WomenEd Blogs
My first #WomenEd event #IWD2022
by Caitlin Bracken @CaitTeachesKind I'll be honest, I did question why I'd sacrificed my Saturday lie-in, as I got on a train at 8.11am on March 12th. For those thinking 'Surely you'll just have Sunday though?' you'd be wrong, I was up early again for figure skating that morning! I'm not very good at new things, or rather, I...
Ignite and Empower #IWD2022
by Lisa Hannay @lhannay1 By all accounts another successful International Women's Day event, this time with several WomenEd networks coming together! On Tuesday, March 8 @WomenEdCanada, @WomenEdAlberta, @WomenEdManitoba, @WomenEdBC and @WomenEdQuebec joined forces and amplified, celebrated and honored the work of women in leadership. Afte...
Be an agent of change to #BreakTheBias - #IWD2022
by Kerry Jordan-Daus @kerryjordandaus I considered myself a rank outsider. But I had nothing to lose. Well maybe, my pride. But still I gave it a go. I believed I could. So, I would. No, I should. When we reflect on #BreakTheBias, we are facing personal, cultural, and structural barriers to equality. Today, I am thinking about my own bias, the unco...
The Importance of Female Leadership in the Education Technology Space
By Laura Bain @LaruBain#breakthebias #womenintech #edtech Just as we are shaped and influenced by our environment, so too are technology products as they are developed. When the teams that are developing, designing and deploying these products lack diversity, bias unavoidably creeps in. Examples of gender bias are already evident in Artificia...
What will you do to #BreakTheBias?
By Sheetal Smith @SmithSheetal Martin Luther King once said: 'If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.' This year, for International Women's Day, women all over the globe are hoping to share, inspire and move towards a gender equal world, that is free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination. I can't speak for e...
By Dr Jill Berry @jillberry102 After I contributed a chapter to the first #WomenEd book in 2019, we were asked to film a short video of ourselves holding the book, wearing the 10% Braver tee-shirt and explaining how we had been brave and what we might do if we were braver still. I said I'd been brave when I completed my doctorate and wrote a book a...
Philip Wharton FCCT @pkoeln1980
2021 has been one of the toughest years I have known. Shifting regulations, absences, worries amd stresses all added to the usual maelstrom of running a school.
By Punam Mohandas @PunamMohandas
We cannot ignore the fact that ‘Whiteness’ has fast become a contentious issue when it comes to discussing an ideal English teacher in Asia. Do educational institutions tend to ignore a teacher’s competency over ethnicity/nationality? This is one of the questions that I sought an answer to from the students themselves.
By Caroline Doherty @_C_J_B Dear Headteacher, If I were to offer you a simple way to get you a more diverse, skilled, happy and engaged workforce with greater levels of wellbeing, you’d say it sounds far too good to be true! However, when I chaired a webinar on Flexible Working in partnership with the Department for Education and Teaching Va
by Vivienne Porritt @ViviennePorritt
I write an annual blog about the #GenderPayGap in education, using the date of Equal Pay Day in the UK. From this day, most women are working for nothing for the rest of the calendar year because they earn less than men. In 2019, Equal Pay Day was 14th November and in 2020 it was on 20th November. This year it is November 18th which confirms we have moved backwards during the pandemic. Change is clearly not secure, and the pace of change is too slow.
by Jacqui Brelsford @BrcounsellorJ
On Saturday 23rd October, WomenEd Thailand hosted its first ever international career clinic! Women from around the world shared their expertise, advice, cheerleading, and general awesomeness with aspiring leaders in education. As one of the WomenEd Thailand Network Leaders, it was my responsibility to live-tweet the event and my fingers could not keep up with all the brilliant things being said. Here are my top takeaways in short bitesize tweets:
by Jacqui Brelsford @BrcounsellorJ
Asking someone to nominate me for an award is probably one of the most uncomfortable things I could do. Putting myself out there is not something that comes naturally. My education was one of criticism and abiding by the archaic, strict rules of jaded teachers who didn’t know any better, and the shame of getting something wrong or being judged has stayed with me my whole life.
by Kerry Jordan-Daus @KerryJordanDaus
I have been reading Mary Ann Sieghart’s The Authority Gap (2021), the stories of expert, talented, successful women, occupying a wide range of powerful leadership roles, recounting their lived experiences of being treated as a ‘Miss Nobody’, silenced, ignored and disrespected despite their clear expertise, intelligence, brilliance.
by Maria @CreativityMrs
Hay muchos obstáculos para la creatividad. Antes pensaba que no tenía tiempo, ni tenía las cosas, ni la inspiración. Busqué por internet y en las revistas y me dejo tan completamente abrumada que no sabía cómo empezar – y por eso, no empecé. Reflexioné sobre si mi falta inicial de creatividad no se basaba en los obstáculos que se me ocurrieron, y por eso no le hice. Las actividades creativas que deseaba tener, a menos que se reconocieran, parecían ser una enorme pérdida de tiempo. Pensé que a menos que estuviera creando un ejemplo para que los niños lo usaran en mi clase, era un ejercicio inútil.
by Maria @CreativityMrs
There are many obstacles to creativity. I used to say to myself that I didn't have the time, or the resources nor the inspiration. Trawling through countless websites and magazines would leave me completely overwhelmed, that I didn't even know where to start—so I didn't! I wonder if my initial lack of creativity wasn't based on the obstacles that I came up with, but with the thought of permission. The creative pursuits I wished to have, unless validated, seemed to be a huge waste of time. I thought that unless I was creating an example for the children to use in my classroom, it was a pointless exercise. And yet, I was encouraging others to be creative, but not giving myself the permission to do the same.
by Punam Mohandas @PunamMohandas
One of the most common scenarios the unexpected COVID-19 situation created globally was to propel students into cyber classrooms, as online learning became the new order of the day. Although e-learning is certainly not new, it has become a more sought-after and viable proposition in recent years as students combine higher studies with simultaneously holding down jobs. However, apart from throwing up several unpalatable prospects such as the lack of face-to-face interaction with teachers and peers and lack of student engagement and motivation, e-learning also highlights unethical student behavior like cheating, plagiarism, or taking help from parents or friends in order to complete assignments.
by Imogen Senior @MrsSeniorStBens1
When I offered to speak at the #WomenEdEastern unconference on 23rd September, 2021, I hoped that I had something to offer. I have been a headteacher of a secondary school of 900 students for over two years and have been teaching for 20 years. I have three children (now aged 13, 10 and 5). I worked part-time for 18 months after my third child, returned to work full-time after four months after my second child and applied for, interviewed for, and was appointed to my first senior leadership post whilst 36 weeks pregnant (also with my second).
by Caroline Verdant @cazyv
Must you see the colour of my skin?Does it change the fact that I want to win!What is the goal? What is the prize?If the colour of my skin is my demise!
by Nicole Rodden @NicoleRodden1
At the #WomenEd global unconference this weekend the word ‘anger’ was repeated. ‘Anger and hope leads to change’ by Dr Jill Berry. Being falsely called aggressive and angry, a stereotype of black women in particular, as mentioned in Caroline Verdant’s session. The need for an Angry Girls Club being set up in schools for girls to vent, mentioned by Emily Rosaman. Similarly, words like ‘vent’, ‘rage’ and ‘shock’ were used to describe some of the injustices within people’s stories linked to instances of racism and sexism within the sector.
by Rachel Fenn @NoSchoolSexism
End Sexism in Schools is a grassroots organization founded in 2020. We are united in our mission to see schools become places where all children can achieve their potential, without being limited by gender stereotypes. Our first campaign, to research the gender bias in the texts taught in English lessons at KS3, was born out of our frustration that none of us, nor our children, had been taught any novels or plays by female authors at school. We wanted to know if this gender bias against women’s writing was merely anecdotal, or a widespread phenomenon.
by Katrina Edmunds @KatrinaAEdmunds
In my previous blog, we explored the importance of tackling SDG5, why gender equality matters in international schools, what it consists of and how to achieve it. Here we will consider the imperative for international schools to take action and showcase an ongoing project which links gender equality and global citizenship. This project bonds together students from a privileged context, where education is taken for granted, with students from the war-zone of Afghanistan, where girls are fighting for their basic right to go to school, once again.