WIBU to print off this article and give it to the teacher.

[Imalldonethanks]

DD (8) came home from school at the end of last term talking about the differences in male and female brains (not relating to their weight or structure!). Her teacher had declared she has a 'male' brain because she is logical and rational.
This sort of talk boils my blood.
My next child is in her class this year and I don't want her to listen to this sort of crap.

I get on reasonably well with this teacher, but there are very few opportunities to chat.

So WIBU to print off an article from The New Scientist debunking that theory and send it in with a note saying 'thought you might find this interesting'?

I think language is a problem with this. There are some statistical differences which are significant which lead to labels like typically male brain.

Perhaps we should refer to logical brains vs communication brains or something.

I assume these scans were done on adults. It would be interesting to see the differences in children, if any, and if there is any evidence of the causes.

I seem to remember one study which claimed to show a difference (albeit small) ... it was found post-puberty but not in children. It was nevertheless described as a 'hardwired' difference... even though the evidence was that it must have developed, whether by the influence of hormones or conditioning.

I wasn't clear whether it was the teacher or the child who supposedly had a 'male' brain, but either way, this sort of stereotyping that male=logical and rational (and so by inference, female is illogical and irrational) can be damaging to children, especially girls.

I'd be tempted to offer the teacher a loan of 'Delusions of Gender' as well as the NS piece.

I think it's fine to talk to the teacher, but unless your DD is a parrot it's hard to know exactly what was said. As I said, there are some differences between typical average male and female brains. However most people are not typical.

Your going to hate what I have to say.
A friend is a Primary Teacher and someone did this to her, there had been a half term in between.
She smiled politely at the parent and passed the printed article as requested to the rest of the staff at lunch time.
The parent was forever know as that Woman.
It followed her through the school, and it didn't effect any of the teachers but once you do this your labellled, for good or bad.

"You're" going to hate what I have to say.

As far as I understand it most brains are a mosaic. With a small percentage at either end of the spectrum.

But they couldn't tell whether this was innate or learned. As the brain changes due to plasticity.

Any minor differences are amplified and entrenched due to rigorous gender stereotyping.

And calling rationality and logic male traits, with the assumption that the converse are female traits is ridiculous.

If she is a fairly open minded person and you do it in a friendly way then I think it's a great idea - hopefully she will genuinely find it interesting and maybe even discuss with the children.

Boosiehs this is Mums Net not the English Exam,,, it really does not matter....!!!!

notevil

my 2.5yr old DS's favourite colour is pink. He also loves diggers and tractors, but anything pink is his favourite.

I'm hoping he doesn't grow out of that!

Of course you're right OP and the teacher is wrong.
The thing is, lots of people believe in this male brain, female brain stuff.
I'm a teacher. A senior colleague of mine believes in this stuff and she's actually very intelligent. She has a relation who is transgender, so she has a reason to want to believe it, I suppose.
If you approach it quite tactfully I don't see why you can't approach the teacher. It might make her think.
These kind of messages are very damaging to all children so it's something she should think about.

Perhaps we should refer to logical brains vs communication brains or something.

Or something equally useful such as likes-fish brains vs. don't-like-fish brains.

In my experience, now having a twenty year old, so been all the way through the school years, teachers can indeed talk a bit of shite sometimes as can the rest of us, we are all human.

However it's not specific to teachers, one of the senior law professors made a huge mistake on a point of law during one of his lectures last year and my daughter spotted it, emailed him and to be fair, next lecture he corrected it and pointed out she was the only person in the year who knew. Who hasn't made a mistake at work?

I wouldn't correct her. The trick is to discuss with your children and enable them to make their own minds up. Don't influence them, just let them evaluate and decide, If they want to then take the discussion with the teacher they can. Not you.

You do them a bigger service this way than going to war with their teacher as they idly stand by and watch, whilst probably embarrassing them into the bargain, teaching them nothing and even worse, using them as your messenger by giving them an article so you don't have to even take the discussion. What does that teach them? Nothing and your error is as bad if not worse than the teachers.

YANBU there is no such thing as a male or female brain - only brains that are either in a male or female body.
Children can be conditioned by their experiences to develop one way or another, illustrated by this old Jesuit saying "give me a boy until the age of 7 and I will show you the man". There has been lots of research (and no I have not got time to go and look it all up right now when I should be working) which shows absolutely no difference between the brains of males and females as infants. The way those infants are then taught , conditioned and socialised leads to differences as they age.

I would not fall out over this, at first, but I absolutely would tackle this.

It is just the same as saying black people and white people have different brains - replace "boy" with "white" and "girl" with "black" and see if what was said is still acceptable.

Yes, it's not actually helpful to label our brains at all. What can it possibly achieve?
We are all more capable than we imagine. Labelling ourselves limits our true potential.

Perhaps we should refer to logical brains vs communication brains or something.

But some people are good - or poor - at both. Trying to categorise brains in any way - especially in the context of a primary classroom - seems unlikely to be helpful in any way.

Sorry that was agreeing with jelly

Anyway... if the teacher is indeed rational and logical, she should be delighted to look at the NS piece. Rational people thrive on information.

Would you like it if she printed off something and suggested you may find it helpful in your job/running your home/bringing up your child??

I wouldn't be printing off the article and handing it over. What I would be doing is saying to your daughter, oh, that's interesting what your teacher said. Some people do think that, but actually, there are lots of studies / experiemnet (whatever language is appropriate here) to say this isn't wuite right. And then talk a a bit about the differences. Help your daughter understand some of the difference, and to make up her own mind!

Current science and studies suggest that there are typical male and female traits and that male brains are more likely to have more of these male traits and women are likely to have more numerous female traits.

I understand that this may go against what many here would like to be true or not but burying your head in the sand and refusing to discuss it further doesn't help matters.

If you were to give me the reading then it would go in the bin as soon as you left the room. It is patronising, insulting and not even proven correct.

I'm sure you knew when posting exactly what the MN consensus would be. You simply wanted a few people to agree with you. However, for the sake of your relationship with the teacher this year and next, wind your neck in. Be prepared to do some reading which challenges your opinions as opposed to asking an echochamber if you are correct.

averylongtimeago

I have no idea what race has to do with this other than a discrete biological group. However, you may not like what you read if you did a little. here

Would you like it if she printed off something and suggested you may find it helpful in your job/running your home/bringing up your child??

If she felt that having such explicit biases based on pseudoscience was going to affect my ability to fairly do my job, then yes, I would appreciate it. Don't you want to be a better person?

mummy2017:
'Boosiehs this is Mums Net not the English Exam,,, it really does not matter....!!!!"
It does, actually.
If you are teaching children it is important to value the correct usage of English.
I also wanted to say that your story of the attitude in the staffroom to 'that parent' makes me wonder about the approach to bullying in that school community.

Solaris, I have actually read and indeed studied this subject at university level and don't need some "alternative hypothesis" alt right fascist and racist website to tell me what to think.

I would tackle this higher up by asking the head and governors what active steps are being taken to counter the effects of gender stereotyping in the school, particularly in the light of the television programme.