Reg Clark

This is fantastic.  Teachers seem to be hugely underrated.  I grew up in the US with a co-ed education.  I am now in Sydney where most schools are segregated (girls or boys schools).  I struggle to understand it and can see negative impacts in the adult culture.  Generally keen to see how things change in different parts of the world as recognition of genger fluidity expands.  I went to a drop-in Ojibwe (Native American) language class last year.  I found out it is in the Guiness Book as the hardest language to learn.  The language does not differentiate between 'he / she', there is just a word for person, singular.  Indigenous cultures seem to be amazing in so many ways.   I remember thinking it was very strange to learn about court cases in school.  Now, I think it was brilliant.  
Reg - your students are lucky, even if they don't know it yet.

I feel that equal representation in the examples you use is a great goal. I remember a few times when I identified strongly with stories that had strong female characters and the content really stuck with me for years. I can't be 100% certain it was solely due to gender, but I feel like it really solidified my connection. Good luck!

For me, it was definitely how I was raised. Dinner was 1 meat and 2 veg (one usually potatoes for the starch).  Always.  This came down from the farming backgrounds of both my parents (though they were only on farms as children.  We had long left the farm by the time I came along).   Breakfast as the "most important meal of the day" is another one that hangs on from the working man's culture:  If you had to go log 1/4 of an acre before lunch, breakfast was a darned important meal.  But if you are sitting at a desk all day, do you need 2 eggs, 4 sausage and a stack of pancakes?  No, you do not.  Our lifestyles have changed so much, but our diets are habits created when we are children.  Inertia.