Boys and girls learn differently?

I've done a lot of thinking and a bit of research on this, place marking to come back to.

There's always a slight imbalance between the sexes when it comes to fine motor skills and some levels of sen - if you talk to SALT and OTs they tend to work with more boys than girls. Very complex of course. I've come to a decision that some of it is due to genetics on the Y chromosome and some is due to social conditioning, which quite frankly can start in the womb . ( similar to as was demonstrated in the bbc doc no more girls and boys)

For one thing, if individuals have a weakness in a particular area, then they are likely to benefit from more practice in using that area in order to develop it, because real life won't necessarily cater to that weakness (obviously there are some exceptions to this where a weakness is severe). So boys whose verbal abilities develop later need more exposure to verbal stimuli, not less.

I don’t think you make someone learn in a different style - and I don’t see why it would be desirable if you could. Sure, verbal skills would be great, but why would learning engineering verbally be preferable to learning it visually?

I’ll never be ‘verbal’. I might give that impression on here because it’s the way we communicate but I think visually. I spent years struggling with Relativity before I thought of it in terms of trigonometry and I suddenly got it.

In my case it might be related to my condition but I don’t think I’d be smarter if I learnt verbally and I’d never give up the pictures in my head.

Have you readFermat's post about distributions,Scott? Did you understand it?

Yes, it seems feasible but so does the alternative argument, hence my comment that as an unbiased reader I'd need to do more research before conclusively stating an opinion.

Although veering a bit off topic, having a prem baby and Breastfeeding we were made to feel 'inadequate' as she was 'well below average' which on further investigation was according to a chart for bottle fed babies.

"I could well be wrong as I haven't read much previously on the topic, but in reviewing the available data... "

You refer to your typing the question into Google, I assume?

Have you read Fermat's post about distributions, Scott? Did you understand it?

Ah Scott

So your answer is that many women (and girls? just feminists?) are inapable of objectivity when it comes to matters that are important to them or of particular interest. While, presumably, men are. Men like you?

OK interesting.

Any more thoughts?

The answer is to treat all children as individuals, and make no assumptions based on their sex or any other factor about them.

By the time 16 year olds sit in front of me they have significantly different learning styles. Most of that is down to socialisation but you have to work with what you get.

I could well be wrong as I haven't read much previously on the topic, but in reviewing the available data one has to consider the confirmation bias displayed by many feminists who really don't want to there to be a difference between male and female brains.

It's not dissimilar to how many people on here quote Testosterone Rex as a counter against discussions around the influence of hormones, despite the book having been apparently discredited by numerous experts on the topic, not least for the fact that the panel who commended it so highly were largely not scientists/experts on the subject.

Ultimately, I don't know the answer.

God, how much longer? Why don't they just teach different learning styles. Probably by the time they get to school they are behaving differently but it doesn't need legislating for. I think there is some (over)compensating going on at the moment because girls are doing better. Thought to be about continual assessment v exams, working in groups v competitive learning, boys is general take up more time that's for sure.

"In most fields everyone is expected to be 'above average' otherwise they are deemed substandard or a failure."

Yes lol it's great isn't it!

{I don’t think I a lack of understanding of statistics is confined to the education system. It’s endemic.}
In most fields everyone is expected to be 'above average' otherwise they are deemed substandard or a failure.
The government's attempts to 'rate' everything simply causes division.
The aspirations we had for our daughter were to be 'outstandingly average, but happy.

Apologies if my maths is wrong. I went for height because it’s easier to picture but that unfortunately lumbered me with the imperial measurements most people use and I’m shit at doing them in my head.

""But there seems to be a wealth of scientific evidence to suggest that the sex of the kids does have a significant impact." - a significant impact, eh? Is there really.

So what are girls like then Scott?

How do we learn?

We are all agog, please inform us

I don't want links thanks I want you to tell us in your own words what girls brains are like and why they are different to boys brains and how this comes out in for example learning how to do calculus or doing a piece of creative writing.

Ta.

Well, of course there will always be exceptions to the rule.

Think about height again. Men are statistically taller than women. Men in the UK average 5’10’’ and women 5’4’’. But the standard deviation for men is about 4’’ so about two thirds of men are between 5’6’’ and 6’2’’ and about 95 percent between 5’ and 6’6’’; the standard deviation for women is about 3.5’’ so two thirds of women 5’0.5’’ and 5’7.5’’.

If I told you my next door neighbour was 5’6’’ could you tell me what sex they were? What if I told you they were a doctor?

"But there seems to be a wealth of scientific evidence to suggest that the sex of the kids does have a significant impact."

The wealth of scientific evidence you found when you googled?

keesstrel not so sure

I recently found out that most people can see things in their heads - their "minds eye". I had no idea this was literal It's not that uncommon at all - but only recently it's been realised it's a thing that people are different on. Reading about it made some of my traits make a lot of sense - I have never been able to learn anything by rote, but if I can understand things then I will always know them. This had a big impact on the subjects I chose for a level and onwards.

I do think people have different brains that work in different ways, and that it needs to be accepted and understood that different people simply are different and some will nto be able to do no matter how much you flog them as their brain just doesn't work that way.

It''s an interesting aside probably but like I say a new one on me and is a bit of a revelation!

Nothing to do with sexed brains though.

This constant search to prove that brains are sexed. Why? I think we all know why.

There are different learning methods but it has nothing to do with sex of the kids.

But there seems to be a wealth of scientific evidence to suggest that the sex of the kids does have a significant impact.

There are different learning methods but it has nothing to do with sex of the kids. Some kids react better to visual learning, others to listening or writing. For me listening was enough I rarely took any notes and even when I did I'd record myself reading it and then play that instead of re-reading notes.

What examples are used do factor into how easy something is understood by someone though, and best is to prepare a variety of examples and present all. As someone without a drivers permit (yet at least) I strggled with physics or programming tasks that asked how much fuel was used during X and Y in conditionds Z.

These are the assumptions >> boys are like this and girls are like that >> that lead to boys who are not like this and girls who are not like that having a fucking awful time of things which has consequences obviously.

It's about gender nonconformity.

Fuck gender. Throw it away. Let boys and girls do the things that work for them and make them happy.

This has always been the fight that feminists have been fighting. The pushback is constant. The idea that children might not be 2D stereotypes, and men and women too, but mainly women, is deeply uncomfortable for a lot of people.

I thought that the idea was that different people learn in different ways - listening, reading, visualiging, doing etc

And that mixing a variety of these styles is best to assure that most people get the info in a way that lands best with them.

Is that out of date?

Can't be more out of date than "boys are like this and girls are like that" and "oh let's have the girls sitting quietly in a corner reading while the boys run around outside and then they will all be super happy" and all that sort of thing?

I'm certainly not well enough researched to conclusively argue either way, but a lot if the articles seem to posit that the brain differences do indeed affect the way each gender learns, and they seem largely to agree consistently on the scientific reasons.

The whole idea of catering to supposed different learning styles is questionable anyway.

For one thing, if individuals have a weakness in a particular area, then they are likely to benefit from more practice in using that area in order to develop it, because real life won't necessarily cater to that weakness (obviously there are some exceptions to this where a weakness is severe). So boys whose verbal abilities develop later need more exposure to verbal stimuli, not less.