Gender gap in education

[kallend 2,180]

www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/how-to-make-school-better-for-boys/279635/?google_editors_picks=true

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Arvoitus 1]

I hate the hypocrisy of some people who demand that men and women are the same and will learn the same and so on yet demand that the STEM field should be feminised and made more attractive to women because its not yet dominated by women.

Your rights end where my feelings begin.

[GeorgiaDon 385]

I teach at one of the institutions mentioned as having a persistent and growing imbalance towards female students in almost all majors. I think the article makes some very good points, as does the other article linked in the first one ("Stop penalizing boys for being unable to sit still...").

A point that is emphasized in the teaching workshops that I have attended is that there are (at least) three major learning modes: listening (lectures), reading (textbooks), and doing (labs, "hands-on" exercises, etc). Most people are reasonably good at only one or two of these modes, and boys tend to learn most efficiently by doing hands-on exercises as opposed to reading and listening alone. In my undergraduate teaching, I try to use all three modes. However, labs are much more expensive to deliver than lectures, and of course the cost of textbooks and such is entirely on the student (universities actually make money on textbook sales). So, under shrinking budgets (especially for state schools) universities have been cutting labs, and more and more courses are lecture only. This of course excludes all the people who learn best by "doing".

In middle and high schools, the same budget pressures again dictate in favor of the classroom and against lab-oriented courses. Also, ever larger classroom sizes demand a more regimented environment where students are expected to sit still and work at their desk for hours at a time. I personally can't do this, I have to get up and walk around every once in a while. Add to this the need to crowd more and more required courses in things like "diversity", and the perceived need to manage students like inmates in a prison, and activities like recess and even socializing/playing at lunch are long gone. When my kids were in school, they had 1/2 hour for lunch and were not allowed to leave the cafeteria, and had to stay in their seats once they had their food. Even Phys Ed is only taught one quarter out of the year. Kids are not built to sit still for 6-8 hrs at a time, any administrator who thinks that is a good idea never was a kid. It's no wonder most kids regard school as a kind of prison, but it's especially hard on kids who need to be active, which affects boys more than girls on average. I bet an hour of being able to run around and burn off some energy in the middle of the day would do wonders, as we used to be able to do years ago.

One last thing that I think works against boys, is the excessive worship of the sports culture. Sports can of course be a valuable learning tool (teamwork, setting personal goals, and all that). Where it becomes destructive (in my opinion) is when the money and status paid to professional athletes results in a situation where 95% of the boys in middle and high school see the NBA or the NFL as the ONLY career option worth working towards. Of course, parents are equally complicit in this. I also blame universities, for feeding the sports culture by supporting huge programs that admit academically unqualified students who have no intention of ever graduating. I'm always dismayed when I do outreach presentations in local schools, and find that by the 7th or 8th grades virtually every single boy (even the obvious runts) are absolutely convinced they'll be in the NBA or NFL, and most of the girls are talking about being doctors or scientists or even lawyers, or running businesses. If we (as adults, and as educators) encourage boys to think of time spent on the practice field as "career development", and deliberately or otherwise insinuate that they only need to earn a minimal grade in math, reading, or science (just enough to qualify for a sports scholarship), we do them serious harm. Ideally, I'd like to see universities require student athletes to meet the same academic standards as all other students for admission. Of course that will never happen, because of the money that is to be made from football and basketball.

I do have to say that I have had some excellent student athletes in my classes. They were focused and disciplined, which was the only way they could keep up with their practice and competition schedules as well as maintain academic performance. All of these students, though, competed in sports that had little or no prospect for a lucrative professional career: women's soccer, women's basketball, gymnastics, even baseball. They knew that, ultimately, they would need their degree to earn a living. I even had a student who was a walk-on (as a kicker) on the football team as an undergrad in my class, and later he did a Master's in my lab while also working on a MBA. Possibly the most organized person I've ever had in the lab, but then he was a walk-on 3rd string kicker who actually playing in only 2 games, so he knew the NFL was not a realistic prospect.

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[Andy9o8 3]

Arvoitus

I hate the hypocrisy of some people who demand that men and women are the same and will learn the same and so on yet demand that the STEM field should be feminised and made more attractive to women because its not yet dominated by women.

Wow, that's some serious double-speak. Many women either leave, or prefer not to seek, STEM field careers because of hostile-to-women cultural and/or work environments that often prevail.
Peruse:

https://www.google.com/#q=IS+THE+stem+field+hostile+to+women&spell=1

[turtlespeed 226]

well, after all, somebody has to actually work.

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[JerryBaumchen 1,471]

Hi Andy,

Quote

because of hostile-to-women cultural and/or work environments that often prevail.

I miss Shah.

JerryBaumchen