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 would agree with you on that point, candles.

And let's not make this a debate that only teachers understand properly.

asd is right here. Ask her if she thinks women are at fault or to blame.

I certainly don't think individual women are at fault or to blame - i think its engendered within the teaching profession as a whole (male and female teachers) - of which i am one so don't please say i am slagging off teachers i am certainly not - its the drip drip effect of so many things that are affecting schools and boys attainment

Fivecandles, I respect the fact that you care so much about boys' education even though you don't have any yourself.
Do you have any views on whether single sex or mixed schools are better for boys?

Rose i think the thing is that all teachers care about every childs education regardless of sex otherwise we wouldn't and couldn't do our jobs properly

I haven't seen any evidence of asd blaming teachers or anti female bias. No one is saying we don't want the girls to do well academically (think of the Taliban and our own historical failing of girls), just that if boys don't do well also it is bad for society as a whole.

Spot on

Crossed posts asd, and yes I agree.

Thanks Rose.

I was always led to believe that single sex is better for girls and worse for boys which doesn't tally.

In an LEA where there is a state girls school and a state boys school in the same catchment the results for the girls will be better although you may well be dealing with brothers and sisters from the same family IYSWIM. I understood that a lot of state boys' schools went into special measures or were closed down.

BUT obviously a dispropritionate number of single sex schools are grammar schools or independent schools where boys usually do well although less well than the female equivalents.

Don't honestly know.

My girls will go to a girls school when they're older and I'm happy about that. One thing is that in a girls school they're less likely to be pigeon holed into girls subjects and away from science and maths I've read.

don't know what I'd do with boys.

Agree asd and rose. Some people don't seem to realize that boys doing badly is not only bad for them but for girls and poor peformance engenders poor performance in future generations.

Exactly.

I alway's remember giving a friend a piece of work to copy. I got an A,she got a D with exactly the same piece of work. I mean that has got to be seriously fecking demotivating.

Princeton wordnet definition of bias.
"A partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation
influence in an unfair way; "you are biasing my choice by telling me yours"

I think accusing teachers of having a bias is pretty evidently blaming them. Maybe you should get a dictionary?

And it can't be the male teachers that are biased, can it, because as you keep pointing out, there are hardly any of them, what with the classrooms being so 'fluffy' and all.
It is a nonsense to start your thread by blaming the teachers and the education system for being biased towards girls and against boys, and then saying the fault likes in a society that tells boys that reading or talking about emotions is girly (which seems to be a synonym for rubbish, stupid and pointless) yet still blame the education system which is doing its best not to impose these laddish values on young children.

Have read this whole thread, finally

and feel I was out of my depth last night ..however fivecandles and asdmum most definitely have the more cogent arguments and greater sense of the issue.

Yes, mabanana, I agree.

Thanks for your advice about schools Fivecandles. I live in a grammar area, so if mine pass the 11+ they will end up in an all boys school and at least this might encourage them to take up "girly" subjects like English if they so wish.

But it is a partiality not an entirety...its more complex than black and white

"It is a nonsense to start your thread by blaming the teachers and the education system for being biased towards girls and against boys, and then saying the fault likes in a society that tells boys that reading or talking about emotions is girly (which seems to be a synonym for rubbish, stupid and pointless) yet still blame the education system which is doing its best not to impose these laddish values on young children".

I totally agree and I don't think ASDmum gets the above point at all. Perhaps if she could give some concrete examples or some evidence I would know what her actual point was? FC is making a good argument but a separate argument to the OP's intended. Or if the OP isn't just jumping on FC's bandwagon and indeed all along meant what FC is saying, she needs to retract some of her earlier postings, as they are misleading.

Let's summarise the points made by the OP:

You want more male teachers - the sex of the teacher has not been shown to make a difference to achievement.

You want to scrap coursework and have 100% exams - girls actually did better than boys then too but results were skewed.

You want boys to be taught differently to girls with more emphais on physical tasks and competition - there's no evidence to show boys have a specific learning style or can benefit from a varied approach anymore than girls can benefit from a varied approach. More competition in schools could be more damaging to low aschieving boys.

Boys shouldn't have to do fluffy subjects like discussion, writing and role play - an early emphasis on these things is exactly what has been shown to improve boys' achievement.

Gender stereotypes are damaging to boys and girls - well yes, quite, so stop cultivating them by starting these threads!

HS - i have already discussed at length what is meant by my original post title...I mean - jeez - it is not as black and white as all teachers favouring girls or the education system favouring girls in its entirety - it is a culture of bias which is in built into todays education system where average girls stand a much better chance of achieving the higher grades than average boys - i and many other teachers believe one of the strong factors behind this is because of the agendas within the curricula and the way it is presented/delivered at all levels-obviously there are social reasons which contribute but social conditioning also exists in classrooms

Sorry HS but your interpretation of what i am trying (and obviously failing to get at) is too stark. I do not want to scrap coursework - i think it is unfair to all pupils presently but coursework done under exam conditions (as is being introduced in the new A levels) is a good way forward. I would like to see more male primary teachers - all women delivering the curriculum at primary level must have effects on boys - i mean despite any statistics that can be offered to the contrary i am sure i can find stats to back this up - and common sense really suggests this too.

I do not want to start cultivating gender stereotypes - they blinking well exist already in our schools - i want to give each gender equal opportunities

And HS has questioned your beliefs, with well-evidence research to back up her points. You can't just repeat your first point and say 'This is what I meant, it's true'. Or rather, obviously you can, but that repetition doesn't make it true.

We are going round and round in circles here - i still know what i am saying is true and at the very least bears a grain of truth - i thought judging by many many discussions with my colleagues that it was a pretty well known thing. I chatted to the Head of Humanities this morning and he said to me that its been known for years (he has daughters - no sons).

And we come back to the point that girls did better before as well - hence the fact that a number weren't allowed into grammar schools despite doing as well or better than boys.

Seems there is some kind of fundamental problem with boys and education, then. Not teaching styles, if they don't do well under either system. My money's on cultural attitudes to education, personally.