AIM
- To understand the difference between ‘written’ and ‘unwritten’ rules.
- To recognise sexual harassment as a specific kind of bullying.
Copies of 4 activity sheets available as .pdfs below; copies of help line contacts for year 7 module blackboard or flip chart.
Download 'Some World Statistics'
Download 'The Rules of the Game for Boys' Download 'The Rules of the Game for Girls' Download 'Harassment or Fun?'?
Teaching points
Sexual harassment is regulated by unwritten rules of gender, and because these rules are unwritten it often goes unaddressed, but it provides a corrosive backdrop for individual bullying. Although girls are the major victims, many boys are harassed if they fail to meet the norms of macho culture. Childline recommends that that ‘boys need to be allowed to be themselves and not feel they will be judged by how they measure up to stereotypical images of masculinity’. Addressing sexual harassment is a way of ensuring that both harasser and victim face up to what is happening in a supportive environment. The timings are approximate and will depend on the group.
If time is limited
Step 2 may be omitted.
Alternatively this section can be adapted for use as an extension activity.
Step One: Introduction 5 min
Explain the lesson aims and write them on the board for reference.
- Recall the ground rules agreed during the previous lesson.
Divide the students into pairs (these can be single or mixed sex) and give each pair a copy of activity sheet 1 “Who gets their rights?’
- Ask them to look at the figures and compare how many people in UK enjoy the basic rights (to life, access to health, education and a basic standard of living) compared with people in China and Uganda.
- Why do they think so few people in Uganda enjoy these rights (poverty; lack of structures to deliver services etc.).
- How come so many children in China are immunised and educated, despite levels of poverty? (National priorities and laws – even where resources are limited, decisions how to spend money have to be made and these can
- work for or against people’s rights).
- If there was no law in the UK obliging young people to attend school until the age of 16, how many of them think they would stay in secondary education?
- Given that laws play such an important role in people being able to enjoy their rights, what happens when there are no laws or agreed rules?
- Often ‘unwritten rules’ take over. These are often enforced by the strongest groups, to keep them on top.
- Can they think of any unwritten rules they have noticed in this school or from their primary school? Write any ‘unwritten’ rules they identify on the board.
- Divide the class into single sex pairs (if you have an uneven number of boys or girls, make a three) and give each pair one of the two Rules of the Game sheets, ensuring that both boy and girl pairswork on each sheet.
- Explain that you want them to identify some of the unwritten rules that decide how boys and girls are allowed to behave, who enforces them and how young people who do not conform are ‘punished’. To start them off, read this quote from a report by Childline:
“Many of the boys who call Childline have an inner voice telling them they should be self-reliant and able to cope without help: – Always be strong and in control of yourself and the situation.” - Every pair should find at least one rule. Whilst they are working prepare 4 columns on the board headed Girls’ Rules for Boys, Girls’ rules for Girls, Boys’ rules for Boys and Boys’ rules for Girls. Ask each pair to read out their rule and write it in the appropriate column. Are boys’ and girls’expectations of each other different?
- Go back over each rule and ask who enforces it and how. Do boys police other boys and girls
police other girls? Do they ‘punish’ others differently? - How do they think this kind of behaviour differs from other bullying? (It is harassment and it is inflicted on the individual as a representative ofa group, to enforce the rules of the group.)?
- Join the single sex pairs into mixed groups of 4 students.
- Give each group a copy of activity sheet 3 ‘Harassment or Fun?’
- Ask them to discuss each action and decide whether it would always, sometimes or never be harassment.
- Divide the room into 3 areas: always sometimes, never.
- Read out each activity on the sheet one by one and ask the students to move to the part of theroom corresponding to their response.
- You will probably find that most students congregate in the ‘sometimes’ area. Encourage students to discuss why this is, and to suggest additional details that could move them in either direction.
- They should (eventually!) agree that it depends on the intention of the ‘harasser’ and the impact on the victim.
- Hand out copies of help line contacts for year 7 module. Which ones do they think are most relevant to the work they have been doing?
- Ask the students to name one ‘written’ and one ‘unwritten’ rule.
- Do they feel they can now identify sexual bullying?
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