"Don't teach boys to be like girls" - really interesting article

[zog]

here

I agree with every word. Sue Palmer talks so much sense - can't she be Minister for Education??

This isinteresting

I should not have read this. Yet another depressing reason not to want to be a woman. Can women be held responsible for anything else? I wonder how we do it when we have such little actual power in society. Must be witchcraft.

And loads of primary HT's are men so what the f*ck are they doing about these power-wielding underlings trying to feminise their make pupil population?

male not make

I think there is a lot of truth in the notion that different children learn in different ways. Of course some boys will learn in the same way as girls and vice versa, but as a sweeping generalisation, it has been my observation that many of the boys I have watched like experimental/direct learning (ie taking things a part or poking them to see how they work), where as many of the girls are better with more abstract forms of learning (like reading about the way that things work).

I think schools focus much more on providing abstract explanations for things and not enough on the more direct methods of learning and I think that this is to the disadvantage of many children.

I think you need a practical application and hands on learning. It's difficult to learn anything if you can't see the reason or the end result, they need to learn in a way that is engaging.

As a teacher, with extensive experience with young boys who are "failing" in school, I think both those articls are spot-on.

Let's hope the government starts recognising boys and girls needs for physical and non-formal learning, particularly before the age of 7.

Or give individual schools more power to make their own choices instead of bringing standards down accross the board.

I personally wouldn't trust a Gov to do anything to improve education they have done enough harm. They should operate an independent system where parents get vouchers or have the choice to pay the difference.

What do people think of the core subjects being taught in single sex groups? If we're saying that boys and girls often have different styles of learning and are interested in different things (which can't be TOO controversial surely) then would it be good to seperate them for some things within a co-ed system?

If our school started teaching subjects in single sex groups, I'd pull my kids out find another school. REally that would infuriate me.

Exept maybe PE at senior school.

Pretty soon you'll have girl subjects and boy subjects. Boys can take math and science and girls can bake and sew.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

We're splitting some of our bottom band year 10's next year to form an all boys group and an all girls group (in science). This year because of numbers we had an all girls group and they have outperformed mixed classes of similar and higher ability. We feel that the boys spend too much energy being silly to impress the girls and that with male teachers it gives a different dynamic to the group. We already have boy subjects and girl subjects - how many girls take vocational engineering at gcse? boys take health and social care? a handful at most.

Spot on, Margo (am giggling at your name - a Good Life ref?). I don't remember anyone allowing me to pick the teams for public spelling tests. I do recall being humiliated in PE - the only thing I was good at was gymnastics which wasn't part of Sports Day. And wasn't treated as a competitive event. Wish it had been, that would have wiped the smile off many of the 'team captains' who left me in the bottom three when picking!

Margo Leadbetter is my idol, edam

She didn't like sports day either but I bet she was damn good at spelling

I always long to go back to my PE teacher (who hated me because I had no time for hockey) and make her do mental arithmetic in her knickers and vest in the snow in front of a crowd and see how she liked it.

my ds1 was told to toughen up, be less sensitive, learn a sport to fit in. Subjected to the machismo and bullying- often severe, it was blamed on ds1 not preventing it.

He is not a girl, weedy or speccy. He is a boffin and proud!

Oooh, I like your style, Margo! (But wasn't she Margot in the show?)

Piffle, damn good point. Boys are just as different from each other as they are from girls. A boy who likes reading/writing/maths shouldn't be forced to conform to some Action Man gender stereotype.

No she was Margo. My DD, however, is Margot. I grew up very close to Surbiton. I have taken this all far too seriously

I think it's spot on as well. As a teacher I see this all the time. However were I not a teacher, I would probably be quite angry about it...but it is the truth. Nothing to do with undermining girls, but a lot to do with letting boys down...........They both should have the opportunity to thrive at school, and boys aren't getting that at the moment.

I believe some schools have piloted co-educational schooling, but single sex lessons. Achievement of both boys and girls rose in this trial. Some people are thinking this is the way forward. They do have different learning styles on the whole. we are always been trained on it and how to structure lessons accordingly.

Whole class teaching is supposed to cater to a range of different aptitudes or interests though isn't it? I would be very worried to come across a teacher who hadn't been taught different approaches, ad this strange idea that there are teachers who haven't come across boys before unless they have brothers or sons.

I think it is also very out of date. My mum has many of the views that are cited in this article (no Barbies, no war etc) but she is in her 70's. Although actually she is very anti all things "girly" in girls, rather than boyishness in boys. Given the early retirement rate of teachers, and certainly looking at the demographics of the teachers at my kids English school most of them are in their 30's and 40's, and probably in the wave that looked again at those slightly strident feminist views - I certainly haven't come across anything like that at a primary school level. I do think she is forgetting that her "sisterhood" is now thirty years ago, and views have evolved. I see very little signs that men are being emasculated or that women (or apparently non masculine gay men) have taken over.

Personally I found the highly competitive nature of sports put me off for life, and I am sure the boys that weren't gifted didn't enjoy it much, but I know no schools that ban ball sports, and the relay type approaches seem to work very well at encouraging those who are good without completely penalising those who are useless.

Otherwise I agree on the risk taking stuff, but for children, not specifically boys.

I wonder what that writer and her experts would make of what seems to be a growing trend in schools to make the girls less physically active by forbidding them to do handstands or cartwheels in case someone sees their knickers?

"how many girls take vocational engineering at gcse? boys take health and social care? a handful at most. "

Exactly. That is the problem. All the "girl" subjects do very little to prepare on for the business world. The "boy" subjects on the other hand are good preparation for life as a sucessful doctor, engineer, lawyer, politician.

Girls can excel in math, science, sports, competitiveness, etc. too. Give them equal opportunity. They may choose not to. But they certainly shouldn't be active led away from these things.

oh fgs at stereotyping in article

schools need to be open to a wide range of different learning stles and they aren't.

I do think competative stuff should be limited actually to kids who WANT to compete. Competative games are in part responsible for the obesity epidemic imo.

God I have a horrible image re anjos now

"All children like competition in the things they are good in and don't like it in things they are bad at"
nah, I don't agree with that. not everyone is competitive, whether they are male or female.

I think the article is fundamentally correct but these are generalisations about group norms - you cannot apply them to individuals and that is why I would worry about aiming anything at one sex in particular. It's not about all girls or all boys - just more boys and more girls.

I do think our schools are an unnatural environemnt for most children of either sex and we are going further and further down that wrong road.

Boys seemed to do fine with 'sit down, shut up and behave' abstract learning in the 1950s. So it's hard to argue that inability to cope with school rules is innate.