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.

I also refuse to buy into gender stereotypes. I have said repeatdly that it is wrong that certain subjects and activities in school contineu to be seen as gender specific but they do. Pretending that this is not the case and dismissing people's conerns is not helpful.

Female teachers aren't naughty or rubbish - they are excellent - crikey i bloody am one and i know i am an excellent teacher!!

But nobody here has blamed women or girls or (female) teachers or schools yet it is assumed that they have. Why?

Perhaps it would help if people stopped thinking that problem is that boys are underperforming in relation to girls but just concentrate on the fact that boys are underperforming. Surely we can agree that that's not good and needs addressing?

And yes, yes not ALL boys. Especially white working class boys.

And actually white working class girls are also underperorming but not to the same extent.

I really don't think that my dcs' school is atypical. These stereotypes and gender differences become so familiar that we end up not noticing them.

I have discussed several issues - the pornagraphication of society, the aggressively anti-intellectual attitudes in the media, the music business's promotion of mindless violence, guns, and the use of women as the only really manly way to live, the growing use of 'gay' as an insult to boys who don't conform to the porn/music/media's view of what real boys/men are like - must be having an effect on boys and their ambitions, just as generations of oppression and stereotyping of girls/women had an effect. But this is not caused by female teachers and their 'fluffy' classrooms. Stereotyping is the problem. Let's not perpetuate it with this awful 'boys don't like reading' 'everything women do is fluffy and hence inferior' 'feelings are only for girls' stuff. In a world where boys see violent imagery as normal and aspirational, they need to talk about their feelings more than ever.

Well yes. White working class boys. Which immediately suggests that it's not as simple as "the secondary curriculum (and primary too) is heavily weighted towards girls' natural skills and less so to boys' skills" at all.

I know FC....it feels as if its not clicking what we are trying to get at...maybe i am not articulating myself well enough...i dunno

Of course its a general societal thing but it is more than that

Yes, people have blamed female teachers. If female teachers aren't a problem why all this stuff about we have too many of them, and need men to the job, and what is IMO utter crap about their being too 'fluffy' to teach boys effectively. It seems to me, that in society, whatever men do or don't do, it's women who are to blame! Blimey, when Harold Shipton tried to polish off every over 60 in his home town, it was his mother (For the crime of dying of cancer) and his wife (for being a bit fat) who were blamed!

This is interesting. Confirms what I've been saying that it's not ability that's being tested but learning. So either some boys (and girls) need to LEARN better (attitudes) or the methods of assessment needs to change or both.

'"In contrast to national assessments, small or negligible overall gender differences have been found on IQ tests and tests of reasoning. The relatively small gender differences detected in verbal reasoning do not seem to predict the large gender differences found in English and other humanity subjects in National Curriculum Assessments." (p5)

The explanation offered for this, that "school assessments are designed to assess learning rather than underlying ability (or potential)" (p82), would be worthy of consideration within ITE sessions, especially in the light of the current drive to personalise learning. (For further debate on the reliability of national assessment, see The GTC calls for testing reform.)

Although there is no suggestion within the paper of a need to question the current national testing system, it is proposed that GCSEs may favour girls, with tiered entry schemes, fewer timed examinations and more essays and coursework; this appears to be supported by a dramatic widening of the gender gap in 1988.'

www.ttrb.ac.uk/viewArticle2.aspx?contentId=13608

Its all a question of balance. Balance of the sexes teaching at primary and secondary, balance within the curriculum etc etc

mabanana, that's wilful misinterpretation. It's not that there are too many female teachers. It's that there are not enough male teachers.

I don't think it's unreasonable to want more representation of men in schools any more than it's unreasonable to want more women in parliament.

When I say there should be more women in parliament nobody starts jumping up and down and saying that I'm being sexist against men and accusing them of being rubbish.

FallenMadonna, I thought we'd reached that conclusion some days ago. I certainly posted that several times as did others. Not all boys and this masks difference between social class and ethnicity. Middle class boys with supportive famileis are generally doing fine as are boys from Chinese hertiage etc.

however, I think that balance of male and female teachers in primary is unachievable. So we need to move on while realising we w ill never get that balance.

Men do not want to be primary teachers. It isnot seen as a manly job by our society. There have to be major changes in society beofre there'a ny hope of that situation changing.

Male nurses too and nursery workers and female bank managers.

We are still a highly society very divided by gender.

How can it be a good thing to have some professions dominated by men or women??

I'd like to see some boys in my dcs ballet class (even 1 boy) and men in my dcs school and more women in my garage when I take my car for an MOT.

My son has just started dance lessons! He loves it!! He also plays rugby for the school too

Nobody has said any of this stuff is caused by women or female teachers. Why do you keep harping on about this when nobody else is?

who me?

am confuddled now!

Well then it's men's fault, if they are refusing to be teachers because presumably they think it is beneath them or doesn't pay enough. They sure as hell aren't being discriminated against. Again, think it is part of our laddish culture (invented by men, not women btw) that makes boys think it is cool to not bother and men think it is wussy to teach younger children.
re exams testing learning not potential - well, er, yes, the whole point of education is learning! Of course it measures learning. It's like saying gold medals in the Olympics are unfair because they are given in tests of achievement, not 'raw potential', or because those that win medals tend to work harder and train more than those who don't.
The report FC linked to said that undeperforming boys need to talk and analyse their reading and writing more, not less, in class

'however, I think that balance of male and female teachers in primary is unachievable. So we need to move on while realising we w ill never get that balance.

Men do not want to be primary teachers. It isnot seen as a manly job by our society. There have to be major changes in society beofre there'a ny hope of that situation changing'

And therein lies the problem - more perceptions of what is manly ans womanly and resignation about it.

Again mabanana you are misunderstanding me. It's not ME that's saying boys don't like reading. This is what some boys, a lot of boys are saying to each other and this perception is enforced by the fact that fathers don't read with their sons enought and there are not enough male teachers sitting reading etc etc.

Its not about potential its about ability

mabanana why do you feel the need to apportion blame?? It's nobody's fault. It's far more complex that that. Stereotypes and pressures to police gendered behaviours damage everyone but they are very, very powerful.

Sorry, asd, not you!