I wonder about the age of those who created and supported this program, because it seems the “chivalry” they were promoting is a lot like an idealized version of life here in the Fifties and Sixties.
But those chivalric texts as we know them come from a while after those early contacts. So, hard to tell really how long it took to all take that shape. You do correctly point out though that what we usually think of as the chivalrous view of women, with the whole courtly love shpiel, is a late development. Which ISTM is still a bit of a head-scratcher with the OP situation since in this form of chivalry, it is the Knight who is to be the subject and servant of the Lady, who is an object of devotion.
Texas has a legacy of re-writing history to push an idealized, sexist and white supremacist narrative. It is why they are trying to purge slavery from their textbooks.
I don’t see any problem with roleplaying real or hypothetical roles and scenarios in schools, as long as there is a useful expected learning or development outcome, and as long as the roleplaying itself is safely conducted.
I mean, there’s that common balloon debate thing - where you have to debate who should be sacrificed by throwing overboard, to save the others. Of course, it’s unacceptable to actually throw people out of a balloon for the purposes of education, but the roleplaying scenario may still have some merit in provoking thought, exposing and discussing prejudice, etc.
It kind of doesn’t sound like that was the intent here though.
That’s what I thought too.
I remember the classes decades ago where on Monday the school would announce that studies had determined that brown-eyed children were inferior intellectually and they had to defer to their blue-eyed compatriots – get behind them in lines, having to score higher to the the same grade and so on.
Wednesday came the announcement, “Whoops. An error was made; it’s those with blue eyes who are inferior,” and everything was reversed.
On Friday each classroom had a discussion. How did it feel when you were on top? Did you feel you deserved it? Same for when you were on the bottom.
I’m seeing no counter here and I’d like the school administration to say out loud just what was the lesson they were trying to teach.
There were also Boys’ Chivalry activities: Texas School 'Chivalry' Assignment Tells Girls To Obey And Dress To Please Men | HuffPost Latest News
Addison also shared an image of the assignment given to male students. Boys were also told to follow a set of rules, including to dress in jackets and ties or suits, show “courtly courtesy as they assist ladies who may have dropped an article by picking it up for them,” help girls seat themselves, address women as “milady,” “create a yummy treat of friendship,” bow when greeting women and rise when they enter the room.
That eye colour thing sounds like an interesting and potentially very teachable experiment - I think it might run into trouble nowadays as you’d just have a troop of helicopter parents swooping in on Tuesday morning to express their outrage (and if you warn the parents that it’s happening, some of them will let on to the kids, destroying the value of the exercise). I’m sure there’s a way to redesign it for similar lessons though - maybe get the kids to pick a marble out of a bag - kids who picked the red marble get preferential treatment, no wait, whoops… we meant the blue marble kids.
That would probably work out better as most students of color have brown eyes but it takes away the element of “just something you were born with.”
Well, it would be nice if they at least made an attempt at historical accuracy, if that were the intent. I mean, walking “as if their feet were bound” in an activity that is theoretically supposed to teach students about medieval Europe? It looks like the teacher based his list on a bunch of random assumptions about How Things Were Back In The Day without doing any research whatsoever.
Yep, it’s the self-proclaimed “chivalry” that is actually all about the forms and manners of Old-Time “Genteel” ways.
Part of the problem with casting it as a “chivalry” exercise is that IIRC chivalric code was primarily about the conduct expected of the chevalier, the gentleman knight. The Lady did not have to “earn” it.
So, my daughter comes home saying this is “chivalry week”? Fine honey, I hereby cast you as Eleanor of &^%$# Acquitaine. Or Urraca of León. I’d like to see some squire go tell them they were being unladylike.
Because knights, of course, are well-known for wearing jackets, ties, and suits? OMG, could the guy at least pretend to be teaching history?
I don’t think this was an attempt to teach the medieval European version of “chivalry”, but rather the 1950s American, Leave it to Beaver version.
I wonder if it was intended to be like those assignments where the students have to carry an egg with them everywhere they go for a week. The idea, as I understand it, is to give students a small taste of what it’s like to take care of something fragile for 24-hours-a-day. That doesn’t mean they want the students to become parents.
The document does actually say something about trying to show how the medieval concept of courtly chivalry carries forward to today, so it kind of was framed that way at least.
Surprised that no one has addressed "create a yummy treat of friendship. Did the teacher who created this assignment forget that they’re dealing with teenagers here? I wouldn’t have trusted a “yummy treat” from anyone in my class.
Her, not his.
As long as it was for both boys and girls I guess I see it as similar to other real-world learning demonstrations and fairly harmless.
In my 3rd grade class for one day the ‘blondies’ (blond hair) were reviled and treated as low-class citizens without rights. The next day it was the ‘brownies’ (brown & black hair) turn.
Message received; discrimination = bad.
Did you miss the part where the rules for boys were basically “be polite and dress nice” while the rules for girls were “be subservient to men.”
The New York Times article (paywall warning) on this says, “The rules were part of an assignment from an English teacher who for years had used it to show students in her class how women were treated as inferiors under the chivalric code of medieval times.”
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