I teach a class of 38 at Hamamatsu Higashi Senior High School in Shizuoka Prefecture, and earlier this month I tried out a gender-themed lesson from Alexander Dutson and James Hill's "Thinking Experiments."

The class I teach emphasizes essay writing and comprises students who aim to attend university or continue their English education after graduation. However, less than 25 percent of the students at the school attend university post-graduation, and there are fewer returnees compared to the school that Dutson and Hill taught at.

Following the book, I decided to have the students look at the way gender is reflected in Japanese before having them express opinions in English.