Friday 5 August 2022

Gender advice in school diary

My new desk diary has a two-page spread in the centre all about gender identity. How cool is that?

My work year corresponds fairly well to the school/academic year, so even though I don't work in education, an academic desk diary running from September onwards is very handy. Besides, here in Italy, school diaries have a tradition of having cartoons at the bottom of the pages, which is about my kind of level! So among the various diaries on sale for the new study year I found one series with these basic definitions of gender identity and related matters. Don't worry if you don't read Italian as the main terms have all been adopted from English:


I am delighted that many students this year will have a handy guide to the topic. Placed right between Christmas Day and the 26th December, this information is pretty hard to miss. The rest of the diary is gender neutral in its presentation - no obvious leanings to standard boy or girl marketing preferences. Good work.


Creature feature

I've mentioned Laura the Lizard in a couple of recent posts and she lives in the little oasis of green I've created on my terrace and seems happy. Here she is strolling in her little realm, taken just the other day:



That was the same day that I found another teeny tiny lizard about an inch and a half long in my hallway. I guess he came in from the terrace. But he went out under the front door. But as I know that the stairwell is not a good place for lizards (as a few tiny corpses over the years have testified) I caught him in a tupperware box and put him on the terrace. 

 


Maybe he will stay, like Laura. I'd like that. Maybe he's Laura's baby? Who knows. And I don't know if he's a he and Laura's a she but, as with all of us, a gender has been allocated. Hey, that's life. Annoying isn't it? 

Anyway, I hope to see him about again.

Sue x

4 comments:

  1. Laura is such a cool name for a lizard! If you're looking for names for the teeny tiny lizard, feel free to go with Lloyd or Lawrence lol.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. I will name him if i see him again. Laura is the name of my helpful newsagent so I thought I'd honour her with a lizard in her name! Sue x

      Delete
  2. Eddie Lizard? 🙂 Although Eddie Izzard seems quite sure of who they are.

    The diary looks very cool and while it might cause a few blowhards to fuss and bluster, I very much hope most schoolkids roll their eyes and ignore the out of touch.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Eddie Lizard is a clever name. Let's see if Lizard 2.0 reappears and then I'll name him/her.
      I think most kids will find these pages an honest and relevant addition to the diary info.
      Sue x

      Delete