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.

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.

I agree with this but think it comes from society and parents more than it comes from schools.

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

Appears to be at odds with point number 1. Also, if it is white boys who are under-achieving, then the issue can not be reduced to one of gender differences.

I don't think 2 needs to be at odds with 1. My point is to make all activities in the classroom gender neutral so that reading is not associated with pink and fluffy and competition isn't associated with nasty boys.

There's no reason why these activities should be gendered.

Agree that there's much more to the whole boys underachievming thing than just gender. It's hugely related to class and ethnicity and varies from subject to subject. And boys and girls are entered in different proportions which skews the stats also.

It is not only white boys who are underachieving.

How could classroom activities be gender neutral....very interesting thought....

The MLD school I work at has 80% boys and an exceptionally high percentage of the children have summer birthdays.

Surely there has to be something wrong with a system that such a high proportion of children with learning difficulites have summer birthdays and are boys.

I think there needs to be more flexiblity. Ie. the August born child should have the option of waiting a year before starting school. I also think there needs to be a greater choice of courses at GCSE and A-level to suit all children.

Still agreeing with you fivecandles!

(sorry I can't really keep up/contribute as much as ds has earache)

But I have to say to use my dc's primary school as an example, there is a highish proportion of children whose parents do not have any or limited knowledge of the British education system

Some are astounded that they should have any kind of involvement in their child's education - anything from child protection measures to SN assessments to homework to the PTA.

Absolutely fivecandles. I have no problems with girls achieving more now. It is just and right that they do. But, and this is a big BUT, there are mediocre girls achieving better results than bright boys and this isn't right, because of the education system currently in place.

I have no personal gripe, my two boys are/were in highly selective mixed grammar school so I am not one of the people thinking my boys 'are not as bright as I wish they were' or whatever. This is a school that gets 100% A - C gsces, in reality everyone gets 10 GCES, mainly A*s/As, but even in their school some boys 'under achieve' for their intrinsic intelligence, constrained by the curriculum and still by some teachers who can't cope with 'the boys'. Only today my son came home with a story about an obviously very bright boy who had driven the teacher mad....... If it's like this in their school, I dread to think what it must be like in a 'normal' school (his school is not what I would call 'normal').

I don't agree with the idea of some natural imbloodybalance. Or, come to that, with the idea that boys are 'naturally' better or worse at some things than girls.

It is white working class boys who are more likely to leave school without any qualifications than any other group.
It's important to say that it's not all boys that are underachieving. Middle class boys and boys from Chinese and Asian heritage are doing ok generally. And when we say girls are doing find now that masks the fact that white working class girls aren't doing so well etc.

It is tricky when the majority of teachers particularly in primary schools are women. I don't think boys need to be taught by a male teacher at all but in my dcs school there isn't a single man (except interestingly for the cleaner/ before school club supervisor) and I do think that's going to lead to a bias however unconscious.

Reallytired - you have hit nail on head

"But, and this is a big BUT, there are mediocre girls achieving better results than bright boys and this isn't right, because of the education system currently in place."

Oh good heavens! Where is your evidence for this?

Bfl and FC - agree

What does MLD mean (sorry!)?

It is not just anecdotal but does come from 14 years experience teaching. I am sure we can find value added stats out there which prove that middle ability girls do far better than middle ability boys throughout secondary school

Moderate Learning Difficulties

But tbh have very little idea what that actually means in terms of ability

motherinferior, I think you DO have to challenge gender stereotypes but there is loads of evidence that boys are generally less good with literacy and better with spatial awareness. Lots of evidence that boys esp summer birthdays are more likely struggle in the early years at school etc etc.

Then there are other things that can become self fulfilling so it's assumed that girls should be quiet and passive etc so that's what they may well become and it's assumed that boys should be physical and not admit to emotions so that's what they often become etc.

Moderate learning difficulties (i think)

MLD = moderate learning difficulties.

Why is it that virtually all children with moderate learning difficulties are boys? And why is it that a huge percentage of them have birthdays in July or August?

I think the rot sets in at about four years old when boys are expected to write. Their development lags girls and they are made to feel failures. This turns them off school.

If children started school when they were ready then both boys and girls would benefit. We would also have lower rates of illiteracy.

I'm with 5candles on this.

I have posted similar things in the past. I have kept off this thread, as I got slated last time I mentioned this gender bias in education.

It is there, I see it every day. Girls do coursework better than boys on the whole. There was huge thing in some article I was reading in the staff room the other day, about this

I have a ds and a dd, I am more concerned about ds, and have deliberately guided him towards options with no coursework. I would guide a girl in the other direction.

I don't think unless you are in the classroom, you can really get to grips with waht is happening in schools.

Am going now before I get jumped on again

And you get out of doing the housework, I am always astounded to note on MN.

(BTW Mr Inferior's August birthday hasn't interfered with his various qualifications. I think he may have more than me, even, although mine are from a posher university so more Important .)

mmm but that comes back down to motivation and things like coursework as much as teaching.

It's tricky cos I teach English at 6th form level. I actually do have all female classes (because so few boys choose Eng Lit at A Level) where the majority of my resit GCSE classes are male.

But however much I build in competition, active, kinaesthetic lessons etc at the end of the day the boys and girls are going to be examined on their reading, writing and speaking and listening. Obviously for my subject this isn't about an unfair gender bias it's about being good at communicating.

And these are skills which are as important for boys as they are for girls.

What huge thing in some article?

(We're getting to that stage in a thread where I always stamp my size 2s and insist on proof )

They did, Dittany. Generally boys stay behind developmentally in the things that help at school up to around the age of 13.

I think this is why prep schools traditionally go up to 13.

14 years of experience IS anecdotal evidence! You haven't conducted a randomnised controlled trial, or a meta-analysis, have you?

You have experience of the children you have taught in the schools you have worked in seen through your own filters. It is relevant but it is not The Truth The Whole Truth and The Last Word.

I'd have been crap at coursework, am SO glad I just scraped into the last year of O-levels.