A school in the UK is giving boys lessons in zumba and ballet to encourage the idea that PE is gender neutral (不分性别的). Steve Frenzel, a school officer, says that boys should be offered different activities in sport including dance. They should see dance as something they can enjoy just as much as girls.
However, giving boys more choices will not solve the problem of girls' disengagement (不参与) with sport, since for years, girls have been kept from playing sport like football and cricket.
A research done byWomen in Sportshowed that girls begin to lose interest in sport when they are as young as six. “At around the age of six or seven girls start to drop out of sport. What is interesting is that this is the same time that boys start doing more,” said Ruth Holdaway, the chief executive ofWomen in Sport. “What seems to be happening is up until that age, boys and girls feel the same—they just run around, they don't think about what they are doing, they will explore, they will climb.”
Teachers should not make any assumptions (假定) about which sport girls or boys would like to play. Often teachers will be surprised if they ask girls what they want. There will be an assumption that they want to do dance and many of them will, but they might also want to play football or cricket.
Other steps schools can take to encourage girls to play sport could include making adaptations (适应性变化) to changing rooms.
Girls may think, “If I am going to get hot and sweaty, I need to put my hair up, I need to take it back down, and if I don't have a mirror, I can't do that.”
Small changes like allowing girls more time in the changing rooms, and putting up mirrors, may encourage them to run around and get hot and sweaty during PE lessons.
