This engaging, interactive (and fun!) workshop is for teachers, social workers, healthcare workers, family liaisons, administrators, and any other adult who works with children and adolescents in formal or informal education settings. Drawing on research and workshop participants’ experiences and questions, we will work together to learn pedagogical ways to respond to topics that emerge naturally in students’ conversations as well as issues that arise in formal curriculum including health, science, and sex education.

Participants will:

• Practice using language for and talking about body parts, gender, intimacy, consent, bodily autonomy, and both romantic relationships and friendships;
• Learn the difference between sex assignment, gender identity, and sexuality;
• Look at the ways that binary-thinking is embedded in curriculum and why that matters;
• Explore how children and adolescents can experience power over their own bodies in educational spaces and why that matters;
• Brainstorm and role-play some of the most difficult conversations that arise in school settings (e.g. sexist and misogynistic behavior and comments; homophobia; transphobia; pornographic materials; sex and sexual relationships);
• Have some fun and feel more empowered about their own confidence and competence around these topics;
• Create a short- and long-term action plan for integrating more knowledgeable and ethical approaches to teaching and learning about bodies, gender, sex, sexuality, and relationship education.

Workshop Instructor:

Stephanie Jones, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching  Professor in the Mary Frances Early College of Education, is an award-winning teacher and researcher who has been teaching, studying, and writing about bodies and gender for two decades. She has worked extensively across the K-16 age level bands and is renowned for her research-based and ethical approaches to facilitating challenging and uncomfortable conversations including those about social class, poverty, classism, race, racism, gender, sexism, misogyny, bodies, and relationships.