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.

Thanks matey...its ok re the autism thing...no problems at all - i didn't really get what you were saying anyway lol!!
I find it frustrating when there are parents and teachers who have a lot of experience saying this is the case with some (not all) boys. For my hubby to agree with me (trust me its hardly ever lol!) really says something lol!

My problem is that I don't have hard evidence and links at my fingertips. But this is going to make me go and look

A genuine question: what has the recent 'shift' entailed, which favoured methods more suited to girls?

mercy, I don't know how many children you have but if a parent is comparing Boys vs Girls and only using her one son vs her one daughter as teh example, I don't think that is worth anything.

If someone has two dds and two dss then I would consider the point being made.

NO, no-one has promoted girls at the expense of boys! Removing direct, clear, obvious discrimination against girls - like setting a higher pass mark for the 11+ - is NOT the same as discriminating against boys. Sheesh.

Or do you think the Equal Pay Act somehow discriminates against men, by forcing employers to pay the same wage for the same work?

Perhaps the Disability Discrimination Act requirement on disabled access is somehow 'unfair' to people who aren't disabled?

I have yet to see any evidence that the curriculum, teaching methods, whatever are being stacked against boys.

I think there is quite a bit of circumstantial evidence Edam. It's just that people interpret things differently. To say there is NO evidence is a bit of a stretch (nb I know you didn't say exactly that, just that you hadn't seen any)

The other sarcastic comments are a bit over the top I think.

what has the shift entailed?

ASD, no they didn't just swap the discrimination, as you seem to think! I mentioned the example of the higher pass mark for girls at 11 Plus as an example of direct, obvious discrimination. This was not replaced by making the pass mark higher for boys! YOu seem to be claiming that if things are equal, then that's the same as discriminating against boys!

Just to throw another whatever into the pot.

meta analysis of 'Learning style' type interventions show that they have little or no long term beneficial effect. In fact in some cases they can be counter productive, if children are allowed to avoid anything but their prefered learning style.

Fine to use a range of strategies, most, if not all teachers do this to prevent boredom (their own as well as the classes), but catagorising children as Kinesthetic learners doesn't seem to do much to help them to progress.

Yes, I'm waiting for any concrete examples of this mythical shift to favour girls. Can anyone find a single case of anyone saying 'we are doing X or Y to improve things for girls in the classroom' or 'We are doing this even if it disadvantages boys'?
All the trend nowadays is to make reception more play based, not more regimented.

Pointy, I have one boy one girl. I don't know anybody in rl who has 2 of each (except for one mum who has 7!)

I'm comparing how different teachers (my dc have had the same ones but different year groups) treat boys and girls.

And I'm really talking about expectations of behaviour not the curriculum.

Mabanana beside the 11 plus thing, which I accept, how else were girls directly and obviously discriminated against. Not a rhetorical question.

Long thread - anyone linked to this?

I also found this, and this, which made me giggle.

But in the methods of teaching, Frosty. Isn't that what this is about? I think what you say is big and vague and yes, important, but the issue is whether different teaching methodologies make a difference to learning outcomes. So if there are more specific answers I would be interested.

Tell me one scenario. Tell me what you mean.

thank you,madonna. I've only skimmed through parts of that first report but som egood points raised.

At my former secondary modern girls comp we were still taught shorthand and typing instead of academic subjects! I rebelled. And now I spend half my life typing We were taught to write 'Dear Sir' letters in the expectation that we would all end up in typing pools.

Jesus Frosty what's got into you?

have alook at that first report linked by madonna, blue. Very thorough.

We now have a wide variety of teaching methods and teachers are encouraged to use a variety (re the teaching/learning and the presentation of work and the assessment of work), mainly to make the classroom a stimulating envionrment and to reduce boredom (as stated by mb)

I'll post this again.

meta-analysis of learning style interventions fail to show any sustained benefit to the students progress.

the thing that seems to help students most is formative assessment. Are girls possibly 'better' at taking constructive criticism I wonder? (not being snide, a general pondering on that one)

I thought this was a conversation about whether a lot of innovations into educational theory are more suited to girls than boys. For example course work rather than exams, independent research rather than copy and cram, and so on.

The results show that girls are doing better at 11 and GCSE.
So, why? Is it just a coincidence that the methodology has changed? It's only due to them now being allowed to succeed?

Is that what you think? That the changes in the classroom have made no difference at all?

So all these changes they were just introduced to reduce boredom? Not to produce any improvement in learning outcomes?

No Frosty that doesn't do it. You haven't answered my points at all. You're just waving your arms about.

Why so defensive? Nobody has ever blamed teachers for the gender gap. Never. Not once. There are problems generally in society which affect boys and girls and men and women differently e.g. the very rigid policing of acceptable masculine behavours in boys and men and then the way women are adversely affected in the workplace as a consequence of having childre. Some of the problems affecting boys (and girls too) are compounded by having a lot of boys together of a certain age in a school environment. Also, nobody is saying that women and girls don't have problems too and that their achievement is somehow less important but it would be wrong to ignore the fact that there is such a gap between the performance of boys and girls and ignore the fact that white working class boys are most likely to leave school without qualifications. This is important in itself and will have important consequences for all of us in the long-term. It's just not good enough to take a well-it-serves-them-right approach or a well-it's-about-time-they-got-a-taste-of-their-own-medicine approach or just to pretend it's not a problem.

The thing about kinaesthetic learnign etc being part of good teaching and learning is that it will benefit all learners regardless of gender and since it will particularly benefit students who are currently underachieving and since these are more likely to be boys it may be of particular benefit to them.