Teachers and education system bias towards girls

[asdmumandteacher]

What do you all think? I am a teacher (secondary) of 14 years and feel the secondary curriculum (and primary too) is heavily weighted towards girls' natural skills and less so to boys' skills. I have taught all girls for most of the last 14 years in selective (grammar)and high schools (the equivalent of secondary moderns) and i have two sons. We are forever hearing about girls outperforming boys (when in O level days twas the other way around and the 1967 Plowden report sort to redress the balance) I think it has gone way too far in the other direction.

No FC I don't think all your solutions do stand based on the report I quoted from.

This is what you posted as solutions.

1.) Later school starting age.
2.) More male teachers esp at primary school
3.) Degendering certain activities vital to academic achievement e.g. reading and competition and physical activity.
4.) Involving men more in their children's education.
5.) Defluffying the primary school classroom and allowing more opportunities for physical activity, kinaesthetic learning, competition, quizzes etc esp. in early years.
6.) More positive male role models for boys (and girls).
7.) Improving boys attitudes towards masculinity and sexuality so they feel less restricted to certain types of behaviour and less inclined to punish beahviours currently considered not masculine.

Which don't??

Hang on, the OP claimed the curriculum was somehow weighted towards girls. Now fivecandles is saying it's all about the attitudes boys bring in from outside school.

Agree about labels. Which is why media articles about 'black boys underachieving' or 'boys' underachievement' rile me so much.

5

Maybe 3 - I don't get what you mean by degendering activities.

No, I've said both and a combination.

The attitudes boys bring in from outside and which are compounded by having lots of teenage boys together MEAN that the curriculum favours boys IYSWIM.

Not necessarily because of inherent differences but because of attitudes.

So like the coursework thing. It's not that boys are innately incapable of doing coursework just that some may be less likely to follow advice and redraft etc etc. because of attitudes.

Likewise with reading. If you believe that reading is girly and girly is bad then you're not likely to want to do it are you?

Still stands. Just because other countries with a later starting age also have gap between the achievement of the sexes doesn't mean that starting school early in this country is irrelevant.

As I've stated there's plenty of evidence that says that boys are disadvantaged by the early start.

As are kids with summer birthdays.

And most especially boys with summer birthdays.

This disadvantage can last into adulthood in that there are less boys with summer birthdays going to university 14 years later.

Here:

'According to the data, 55 pc of girls and 44 pc of boys born in August achieved at least five good GCSEs (the British equivalent of the Junior Cert) compared with 60pc of girls and 50pc of boys born the previous September. '

www.independent.ie/education/features/born-in-summer-more-likely-to-fail-1218707.html

1. Well, you say no evidence to achievement and I say it could make a difference to attitude which could have long term impact.

The thing is, it's only some boys that underachieve or do not get on in school with the way it is organised. Let's not forget that a lot of boys do fine and very well under the current system.

The report appears to me to suggest ways to more fully integrate those low achieving boys into the existing model. More boys and more girls are achieveing more highly. Why would you wish to throw away that system for the sake of a small proportion of boys.

If boys underachievement in schools is down to attitutde then why do people keep banging on about what boys are not good at, as though it is a known certainty. Surely your opinion that boys deserve special classes is feeding that negative attitude.

5.) Does still stand. You quoted earlier that those things should be included as part of every good lesson. And benefit girls as well as boys. Of course, comeptition has to be handled sensitively. We have those interactive push button things where they choose A, B or C and then the teacher can check answers without the students knowing what each other has said for example. Where every teacher in a school is female and the classroom is obviously feminine it's pretty obvious that's going to switch some boys off learning.

and that's related to 3 by which I mean teachers and students shouldn't assume that some activities are naturally male and some female - exactly what the research you sited said.

That reading shouldn't be seen as girly. Dads should be encouraged to read and men to get involved in reading and proviidng positive role models etc etc Equally phyical activity like football and erstwhile subjects like maths and science shouldn't be seen as the boys' domain. This clearly benefits girls and boys.

You misunderstand me Horse. In fact, it was me that said about 100 posts ago that it's much, much more complicated than saying that boys are underachieveing since it is most particualry white working class boys who are more likely to underachieve than any other group and a lot of boys are doing great.

I never said anything about ditching the current system or special classes. You're confusign me with someoen esle.

I said exactly that these things should be incropratied into every class and school where they will benefit girls too.

the thing about attitudes is that attitudes are important. SO if you have an attitude that reading is for sissies and you don't read then you won't become a good reader and may have problems accessing the curriculum etc etc.
so just because diffences between girls and boys learning are unliekly to be 'natural' doesn't mean they're any less important or have any less impact.

Sorry - I did mean my last post to be addressed to the OP as well, wrt to her suggestions that the curriculum is too girl-centric.

This thread is absolutely full of people saying 'everybody knows that...' and 'there's loads of evidence that...' yet the evidence just isn't there at all that the curriculum or those awful 'fluffy' female teachers have any negative effects on boys, and challenged to produce evidence, posters appear to admit there isn't any, that faced with evidence that so-called kenetic learning styles are no more likely to benefit boys than girls and that increased competition could further alienate failing boys, they switch the blame to culture and outside environment and stuff like unwillingness to listen, cooperate or even attend school, which somehow, still seems to be the fault of women. I just love it. Boys don't do as well as girls and it's the girls' (or women's) fault.
As Dittany said, the cleverness of girls has always been seen as a problem. Clever girls have been treated as a medical problem (brain work was believed to damage fertility) and as a social one (fixing the 11plus to keep girls out and put boys in).
I get a whiff of female self-loathing from this thread.

Some of you are misunderstanding the research posted by Horses earlier. It didn't say that more kinaesthetic learning, targets etc etc wouldn't benefit boys but that those were features of every good lesson which is what I've been arguing.

Back again - no self loathing from me!

I do sense boy phobia from some and 'evil men' syndrome

I appreciate that the focus on boys' underachievement can seem a bit unfair considering it's such a relatively recent phenomenon when historically it's been women who have underachieved or been denied opportunities to achieve at all.

But, the fact is that there IS a gap between the achievement of boys and girls and that white, working class boys are more likely to leave school without any qualifications than any other group.

These ARE important issues and addressing them is not the same as saying that girls and their (under) achievement is any less important or that it is the fault of girls or women or teachers or schools.

As has been suggested already, strategies to tackle boys' underachievement should ideally also benefit every student.

HS i truly don't believe it is a small percentage of boys

Mmmmm yes girls and boys are getting better results.... i wouldn't believe this either - the grades may be going up but the grade boundaries are falling lower every year....

I have a bloody son at school. Yeah, I really want him to fail
I believe Edam also has a son at school.
The evidence is that so called kinaesthetic learning would benefit (and disadvantage, depending on temperament) boys and girls equally, so how on earth can it be claimed it would close the gender gap (ie restore the divine right of boys to be on top).
Even the people who post sexist stuff about female teachers being inadequate, and classrooms being 'fluffy' (WTF?) seem now to be saying the problem lies in society. I agree that the male-created pornographication of society, the male-created glorification of violence and fierce anti-intellectualism in the media and music business is having damaging effects on boys. But that's hardly the fault of hard-working, decent, female primary school teachers.

I think I need to read more into this thread but the idea that anybody believes the school system may be geared towards girl-centred learning seems to make some people so angry, as if we are anti-feminist, is that it?

I'm not sure why though. Everyone ok, most people accept that there are male/female ways of working, and most people accept that until about twenty-five years ago the methodology was largely geared to boys.

So efforts were made to swing things in the other direction. Surely everyone accepts that? The heavy emphasis on coursework rather than cramming is one example I think.

And if boys are now failing while girls are soaring then there must be something to the notion that the new methodology favours girls, unless you want to assert that boys are less brainy or something ridiculous like that.

I can see in my children how current methods help my daughter. She loves downloading things off the internet and producing models of cells and having her coursework count to her final grade. I can see how my son would be better off with cramming for exams. He hates "projects" though he knows what's in a cell and how earthquakes happen and so on. With him it would be better to teach him rather than make him find out for himself.

The results gap can't be due to the damaging social constructs of masculinity, or inequalities of age maturity, because these things were always there particularly the social constructs and the results gap has not been there until recently.

Of course these are generalisations -- I'm a girl, and I'm a crammer. But I would have thought it's quite hard nowadays to disagree with the fact that it is happening. Have I missed the point somewhere?

"So efforts were made to swing things in the other direction. Surely everyone accepts that? The heavy emphasis on coursework rather than cramming is one example I think."

I'm a crammer too but even I have to admit that I forget 95% of what I have learnt for an exam. Surely continual assessment is a more fair way of measuring achievement. Should we go back to a system whereby children are examened every 2 years just because it suits those people (some boys and some girls) who only want to out in effort the week before exams. I'm not convinced that it is the difference between cramming and coursework based assessment that has made all the difference. Maybe the constant hype that boys are worse at coursework has led to a self-fulfilling prophecy. I plan to look into that.....

I agree with much of what Fivecandles has added to this discussion. However, changing boys' attitudes towards school success and improving their and other people's perceptions about their ability to do well in ALL subjects has absolutely nothing to do with the OP who believes that boys and girls require a different style of teaching from each other and that they learn in different ways. In yet, the OP seems to think that what FiveCandles has to say backs up her original point of view.

I disagree.

There's no evidence to show boys have an exclusive need for a certain type of lesson or that boys are exclusively incapable of achieving in certain subjects. To make the assumption that boys learning needs cannot be met by the current system helps to cultivate the type of attitude that is doing some of these boys a disservice.

So, can?t we discuss the raising of standards for girls and boys without pointing any finger of blame at girls and women Someone tell me again why we are to blame?..?

Am at work frosty so can't post much - please read earlier posts which definitely imply if not outrightly suggest men are dominators and suppressors of women - i don't really believe this to be the case for the last 25 years at least

Its not just about coursework/versus exams argument - its also about the hidden agendas in the examination syllabi and also the way in which the final exams are set.Its very difficult to explain without being subject specific. I told my hubby (also a teacher) about this conversation (he rarely backs me up in anything!!)and he said the point is being missed - as i am continually stating we are talking about the average boy and girl. He has taught in all boys secondary moderns, co ed comps, and selective girls and he actually agrees with me (for once!)