As part of an attempt to encourage gender equality and remove stereotyping, a school in Spain has been giving household chore lessons to male students.
Indeed, modern times have seen behavior changes and there’s been a fight for gender equality on the increase in different forms.
But, a lot of people claim there’s still a lot to be done in order to break away from the belief that men are bread winners and women are home makers. This school is definitely working to change this.
Continue reading to learn more about their efforts…
Spanish School Makes Effort to Promote Gender Equality
For the purposes of the initiative, the school located in Vigo, Spain introduced a subject called Home Economics and made it a compulsory one. It includes teaching students skills like cleaning, cooking, ironing, sewing, clothes washing, and bed making.
Teachers and some parents have also volunteered to help teach students in additional household chores. The school, called Colegia Montecastelo, had an initial intention to teach boys how to cook; however, after positive feedback, they decided to add some other tasks as well.
The staff wanted to create values, emphasize gender inequality, and dissolve stigmas related with these activities. Interestingly, even the students’ fathers help them out and also learn new skills they didn’t know.
The school is also giving lessons in masonry, plumbing, carpentry, and electric work as part of the effort to teach important life skills.
According to school coordinator, Gabriel Bravo, it seemed useful to help their students learn these tasks so that when they have their own family, they can be involved from the beginning.
The goal is to teach youngsters that a house is a matter of two- it’s not the woman cleaning, ironing, and doing the dishes on her own.
In this way, Bravo further explained, they can expand the children’s awareness and capacity about handling themselves at home.
The Boys Are Enjoying the New Subject
In the beginning, despite parents’ thrill about this new subject, the students were a bit skeptical and wary. However, a lot has changed since the beginning and today; the boys are actually looking forward to learning new skills.
All in all, this is not just an educational experience for the community, but a fun one too.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if other schools throughout the globe also introduce this important subject and raise gender equality?
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