2 interventions, 8 weeks, 100 adolescent students: Challenging gender norms and building inclusive classrooms

With an intention of creating sensitive, safe and gender inclusive classrooms, we have been engaging with the Government Boys School, Dwarka since last year. It’s no denying fact that working with schools is very different from community spaces- the group must include the entire class, restricted hours for the session and only one session per week. Somehow because of the last reason we were not able to implement the gender, sexuality and reproductive curriculum to all the sections of the said class we were working with, hence it was decided to take a leap and work with 2 sections of Class 8^th simultaneously. 

We had Himanshu Yadav on board as photographer and co-facilitator along with the other two facilitators primarily because co-creating gender inclusive space needs a gender balance in the team, also keeping in mind that there would be times when the participants might be more comfortable with the person of their own gender. Though we knew that implementing the interventions with 8^thA and 8^th B at the same time will be challenging, what we didn’t know was the challenge that awaited us when we first enter 8^th A. The class had 45+ participants all in the very hype mood, distracted; fighting thereby could be nicely termed as ‘Class of Rowdies’.

Though as the first session began with ‘Ungli Dance’ their enormous energy was tapped rightfully giving an indication that they would like to engage and participate if the activities could contain their vibrancy. This session turned out to be intersectional, as the identity ‘socio-economic class’ was reflected as one of the students shared that he wants to learn English and wishes to go to USA; ambitions being reflection of their identity; gender- where one of the boy refused to take a pink sheet given in one of the activity by saying that this belongs to girl! Issues of peer pressure and body image too came up- affiliation to look like actors, need for body building, necessity of smart friend, lot of expectations from friends. Amidst all this, we could see participants trying to sink in the feeling of discovering themselves. 

Along with the challenges, it was immensely interesting to conduct the same session with two different set of participants during the same course of time  for many reasons, firstly with these one after another ongoing sessions, the team got opportunity to have regular reflection process, the results being effectively implemented in the very next session. Secondly we could basically monitor the progress of the participants, see through their reflections or whether the activities are engaging or not.

During the second session on physical changes, in one of the activities, the participants pointed out that ‘girls have hairs like bhaiya’ referring to the co-facilitator which just implied how deep rooted are the gender stereotypes at such an early age. In this session, gender made its presence widely - The sharing on how did they came to know that they are boys- were gendered and not because of physical attributes; one of the them talked about how he really liked saree but was refused to see or wear stating that it’s for women. Another crucial thing that came out as sharing was “The problem about growing up is that boys get attracted to girls”. All these reflections insinuate the importance of the safe space for adolescents so that they can share their confusions, apparent misconceptions, thoughts, feelings before they turn into rigid stereotypes.

The third session proved to be ice-breaker in true sense, in the security of safe space, the participants could share how they came across the word “sex”. All the sharing, questions once again implied the importance of work we are doing; also all the questions gave answers to the claims when asked what is the right age for sex education! We also took time to discuss about Menstruation as an important physical change in adolescent girls and why boys should be aware of it! Against the first group we were able to also talk about the taboos surrounding periods. 

The energizers play a very important role in the sessions, they are not there just for fun or bringing the energies of the participants in the present moment but they also divulge the motive of the workshop. We did get two extremely engaging and fun energizer by our co-facilitator and the participants thoroughly enjoyed it. Whenever we hear workshops or trainings or sessions- we have this image of the facilitator/facilipator/trainer in mind- they would look a certain way, would behave in a certain way, or have a particular skill set or an aura. Contrary to this notion, Sahas believes that if we can build conversations with the other person in a way that the other person feels safe enough to share or question the things- that’s all we need. During all these sessions we saw a huge growth in our volunteer, who initially was there for photo documentation and slowly he built a connect with the participants. Next we knew that he not only created two energizers but lead the discussion on body image, gender stereotypes he faced being a boy and talk about sexual identities with ease.

It was beautiful to see him grow as a facilitator and also as a person. He says, “I don’t want this engagement on gender issues stop for me here. I work in hotel industry, wherever I will go I would engage people on the same because these conversations are needed everywhere.”

The 2 month long intervention with 8^th A and 8^th B was interesting, immensely enriching and a thorough learning experience. As a team, we saw ourselves pushing our comfort zones, pulling out ideas, working on our creative skills; heated, conflicting and massive reflections over the sessions to come to common ground , motivating each other to do something new with each session, implementing the discussed points in the very next workshop and learning from the participants. It was an exhausting journey both physically and mentally to engage with 100 adolescent boys but there was constant motivation by our amazing enthusiastic participants. So, for example when we conducted the second session with 8^th A, the students from other class came and asked about when will they have session; initially  few of the participants were reluctant but with different learning style we included them – so they started taking the lead, there were times when they used to come up and personally ask questions. 

One of the challenges that we faced with the second class was that there were 4-5 students with one or more disabilities- it stirred me to the core that I began questioning as to whether our sessions are inclusive but we intensively worked on it and supported them in a way that they felt like they are part of the group and not someone different. This was evident on the following days as they smiled happily. Another noteworthy thing was that they had very strong opinion that being notorious or troublesome is fine, maximum they will be thrashed or punished, so they assumed that we would also do the same. When we didn’t scold them or treated them in the same way as others, the students got confused and that what the structure was hit- that punishment is the not the only way and so with upcoming workshops they schooled themselves on their own

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On the closure day, Principal sir came to address the students, he inquired about what they have learned and how was their experience? It was heartwarming to hear students talk about their ambitions, physical changes, sex, condoms, drug abuse, child sexual abuse in the most casual way as if these topics are not at all tabooed. This definitely was a celebration point for us- because these topics needs to be normalized, these talks should happen without hesitation, we need to question the things which are told to us instead of blindly following them and only then we can fight the monster of Gender based violence.