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 think that in industry that women have just as many opportunities as men, but far more women give up on their careers or limit them through choice.

There is also a certain drive and ruthlessness that is needed for advancement, which women often lack.

I'm sure you'll find any number of people, male and female, ready to agree that the Nasty Feminised Teaching Profession is somehow doing the poor boys down. I am not sure how much evidence you will find to support your assertion, though.

I don't have a problem with the idea of well-qualified women in the workplace and of closing the pay gap to which Fennel refers, personally.

SqueakyPop - have to disagree - women do not have just as many opportunities as men. The reality is that in many industries the workplace culture is still set up around the male way of working. Also people naturally hire candidates that they empathise with - which on balance, is more likely to be someone of the same sex. As more men are in more senior positions then they hire other men (just like them), who approach things in the same way.

I agree you need drive to achieve - but most women I've met have this in abundance. Ruthlessness shouldn't be required - except in a male culture! I work in a very male dominated industry - but the Director I work for is a woman, who is also a mother. She works exceptionally hard - but she is not ruthless - does what is needed yes, but it's not the same thing.

I think boys are more rumbustious and the curriculum demands lots of sitting still for a long time. Think they do less well shackled to desks and are happier building rockets and tying knots. I think learining needs to be more active, practical, imaginative and creative.

Actually I don't think the whole sitting down thing at an early age is helpful for either gender at an early age. Girls are more likely to conform because sitting still and being quite are considered good traditionally feminine traits but they should probably be encouraged to be as and risk taking as the boys should be too.

I do think school life is increasingly hard for some boys as reflected in the fact that white, working class boys are most likely to leave school with no qualifications.

All of the things that are valued as 'masculine' e.g. football playing, fighting, being strong, sexually predatory, rebellious etc etc are precisely the things that are prevent them succeeding academically. There's still a very powerful anti boff culture. Reading still = sissy etc.

Boys IME and I've seen research that backs this up are more likely to overestimate thei ability and be unrealistic about their futures and girls the opposite. So a typical boy (even when you'd have thought they're old enough to know better might still aspire to being football player or fighter pilot or whatever and girls to be a nursery nurse even where they're predicted As nothing against nursery nurses at all but it's drastically underpaid with limited opps for progression)

And few jobs which require manual work now.

In terms of going to university and even entering careers I think women are now outperforming men but women still earn nearly 1/3 less than men over their life times when entering same career mainly cos of impact of children etc I understand.

I agree Rebelmum - am not slagging off teachers - Jeez i am one! I just see the curriculum and find it (not the teaching of it) is girl centric. Perhaps its the circle i mix in but i know of many more highly qualified ladies than men who are in high positions in industry and banking and many many men who are not. Just look at the GCSE stats over the last 15 years and the percentage of girls who achieve the higher grades compared to boys - there is something like a 10% difference...why?

I think Master average boy is being done a serious disservice by the curriculum and examination syllabi imo

Ah, right, so girls do better at school because we are boring, unimaginative and uncreative, eh?

I thought the problem was that we were'nt practical enough??

And why, precisely, has Sitting Down only become a problem in the past couple of decades, when AFAIK it was acutally more of a prerequisite in previous generations? I wasn't aware that desks were a post-1970 introduction.

And can I also point out that were the disparity reversed, anyone who dared to question it would be told s/he was being Pointlessly PC and girls were Just Not Academic?

I just think there should be a balance - i am saying that girls are highly expressive, creative etc...

The balance was too boycentric pre Plowden and too girlcentric now

motherinferior, I'm a teacher.

I like to think that I am imaginative and creative but I have to be very exam driven which can be very limiting.

I think sitting down for all or the majority of the time isn't good for EITHER girls or boys esp in the early years of primary school. It is a fact that in the last 2 decades we have become increasingly target and exam driven which has squeezed out opportunities for creativity and things like - it's a nice day let's go for a nature walk.

Now they've got rid of SATs for KS3 maybe they'll get rid of them for KS1 and 2 and things will get better.

I can't comment on the curriculum but in terms of expectations of behaviour I agree that schools don't necessarily cater for boys (at primary level anyway)

Just because girls are doing better in exams doesn't mean they're getting a better experience or that education as it is working for US ALL since ultimately we'll have to live together. Shouldn't be about the genders competing I do think we all ought to value for example physical activity more than we do. We're an incresasingly sedentary society, less time is devoted to PE and other activities, selling off of school playing fields etc. And coursework get rid of it.

Fivecandles, I was commenting on Rebelmum's post - I actually agree you fully, especially on the issue of social sanction for boys' behaviour, which reinforces any 'natural' element to it (which frankly I doubt anyway).

I would like to get rid of coursework but i don't think there will be a government brave enough to do it asa the grades would all fall....

Oh, OK

Can't believe someone's agreeing with me for once.

No, asdmum, they just change the grade boundaries.

Of course!!

Yes 10% for a grade C in Maths!

Would you like to get rid of coursework because you don't like it overall, or because you think boys aren't very good at it?

I think increasingly it's not a fair way of judging a child's ability; instead it's assesses how supportive their parents are, how good they are at plagiarising from the Internet, how much their teachers want to get good results.

Also you spend so long doing the bloody stuff and then chasing it and assessing it you don't actually do much teaching.

Have no problem with some sort of continuous assessment combined with exams.

I thought they were getting rid of coursework for most subjects. They did in Science two years ago and it isn't missed.

I actually find that our Science specification can allow everyone to achieve something because there are several ways of putting together the indidivual assessment activities, and the A*/A grade boundaries are enormous.

I can fully see that; I have real problems with a lot of home/school agreements because they depend on parents getting involved and therefore exclude the children whose parents do not, for whatever reason that may be.

I do have a fundamental problem with the assertion that the education system we have at the moment is some dreadful female creature just waiting to emasculate the poor male infants of the UK.

Not least because I have two bright, energetic little girls and I hate it when their - relative - academic success is put down to the fact that they're girls so they don't count.