been comfortable sharing their thoughts about these topics. We don’t think we would have participated in these activities as well in a mixed group.

During our girls Health lessons we have had a wide focus on body image and the way media is effecting the thinking of young girls. The ‘like a girl’ campaign was the main subject of our first Health lesson. In the video that sparked this campaign, a bunch of kids were asked to do certain things ‘like a girl’. The campaign is to show people that ‘like a girl’ shouldn’t be used as an insult.

You can see the clip here: 

More recently we have been working on ways to break down and spread inspirational messages (like ‘success is not perfection’ or ‘be the change you wish to see in the world’), that we believe are important to boost girls’ self-esteem. 

Our girls Health lessons are important to us because we are able to troubleshoot gender based problems that we otherwise wouldn’t feel as comfortable talking about. 

Last week, we had a visit from The Messenger Newspaper. We were excited about having The Messenger come to the school to make a report on our new Health program this year. In the article, Mr Lamshed talked about how he wanted us to grow up with manners, and respect and not like the people in the movies who emotionally and physically attack people and get glorified from it. Mrs Aparicio talked to the reporter, Amy Moran, about the way the media impacts young girls and how they can improve their self confidence.

The article can be read here.

Niyati, Tehya, Seb, Joel, Miles & Deacon – Rooms 19 and 25 

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