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What do Linden's Co-Principals and teachers
mean when they say their approach is "girl-centred"?
Linden's girl-centred approach must be
distinguished from what people associate with the phrase "women-centred".
There is a popular misconception that "women-centred"
programmes are exclusionary, i.e., that they ignore commonly
taught fundamentals in favour of studying only women's accomplishments,
or that they denigrate the accomplishments of men. People
also express concern over what one parent, a U. of T. department
head -- both of whose daughters have attended Linden into
their senior high school years -- has dubbed the "fuzzy
thinking" that people believe is tolerated in some women's
studies courses.
Neither is the case at Linden. There is
no room to exclude anybody's ideas or accomplishments, and
no tolerance for fuzzy thinking. The girls are encouraged
to examine and challenge all assumptions, even those of the
educators who have influenced -- or are delivering -- the
curriculum. This doesn't mean that "anything goes",
and that standards take a back seat; the faculty set, and
enforce, high academic and behavioural standards at the school.
Linden teachers, moreover, are always the ones in charge of
their classrooms.
But it does mean that Linden, while incorporating
high ideals, encourages all questions and debate. It teaches
collaboration, tolerance and inclusion. No doctrine ranks
ahead of the pursuit of knowledge and understanding.
Linden's "girl-centred"
approach means looking at what happens when you put a girl
or a woman in the story. Where appropriate, students explore
this additional topic and its implications. Students in Grade
7 history, for example, are asked to find at least one primary
source of information about a woman in Canadian history, which
leads many on intriguing trails to archives and museums.
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