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.

Apart from the evidence that it doesn't (ref MB).

It's mabanana who keeps going on about the doctoring. That affects results that we can see. Are you then saying as I asked you before that apart from this very solid manipulation, the rest is ENTIRELY down to social conditioning and NOTHING AT ALL to do with the changes that were introduced to forestall boredom in the classroom?

You want to talk anecdotes about being made to do typing? I'm older than a lot of people on here. I went to a comp, there was no discrimination, girls were encouraged as much as boys, many many girls studied the three sciences.

Of course what you say went on but when? These methodology changes are more recent as are the results showing girls doing better.

But you still maintain that the improvement in girl's achievements has nothing to do with the changes in teaching methods and strategies? If you think that, please would you say it, as I'm having difficulty reading the semaphore.

Horses, I don't think that saying that the system of assessment in operation currently (e.g. with coursework etc) may in some ways disadvantage boys in anywhere the near the same thing as pointing the figure of blame at girls and women or indeed saying that boys and teaching boys differently should be prioritised over girls learning or at the expense of girls learning. Nobody is saying this.

Sorry, I'm catching up with all of the posts I've missed from today. So tackling them as i come across them. Not up to date yet.

Gosh you really did go away Frosty. What -- do you think you're a better feminist or something?

For goodness sake. I must assume there is an answer to my question and you just don't want to give it because you've moved to a higher level of liberation consciousness.

my "first year as a comp, previously a secondary modern" school also had compulsory typewriting, domestic science and needlework for girls. That was 25 years ago though, so hopefully things have moved on a bit.

pointy

'.) Degendering certain activities vital to academic achievement e.g. reading and competition and physical activity.

how are they gender-biased at the moment?'

Not biased by the school necessarily but it is still the case that some subjects and activities are considered more relevant/ appropriate for girls or boys like reading. I have no boys in my A Level Lit or Lit and Lang classes at the moment. Not one. And boys are a minority in these subjects nationally. Wheras girls doing maths and physics are still in the minroity there. It's not just that these things kick in with A Level options at post 16, they're there pretty much from the off.

Do you know that even some of the stickers given out at my dcs' school as rewards are gendered??

Girls get pink and boys get blue and red with rockets on.

I could go on.

'4.) Involving men more in their children's education.

I think one of the mnost telling things on this whole issue is that women talk on and on about it. I have never heard men discussing it. If I bring it up with men, they are vague and have no real opinion.'

AND SURELY THAT'S THE POINT. Why aren't men discussing these issues. Why are they still in the minority at the school gates. Why are they still less likely to do homework and read books with their kids then mums??

And then it comes as such a huge surprise that learning is not considered manly.

'5.) Defluffying the primary school classroom and allowing more opportunities for physical activity, kinaesthetic learning, competition, quizzes etc esp. in early years.

Don't know what's happening in england but it's all 'active learning' in scotland. Big buzz word, big push. I agree withteh competition element. Boys do respond more to competition and that should be pushed more. Classrooms I have experienced are not 'fluffy'.'

It does vary and it can be very subtle. Read my points about stickers earlier. But my dcs school has no male teachers. Not one man in the whole building ever except for the cleaner/ before school supervisor. This is not that uncommo n in primary schools. If you look at the classrooms esp in the early years they ARE fluffy. There are lots of pretty pictures in pastel colours and cuddly toys and a home corner and the emphasis is very much on sitting still and being quiet and talking about feelings. I don't think this is particularyl helpful for boys OR girls. By the way I have no problem with home corners etc but where is the pretend garage and why aren't girls and boys encouraged to do both?

'6.) More positive male role models for boys (and girls).

In their own life or in celebrity life? There are loads in celebrity life.'

Both. I'm sure there are lots but the ones that boys often value - small and big - are relatively inarticulate footballers like Beckham and gangsta rapper types.

'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.

Ahhhh! Yes. Quite a few programmes in primary school are trying to do this, which is good. But nearly every area in society pushes a rather restricted attitude towards masculinity. Far outwith the realms of school. '

Yes, yes, don't get me wrong I'm not saying that all of the above is the responsibility of schools and teachers or that a lot of them aren't trying. It will be and should be a long slow process which requires a multi pronged approach to be successful.

'I do think 'defluffying' is a word that betrays a real albeit subconscious contempt for women/girls. '

That's rubbish. I have contempt for fluffiness not women.

And I have to say the rise in fluffy gendered products and marketing for girls is one of the worst things to happen this century e.g. pamper parties and leg waxing for little girls - yeeuch.

It's bad for boys and bad for girls too.

V interesting and I agree with a lot of it.

But in the first of Madonna's links..

on kinaesthetic learning, it said there was no evidence it improved boys' performance.

and it said giving boys space to talk about their feelings helped improve reading standards

the first doesn't surprise me (I can imagine enormous levels of potential distraction) but the second surprises me a lot.

I think whether we are on either side of this debate none of us are gonna be swayed - i still retain through knowledge of the thousands of kids myself and hubby and our colleagues have taught that average girls are at a considerable advantage today than average boys due to the politics of the classroom, the examination system, the teaching of the syllabi, the agendas of the aforementioned exam system....Not the former discrimination being readdressed and rebalanced but more than that

whoops meant in general

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

Me neither.

Asdmum - you really seem to have an axe to grind against girls. Aren't you proud of the achievements of the girls at the school you teach? Are you jealous of their achievements?

Could your viewpoint of the curriculum be skewed because you teach in an all girls school and they have chosen the curriculum to fit a stereotypical bias towards girls - where a co-ed school would strike for a balance? (Just clutching at straws here)

If we're talking about a 10% (slightly less) gap between the achievement of boys and girls then what are we talking about really. Presumably boys also get top grades, like the girls. I saw something that said that girls and boys at the bottom do not differ. So, it's the mid-range students and those who manage to get 5 GCSE's where the difference lies.

I don't know the figures exactly. So, say, 56% of girls achieve 5 GCSEs and 47% of boys - we're talking about 10 boys less than the girlsin that year group getting 5 GCSEs. And in a school year group of 300, that figure would be 15 (I think) Isn't that likely to be down to a group of boys not working to their potential? 10 boys have not achieved what they should have been expected to achieve. Is that a reason to think the curriculum is biased towards girls. And let's not forget, there's still 53% of girls who are not achieving 5GCSEs. How exactly is that girl bias helping them?

Sorry muddled post but not much time to be on here tonight. I just feel people are being hysterical and making massive generalisations, putting 2+2 together and making 5.

Also, this gender gap in achievement is to be found in quite a number of Western countries. Can they all have changed the curriculum to give girls an unfair advantage - all at the same time? Or is it more likely a shift in social cultural conditions that have altered?

dont know what i am doing wrong!!trying to do it in italics!

you have to put the little hat around each individual word

I've been swayed like a willow asdmum and I think I'm back where I started!

However Horses makes a good point about international achievement. Not just Western countries either.

Sorry 44% of girls still are not achieveing the bare minimum required to get a job or go onto further education.

I have no axe to grind against girls (1) I am one!! (2) I worked bloody hard at school and Uni and know what its like (3) I love the girls i teach - i love the school where i teach - i give my all to those kiddies

I have just chatted to another teacher (who teaches my son the recorder so we are not friends more acquaintances - can't spell that one oops -)on the phone about this conversation and she has a daughter and she totally agrees with me. (Yes i know anecdotal again - but yet another teacher saying the same thing...and this time one that doesnt have a son!)

Re: the 10% thing -I will reiterate i am always talking about the average boy and girl

10% out of hundreds of thousands of kids taking exams is a cause for concern imo...the gap whether swaying in one direction or the other should not be that large

The key is that our assessment system does not measure raw intelligence if such a thing exists. The exam system DOES disadvantage those who are taught badly, move schools frequently, have unsupportive parents, are illiterate or dyslexic or have poor literacy, lack motivation etc etc. How far a student is disadvantaged varies from subject to subject and individual to individual. I think English particularly disadvantages students who have English as a second language, do not have a middle class background etc or rather advantaes those who don't and do respectively.

Coursework also as we've pretty much agreed is particularly likely to disadvantage the demotivated, those withotu supportive famileis, good teachers etc.

I have students who are devastatingly intelligent but are penalised because they lack the sophisticated vocabulary, fluency and experience of wide range of literture that students with a midele class, educated background are more likely to have.

I think asd is right that there are some aspects of the curriculum/ exams/ examiners particularly disadvantage certain traits which may be more common in boys and particulary white working class boys

For example, I have a colleague whose son has a sophisticated vocabulary but was heavily penalised in his KS2 SATS because he didn't write the side of the page that the exam mark scheme required to give a certain level so where the quality of his work was good the quantity was insufficeint. Boys are more likely to write less that girls.

Now you could respond to this sort of thing in different ways either by saying well, they just need to write more then/ present their work more neatly/ or whatever or say that the system should be changed to reflect the way certain students (boys, dyslexics whatever) achieve differntly or you could say that teaching needs to change to help boys/ dyslexics etc adapt better to the demands of the exams or a combination.

Another key is to get rid of what is nature and what is nurture.

I mean not to go on about how boys and girls may not have any 'natural' differences but to recognize how important ATTITUDES are to overall attainment - motivation, confidence, support etc can be as important or more than any sort of intelligence.

So coursework may well reward students' motivation etc as much as or more than their ability.

It's not enough to say well if some people aren't motivated enough or confident enough or whatever to perform well then that's their own faut when their are very clear obstacles in the way of their acheivement e.g. negative perceptions about boys' reading etc.

I gather ASD mum doesn't have a child in a primary school at the moment. for a start all children live in homes and I see boys in the home corner as much as girls. FOr another thing the home corner changes every week - a doctor's consulting room, a shop, a garden centre, a vet's, a bank, loads of things to support the curriculum. I think the people who think that boys are so hard done by are part of the problem to be honest, with their rigid, old-fashioned gender stereotyping (homes are for girls, garages are for girls/sitting down is for girls/running about is for boys/reading and writing is for girls/god knows what is for boys) and their belief that women are the problem when boys don't do quite as well as girls (ie all those naughty/rubbish female teachers with their 'fluffy' classrooms). I've never seen a 'fluffy' classroom. What fricking pastel colours? It's just a fantasy. What do you want? Desks in rows and male teachers? Oh, sorry, that requires quietness and conformity, which apparently boys don't 'do'. I am not bringing up my son with these views, and it's damn hard in our rigidly gendered society, but I refuse to buy into these ridiculously stereotypes. Shakespeare was a man. John Donne was a man. I don't see them having problems writing, or writing about feelings.

I see no pastels either.

Are you a teacher, mabanane?

mabanana, as far as you know you have never been in my dcs' school. Let me assure you the home corner is the home corner week in week out. It is never the garage or the vets. There is no garage. There is not vets. There are pastel colours. There are cuddly toys. Ok?

I don't 'think that boys are hard done by'. I am discussing a very real gap between boys' and girls' acadmic achievement which starts in Reception and continues to the number of women getting first class degrees and the fact that white working class boys are more likely to leave school with no qualifications. This is not prejudice, it is not stereotyping, it is not doing down either boys or girls. It is a fact.

Once again, nobody is blaming women or teachers or anyone really.

Your attitude isn't really helpful to discussion.

Would you rather we all just pretended that there's no disparity or that it's not a problem?

There are lots of very subtle forces at work which may be barely noticeable or considered 'normal'.

This week my dcs have talked about boys' and girls' reward stickers. As I've said the girls are pink and the boys' have rockets on and are blue.

A little girl who was being friendly with a little boy in the playground and her teacher laughed with her mother about whether she was going to marry him.

The only man in my kids school is a cleaner/ before school club supervisor.

There is a netball club which boys are allowed to join but no football club.

Now, you may say oh this is a problem specific to your dcs school but it isn't. Remember I am a teacher. I go to a lot of schools.

My dp works in a school for kids with severe emotional and behavioural problems. All but 2 of the students are boys. Boys are 4 times more likely to be excluded. There are real problems. I'm not saying anyone's to blame esp not women but we can't pretned that the problems don't exist.

And I have said repeatedly that women and girls are on the recieving end of these same and other gender specific problems too.

Boys ARE more likely to be disruptive in class. Teachers DO give more attention to them. THat means the girls are losing out.

Girls also lose out by stereotypes to do with feminity - pink and passive.

This year the girls in my dcs class have had 3 pamper parties which involve make up etc. GIrls being encouraged to behave like little ladis is happening younger and more aggressively and is more of an industry than it ever was.

your school is really behind the times, candles.

There is an issue here. People disagree about causes. It is being discussed as well as it can be without robust research at our fingertips.

mabanana - i have a son in year 5 in a very good mainstream primary school as well as a son in year R in special school