Hey girls... (no, I'm not comin' on to ya')

[Shawnee123]

I remember reading at various points in JrHi and HS

White Fang
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
In Cold Blood

All very boysy stories. I don't remember Mr G asking me how I felt about any of it.

[HungLikeJesus]

March 8th was three days ago. Get back in the kitchen.

I'm sorry. That was rude.

[Shawnee123]

I hear you, but your words make me feel undervalued.

This couples counseling doesn't work for shit.

[Griff]

My personal view is that it's more about turning young boys off early on. Many are not ready for sitting quietly and standing in line, which are prerequisites for the academics that are often being crammed down their throats in pre-k. Instead of focusing on fun enriching activities that make boys like school, there is a demand for academic development at the time when social development is more important. The key is individualizing education enough so the more advanced (often) girls can learn to read while the less advanced(often) boys figure out how to use words to resolve conflicts.

[Cicero]

I think we are losing sight of the actual point of this thread.

The real topic is to figure out why Drax is celebrating Women's day. I mean...who expected that?


Hey HLJ, there aren't any computers in my kitchen for me to fix for my husband after he breaks it, being completely careless.....(my new one)

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Griff

My personal view is that it's more about turning young boys off early on. Many are not ready for sitting quietly and standing in line, which are prerequisites for the academics that are often being crammed down their throats in pre-k. Instead of focusing on fun enriching activities that make boys like school, there is a demand for academic development at the time when social development is more important. The key is individualizing education enough so the more advanced (often) girls can learn to read while the less advanced(often) boys figure out how to use words to resolve conflicts.

Amen, brother.

[Clodfobble]

Griff, do you think the Montessori model accounts for this difference between individual students, or is it just a different way of doing things? (I don't know a whole lot about it other than a lot of my smart/successful friends went through the program, but it also tends to be self-selecting that way.)

[lushchocolateswirl]

Hunglike, the article you quoted is dated 2006. The information within the article is proof that before that article was written there was already studies looking into the problems.

GRIFF. Funnily enough I went to an information night about our school welfare system last night. The principle was talking about discipline for boys and how different it has to be to disciplining girls.
Science is very hands on in our school and so is sport. All boys (from grade three upwards) in our school has to take on a leadership and organisation role at least once during the school year. Almost all the boys in our little school has an outside sport and are encouraged to participate in such. (football, cricket, swimming, tennis.) But in all of this encouraging we expect the girls to do it too.
I understand what you are all saying about boys being left behind. I have three sons and I've seen the difference in schooling, comparing what my 20 year old had to what my 13 and 10 year olds have today, and there is a marked difference and a heck of a lot more emphazise on boys.
Another problem we had (in Victoria) is quite some time ago the government closed all the tech schools. Boys were meant to sit in a classroom for six years and get their VCE . If they couldn't cope well it was just too bad . They either had to leave school at 15 to go to work (apprenticeships) or fail. At least now they are introducing TECH back into the highschools so boys can have all the interesting gadget stuff and stay at school for a more rounded education (english, history, the arts. etc)
Griff, boys have to know how to stand in line and sit and listen. But it's not as simple as that . Boys have to know why they are standing in line and sitting quietly. You're right in the individual learning but I believe that all education should be for both sexes and not just one.
Education was centred around boys once, then more recently it was centred around girls, hopefully now we'll get it right .
We are speaking the same language just coming at the same subject by different understandings.

[Shawnee123]

Good points all. We do, when making societal changes, tend to swing too far in the other direction before finding something reasonably close to a happy medium. We are different, and not just between genders, and as we learn more about learning styles we will get closer to realizing what's good for the goose isn't always good for the gander (pardon the overused expression.)

[DanaC]

We do, when making societal changes, tend to swing too far in the other direction before finding something reasonably close to a happy medium.

So true. Funnily enoug, whilst reading seems to favour girls (in teaching styles) at the moment, science teaching still seems to favour boys. At age seven and eight they are very similar n their levels of interest and achievement in science, by the time they get to keystage 2 (age 9 and 10) they have started to diverge overall, with boys achieving better in science than girls. The numbers of girls who take up and achieve in sciences after that are significantly lower than the boys. Something happens between them being in the infants where it's all exciting hands-on experiments and them getting into the academic side of science, to turn girls off.

The situation with regards reading and writing is an even more complex one I fear. One of the problems is the way children are taught in schools overall. We traditionally only recognise a limited number of intelligence types and clamp down on behaviours which do not conform to our expected norms. This affects boys and girls: so, boys get into trouble for being too active and fidgety and not sitting still. Girls meanwhile get into trouble for talking in class. Both these behaviours in children are signs of intelligence: physical intelligence and social/emotional intelligence. But they do not conform so they are inhibited. Lots of children leave school unable to read properly, boys and girls. The school system is a one size fits all environment for a large number of little individuals.

Not sure where this is ggoing....that was a little rambling :P Shawnee makes a good point though. Schooling used to be taught in ways that suited boys: not deliberately I don't think, it just evolved that way. When it was discovered that the way children were being taught was severely disadvantaging girls moves were made to discover why and how.....and then rectify the problem. Now we need to figure out why and how our early education is letting boys down and rectify that.

Note though: early education. Further and Higher education still favours male education styles and male achievement.

[monster]

We need more Open Schools. http://aaopen.a2schools.org/aaopen.h...ann_arbor_open

[Griff]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Further and Higher education still favours male education styles and male achievement.

Not if you measure it by graduation rates, at least in the US. That could be an artifact of early education difficulties leaving us with your assertion that the preponderance of higher ed students (females) are not being served, which really would be awful, driving out a high percentage of one group early then failing to serve the rest.

I also wasn't saying that dissatisfaction among young boys was the result of a swing toward teaching better for girls. The adjustment of teaching styles in the US is mostly a middle school phenomena and hasn't had any impact at the pre-k/K levels. The early push for academics is coming from parents and the testing mania of the standards movement.