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.

If you're implying that sitting down in rows pre 1970s wasn't a problem for both genders then you're wrong. Stupid argument.

Also, it's now well known that exam figures were doctored for years to make it seem as though boys were outperforming girls when they weren't.

Also that 10% masks huge variations between subjects - the gap is bigger for English and languages and smaller for maths as I understand it.

Also, the argument that men still earn more on average than women over their lifetimes has nothing to do with this debate. The white working class boys who are more likely to leave school without qualifications are very unlikely to go on to earn more than their female counterparts.
And the discrepancy in salaries is about issues in the workplace and the effect of childrearing nothing to do with school or academic success.

Also don't assume that because you're concerned about boys' experience at school and academic achievement that makes you any less concerned about that of girls. I strongly believe that tackling boys underachievement and getting them more positive about school would benefit girls too but equally I think girls should be encouraged to adopt behaviours which are often considered masculine like risk taking and asking questions etc.

Imo children's natural exuberance is acitively discouraged by some primary schools, and boys are more affected by this than girls ( which may lead to boys underachievement???)

I can only base my view on what I've seen and heard from my own children (ie, I'm not a teacher)

'The white working class boys who are more likely to leave school without qualifications are very unlikely to go on to earn more than their female counterparts.'
That just isn't true. If they work in the public sector for instance, it will be untrue in many areas for a while yet. Because any local councils are still fighting against the legal requirement on them to give men and women equal pay for work of equal value. They still systematically and structurally value the work of non-skilled men more highly than the work of women with comparable - or often, higher - skills.

Now, I recognise that they are doing this to some extent because the millions that would be needed to make up for decades of underpaying women would make a hole in their budgets for other things. But it is a scandal that structural pay discrimination not only goes on, but has been evidently forgotten about as a social injustice.

sorry, should be 'many' local councils

Also, actually more women than men getting 1st class degrees and going to university.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1118281.stm

Take that point Zazette but my point is that you can't write off the problem of boys underachieving on the basis that they are more likely to earn more over their lifetime than women.

As if there educational underachievement is irrelevant or has no impact on their later earnings.

I agree with the OP, and as such the school curriculum disadvantages women in the workplace where men's natural skills predominate. We need to be making girls more like men if we are to help them get along at work.

I will be very interested to hear what all those posters with younger boys still at primary school think when their boys reach 14 or so at secondary school. This isn't a discussion about boys not 'sitting still' and doing as they are told.Neither is it a discussion about how girls are doing. Most boys are perfectly happy and do well at primary school with women teachers etc, so why does it all suddenly change at secondary? And why ARE there so many underachieving boys?

I have boys and a girl in secondary and primary and I would agree with the op.

I would say re: the last query that actually when my boys have had male teachers in primary they've been happier and produced more work.

gtg .. will watch with interest.

I don't agree with what anna says. It's increasingly traditionally 'female' skills that are valued in the workplace - the ability to communicate, emotional literacy etc. Women have no problems getting jobs. The pay gap is generally because of children and age old stereotypes and prejudices and women being underambitious so failing to get promoted.

Also it's wrong about boys' underachievement only being a problem at secondary school. It's a massive problem in the early years especially in Reception where a lot of boys are turned off school from the off.

And I maintain that the primary school classroom esp. in the early years in very fluffy. Getting a bunch of 4 year old boys sitting in a circle and talking about feelings is pretty stupid IMHO.

FC i couldn't agree more. I am in no way saying that boys should have more priority over girls within the curriculum (primary and secondary) but there should be a balance for both sexes. Of course the large majority of boys do fairly well at primary but there is a definite bias in teaching towards the average girl rather than the average boy because of the set up of the curricula- mums of girls trust me on this one. I have taught over 12,000 girls!

women may have no problems getting jobs - although there are several employers who have come out and said openly they discriminate against women of childbearing age - but we are less likely to be promoted to the most senior posts and earn less.

It's not at all stupid to point out to people saying 'oh, it's all sitting down and being quiet now and that favours girls and it's so unfair' that in the 'golden age' when boys did better and girls knew their place children sat in rows behind desks all day (not all this pesky learning through play) and were beaten with sticks if they played up! How can sitting quietly be the cause of male so-called underachievement if men apparently did better under the old system of, um, sitting quietly?
My take on this is not that poor diddums boys are being treated so meanly, but that girls are finally, after generations of oppression, discrimination and horrific low expectations, finally coming into their own. Teenage girls today are a different species from my generation, and they are amazing.

ASD, what is this terrible 'bias' you talk about? I do not see it.

And yes, nobody's stopping men from being teachers! And nobody can make them do it either. They just don't fancy the work and more importantly, the pay.

The problem only comes when these highly educated girls (like myself here - 1st class honours from a rather famous Uni) want to have children....its the natural imbalance of the sexes...there isn't much you can do...

The solution is easy: single sex education.

I think more and more women are combining having children with top flight careers, and will continue to do so.
I think the idea that the only sign that education is perfect is if you can divide teh school population in two and find completely identical exam results, is totally unrealistic. It's just that a minor advantage for boys is seen as normal and good, while a minor advantage for girls is seen as a national emergency, and we have to ask ourselves why.

Sorry had to pop away as my son with asd was poo smearing all over front room!

Yes but why don't men want to be teachers aside from the pay (equivalent to firefighters, policemen etc)?Is it because it is such a female centric profession?

Please believe me its not a minor advantage for girls - i am always talking about the average child too not comparing a child of gifted ability with a child who has a slower uptake. 10% difference across the hundreds of thousands of kids that sit GCSE tells me that in 20 years time many many more of our men (who will i presume be fathering the future generation) will be less qualified than their female partners and women will take on even more than they do now. the education system (which has always been the debate here - not the workforce) needs to change to promote equal opps to both sexes.

Yes, agree edam but the prejudice and discrimination and structures in the workplace which disadvantage women later in life has nothing to do with boys underachieving at school. It doesn't make it any less or more important. It's irrelevant.

I agree with you asdmum. I'm actually the mum of girls but as a teacher and in general I think it's an important issue and am interested in tackling the problem as long as it doesn't detract from girls and their achievements.

One thing which is worth mentioning is how much attention a disproportionate number of underachieving boys receive from the teachers at the expense of quiet (but possibly underachieving) girls and boys.

It is as has been mentioned largely a social problem. Issues to do with what it means to be a man and masculine, worshipping of relatively uneducated and inarticulate sports heroes like David Beckham etc etc.

but exacerbated in the classroom

and this horrible way boys police each others' behaviour - constant references to things and other boys being 'gay' etc for example if they show an interest in reading.

Do think it has to be a two pronged approach

1. changing boys attitudes about masculinity. So that they don't see reading, working hard, being academic etc as girly or gay with girly and gay meaning bad.

2.) valuing and harnessing things that boys are conventionally good at - physical activity, competitiveness etc

In fact getting rid of the gendered labels whilst recognizing that the sexes are often different would be very helpful.

What does 'female-centric' actually mean though? Does that just mean that a lot of women do it?

mabanana it's not that boys 'did better' in the good old days when they sat at rows. It's just that they did better in relation to girls. How is that a good thing?? Educational achievement is much better now than it ever was amongst both genders.

asdmum, I think there's plenty you can do about rectifying the pay and work balance later on. Namely, increasingly the value and respect of childcare and equalising paternity pay so that men do as much of the childcare as women.

At present when women have children they are usualyl the ones that take time off work which often means men compensate by working harder leading to a culture of ever increasing hours (for men) and the division of men into breadwinners and women as homemakers post children.

It shouldn't be this way. If attitudes were different as they are in Scandinavia for example childcare and paid work would be gender neutral.