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.

Agree about school starting age. Agree this is where the problems start. Do think the teaching in the early ages is particularly unhelpful for boy but not necessariyl helpful for girls either.

Think at secondary school the problems are more likely to be the legacy of starting school too early, problems with peer pressure, masculinity etc.

re coursework

Girls tend to take guidance and follow it.

Boys tend to be more prone to ignore your guidance and hand in something that might be amazing, but 99 times out of 100 is a lodda crap, because they didn't follow the guidance.

hard to tell a teenager anything. Double hard to tell a male teenager anything IME

No I bloody well haven't I don't get paid to do it. I am a teacher not a researcher

Have put loads of links to studies about this when I posted yonks ago. Look for that thread if you want the evidence.

The gumph was in some government mag that is sent to all teachers. I think it is called "Teaching Today"

Here's a link on boys being disadvantaged by starting school. It's sad:

www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpsoc/bjep/2001/00000071/00000002/art00007

so in fact it's not that coursework is 'geared' towards girls, it's that (many) boys are too arrogant to listen to instructions?

C'mon, MB, can you really distinguish the social conditioning of Blokeishness to some innate affliction to do with a Y (why oh why) chromosome?

Sorry, nope, you produce the evidence I'll be swayed by the argument.

I agree there might well be something in the theory that starting formal education at four may be actually damaging for some children and probably more so for boys.

can't tell you Y it happens, but I can tell you that it does!

Wish it didn't but it does. Every year. The only kids to crash and burn at C/w time are boys

Course work gorn away for me now.

Do practical exams at A level. Mind you the girls tend to be better at that than the boys too! (lets cat go and enjoys flurry of birds that it produces)

(Although the idea that little girls like sitting still and little boys like running around is a gross over-simplification - plenty of little girls are VERY active and plenty of little boys like drawing.)

And here:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7674472.stm

Er, yes, but OK that study suggests it's a bit innate and there's buggerall that school can do about it.

The issue is that girls are more likely to conform. Sitting still is SEEN to be feminine and therefore good for girls and bad for boys.

Sadly, the worst insult for a boy is still that he is like a girl or gay.

This awful set of insecurities and bullying about sexuality is hugely responsible for boy's underachievement at secondary shcool age.

Again huge amount of research on this but you can see it in any playground or school bus

edam that's what people generally mean when they say that something is 'geared' towards girls not that girls necessariyl have an innate ability that boys don't but that they are more likely to do well at it for whatever reason.

Why does this have to turn into a peer reviewed journal type thread? Although I appreicate that some are approaching it from an intellectual pov (unlike me)

The proof is in your own children. I can categorically state that ime boys and girls are treated differently at early primary level by different teachers.

The rot can set in at Reception. Big fat full stop. SO ner

So widespread (male) misogyny and homophobia are responsible for boys doing badly at school?

Surely then, it's up to men to change, not the school system? It's not the fault of the teaching workforce - especially if this is largely female - if men hate gays and women?

Though if I'm being honest I can remember many boys in school with me having a probelm with sitting still and behaving.

Possibly due to 'bloke culture' (for want of a better word) being less laddish and more serious back in the days of chalk and black boards. There was no 'shame' in behaving in these days, because if you didn't, some sadistic bastard would beat the shit out of you. Not that I'm advocating a return to those days, you understand

I don't think it's the books/subject matter that are important somehow

sorry, I can't remember many boys having problems....

courseowrk same thing with reading. But you can go down and down this route until you end up with a very limited range of activities/ approaches/ methods of assessment that actually don't appear to be 'geared towards girls'.

i.e. maths is still ok and science (not necessarily biology) and PE and computers.

Strangely enough these are the subjects wehre there is less of a gender gap.

But you can't say these things are all not important for boys. Some things boys are just going to have to learn (to do well at) if they are going to succeed academically like eventually sit still and read and do some work and communicate.

But attitudes continue to be a barrier and that's what need addressing and not expect too much too early and making activities (both what's perceived as maculine and what's seen as feminine) gender neutral. More male teachers would help and better parental support in a lot of cases.

dads need to read and be involved in their kids' education which often they're not.

I don't teach English - i teach Music and German

The english syllabus at my selective school also includes "Pride and Prejudice" (for GCSE) and "Romeo and Juliet" for SATS. I don't think it is down to individual subjects but the leanings of the requirements of the overall syllabi - the essay writing style for English Lit and Lang rather than the books themselves.

'So widespread (male) misogyny and homophobia are responsible for boys doing badly at school?'

Yes, it's certainly a massive part of the problem. It's more than homophobia because it's not attacking gay boys it's attacking boys who are behaving in a way that's 'gay' which can be pretty much anything. You can even have a gay pencil case.

'Surely then, it's up to men to change, not the school system? It's not the fault of the teaching workforce - especially if this is largely female - if men hate gays and women?'

Well, yes, it is partly a social problem but it's a very specific and huge problem for teenaged boys - the massive insecurities about sexuality which means that a boy who likes reading and hates football is likely to have a very, very hard time amongst his peers.

But the school system could do more to degender the classroom and change attitudes.

The overemphasis on explanations and opinions rather than facts and consequences... i have seen this to be the case with Music, MFL and Science