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.

As the mother of 3 boys, I also agree with bagsforlife.

I am def not anti girls as i really enjoy teaching them - i do feel ime that some mothers of girls alone are afraid of boys and see them as the ones to corrupt their daughters instead of society trying to understand what makes boys learn and succeed (again i am not talking at the extremes of ability here)

My boys seem to like the wet girls curriculum.They won't read ballet shoes though. Why is this not compulsory for every child?

I dont understand sm sorry

I have a boy and girls and I think this is really a lot of rubbish. As someone else pointed out, in the past everyone sat quietly in rows, doing as they were told or being beaten for it. Yet boys did well and nobody thought that a disaster. I was a girl (!) and I hated coursework and preferred (if I can be that positive) exams.

I don't think its about altogether how we were taught (in rows etc)but what is taught and the overall focus of the GCSE and A level syllabi....

Also did the threat of corporal punishment aid or hinder boys' learning? Another thought there really....

Oh, sorry, asdmum. i was just being a ranty witterer. I want my boys to read Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield and also to think it was ace and like Petrova best. Just as a supportive thing, you know? But they won't even read it and it is not on the national curriculum which is a travesty. Other than that they seem ok at school.

Of course some girls will prefer exams and some boys will prefer coursework but studies have shown how the current curricula are largely girlcentric.I long for more balance for both sexes.

hey no probs sm

To get my son to read anything is quite a miracle (he's 9)...he has a male teacher this year and it is the making of him - he actually talks about school and tries to replicate what he has done at school in his bedroom afterwards...he actually appears to enjoy school (it is a vg school in leafy surburbia) The first time since he joined 5 years ago...thank God for his male teacher i say.

In what way exactly is the curriculum girlcentric? At primary my ds is learning about the Great Fire of London, which he and his classmates find utterly thrilling and macho. They are learning how to construct exciting stories, do addition and subtraction etc using number lines and squares and did martial arts in PE last term. Our older dd is studying Russian history, which aint exactly girly stuff, and the little dd is running around at nursery dressed as a fairy half the time with her friend Alex (a boy).

My ds absolutely LOVES his female teacher. She is wonderful with the class and he is so happy and proud of his achievements.

"studies have shown" is a bit of a vague statement. What studies, exactly, how were they designed and what did they claim to prove?

It is girlcentric as it is focussed at primary level at ability to express yourself, language acquisition, imaginative play, conformity, role playing (altho am not primary teacher) which girls are traditionally stronger at...which is fine but redress the balance i say in the curriculum and i know i am not alone

My son liked his female teachers but unfortunately they couldn't relate to him.All the mothers of boys in my sons class are rejoicing for their male teacher this year.

Just found this one

www.niassembly.gov.uk/io/research/0601.pdf

but i know i could find loads others

Those sound like things boys should be good at though asdmum. I mean, they're pretty important things.

I know but its how to access it from boys - its much harder as girls are much more naturally inclined to do these things from birth

Well, most of the research in that document explicitly states that there is no simple answer to the gender gap in attainment, and the reasons include greater extremes in achievement - ie boys cluster at the top and bottom while girls tend to be in the middle, that boys truant more and have more special needs, which cannot be blamed on the teachers or the content of the curriculum.
I actually asked my seven year old son if he thought he should have a male teacher and he was baffled and said, 'no, why?' I said some people thought that boys should really be taught by men, and he said 'that's stupid. It doesn't matter.'

Imaginative play is not confined to one gender. Or self-expression. Or role playing. Or conformity. These are things human beings do, no matter what shape their genitalia is!

Or am I going mad and all those armies are full of women because no man would ever dream of following orders?

I honestly don't recognise your depiction of primary teaching. As I said my son and his classmates are thrilled by big fires and he is very excited about his number work.

This is saddening to me:

SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS
Selected Current Research in Gender and Educational Attainment
The gender gap in educational attainment to the benefit of girls is a feature of many
developed countries. This gap tends to increase at the higher levels of school
education. From the review of the literature, the following factors may influence the
performance of boys in relation to that of girls:
? The lack of male teachers in primary and post-primary sectors
? Boys are more likely to score extreme scores (high and low)
? The interaction between pupils and teachers, and gender stereotyping
? Girls show more aptitude and liking for collaborative, discussion-led lessons
? Coursework and changing forms of assessment which are thought to favour
girls
? Reluctance of male pupils to select `female' subjects
? Changing patterns of employment, the decline of the manufacturing sector
and the perceived greater employability of girls, and the subsequent
implications for boys' motivation and degree of disaffection
? Boys are more likely to reject authority, to truant and to be excluded
? Cumulative deficits in core skills of literacy and numeracy

I am not just writing from personal experience of my sons education - its largely as a teacher that i write and how i have seen boys go through the system...whatever their ability but particularly for the average boys

The gap though is small, and hugely skewed by a number of chronically underachieving boys, which is a social, not educational problem - the hoodie phenomenon.

Not true. The gap in exam results of 5 A*-C grades was nearly 10% - that can't be right. The hoodie phenomenon is a socially engineered problem (largely by media) to exascerbate societies negative image of boys.