visibility game idea

[weird elf]

Something just gave me an idea I'd like to run past you guys.

 

Background: I'm a teacher. Our school is about to go into early spring break for pandemic reasons and heaven knows when we'll be allowed to open again ... I've been asked to co-teach a sex ed class (6th grade) following a chat about rainbow topics with a bunch of kids from said class, whenever they let us open back up I'll do just that. One 8th grade teacher has requested I come visit her class to talk about rainbow topics with her students.

I've also been dreaming about starting a diversity group / club / thingy for rainbow-spectrum kids and allies (both to raise awareness and to give closeted kids a chance to drop by without needing to come out), that provides further education, a safe space to talk about all things gender and orientation, help with coming out, help dealing with unsupportive parents etc.

 

In order to include more identities and orientations than "gay / straight" and "cis / trans", I had the idea of a "hide a flag" game. It would go something like this:

Depending on the number of kids in the class, either each of them or a group of them pick a flag that represents an identity and hides it somewhere in the school grounds (or the building, depending). The other kids don't know which ones have been hidden. Then everyone swarms out to try and find as many flags as possible and bring them back to the classroom where there'll be further info on each one; in order to score a point, they need to not only have the flag, but know what it represents. Quite possibly I'd have them hide one bigger flag (laminated sheet, probably) and print a sheet of smaller, tear-off ones.

 

What do y'all think? Could that work?

[Phalena]

We're talking about sixth graders? When I was that age the possibility to win a prize for winning the game would have worked wonders in my class. How about some sweets?

[weird elf]

Good idea, thanks!

[Aiv]

I for one think that sounds like a fun idea and can easily see it working. A few things that come to my mind to consider: will there be multiple copies of the same flag (in case they all don't get found), also maybe consider the size of the class and the amount of flags/how in depth you want to do? Will there be groups/teams, if so will they be large or small (or open-ended/they-choose sized)? Will the name be on the flag somehow and they need to know the meaning, or not and they have to know the name and/or meaning? Also as there is going to be points, a prize should be in order, as @Phalena said.

[weird elf]

Good points, all of them. Let's see ...

 

I think I'll have one hiding point for each flag, but have multiple copies of them so everyone who finds the place can take one. I also don't know (yet) which parts of the school grounds we'll be allowed to use, that might limit my options.

 

I also don't know how many kids we'll be allowed to have per class, there'll be something between 8 and 24 of them.

 

The name won't be on the flags themselves; name and meaning can be found in the classroom. They need to compare the flags they've found with the flags on the handouts in the classroom and look up the name and basic definition there ("This is the transgender flag, it represents boys who were born in a female body or girls who were born in a male body" or something along those lines, easy enough a 12-year-old can understand, yet not oversimplified to the point of incorrectness). Then when the groups (or individuals) present their findings, they need to remember the name and be somewhat able to describe the meaning, I'm not expecting them to learn the textbook by heart.

 

I don't want to go too in-depth with the 6th graders, just give them a bit of an overview of how much there is to gender identity and sexual / romantic orientation, and the vocabulary to describe it should they happen across it IRL somewhere.

[Destranix]

So it's like first collecting the flags and then afterwards with the whole class , presenting and discussing results?

 

Sounds good. Although it might be difficult to choose the rioght flags. I'd concentrate on flags for main directions, not on flags for specific genders/sexualities/whatever as it should be the goal to teach a understanding of concepts, not just give a knowledge of existence.

 

Additionaly I'd invest much time in creating those lookup-handouts. Giving them a few pages with just flag-name connections with short description, just to make them interested might be good, but giving them additionaly a whole bunch of papers describing them in detail might really make them tapping into the topic as they than have directly accessable information.
 

Oh, and if available, I'd use flags that don't just consist of a bunch of differntly colored bars, but have some symbols on them.

[weird elf]

Thank you for your input, @Destranix!

 

5 hours ago, Destranix said:

So it's like first collecting the flags and then afterwards with the whole class , presenting and discussing results?

Yep. I'm a bit torn there actually - on the one hand I want them to be able to find more than one, on the other it would be pretty cool if every group / person had one flag and could tell the class about it.

 

The game could serve as a starting point to get them interested, and give them something they can recognize later when we look at the things I want to cover. The main concepts I want them to take away from the entirety of the sex ed "block" is that a) there are different kinds of attraction (e.g. sexual, romantic, aesthetic), that b) can go in different directions (homo, hetero, bi) and c) there are various gender identities (male, female, and others) that do not necessarily align with the gender assigned at birth, which can also be beyond male or female (intersex).

[Destranix]

10 minutes ago, weird elf said:

Yep. I'm a bit torn there actually - on the one hand I want them to be able to find more than one, on the other it would be pretty cool if every group / person had one flag and could tell the class about it.

This could be solved by good assembeling of groups. Bigger groups are better, as they this whole thing does not realy require much teamwork and therefore the only reason for groups is to involve single persons in some sort of connectivity that allows them to feel more responsible for presentation of tasks. (Like then they don't just do it for school/teacher, but because they are in a group)

[weird elf]

Yeah ... that hinges on the question how many kids per class we'll be allowed to have after the holidays. Right now we're working in half classes, minus the ones living with vulnerable people who don't have to come in and are "homeschooled". If we're in full classes, groups will definitely be the way to go.

[Destranix]

@weird elf In small/reduced classes, groups are not necessary to acive the described effect as the attendant pupils then already feel as part of a group.(theoretically)

[michaeld]

This is a cool idea. One potential issue is that "you either know these or you don't", so to make it a learning experience you'd have discuss everything in detail afterwards.

 

Though now I think of it, I can imagine the kids these days have smartphones they can use to recognise flags? Maybe it'll come down to who can use their smartphone apps well...

[Guest]

[redacted]

[weird elf]

I didn't, because plague and restrictions. But I'm still planning to do it, hopefully next Pride Month.

 

And thank you ☺️ just trying my best