Girls are Smarter than Boys. Revisited
More Diapers | March 14Based on the amount of negative feedback, it’s clear I’ve hit a nerve among the readership. People are clearly pissed that I’ve lumped all boys under one defining feature. Yah, yah, stereotyping sucks. How dare I. Boys and girls are exactly the same. Anyone who says differently hurts my soul.
Personally, I think you’ve misread or misinterpreted my rant. I feel I must defend myself — and being a blog father, I’ve got some pull round here.
So, here goes:
I think competition is good for EVERYONE. Recent studies suggest that a competitive LEARNING (not sports, did I mention sports?) environment helps boys more than girls. Take, for instance, the Science Daily. In a recent study, according to that pub, it was found “It appears… girls are more concerned with learning than with outperforming their classmates.” and, “The researchers noted that the differences in grades between girls and boys disappeared once children’s concerns with learning versus outperforming others, engagement in disruptive behavior and learning strategies were taken into account.” Hmmmm… interesting. Girls: learning. Boys: outperforming others.
While this is only one study, it DOES suggest that competitive environments affect boys’ abilities to learn — not play sports — in a positive way. When learning differences are taken into account, all things become equal. Now, will a more competitive learning environment help some girls, and hurt some boys. Hell yes. Duh. But here’s my point: taking away competition in academics hurts more boys than girls because of the way the two sexes learn. You can use the “marginal case” all day long to find examples of how I’m wrong. I think that if you really think about it – and perhaps do some research – you might think otherwise.
Will these differences in learning change over time? They might. But for now, there are quantifiable differences in learning between the sexes that should be addressed when teaching to our childen.
I also am in no way pointing the finger at teachers. My mom is a teacher. She works hard every day. She defends herself to parents who think their child is failing because of her, the teacher, and not because of the fact that there are clearly family issues that the parent is not taking into account. And that’s first grade.
I think that this trend toward a less competitive environment was initiated, as many changes in schools are, by the parents, and the blame falls squarely in the parents’ laps. I’m not blaming the schools, I’m blaming the parents. As parents, we need to make the change back to more competition. It’s good for EVERYONE.
My son is 10. This coming autumn he’ll start at secondary school here in Germany, so just last week we’ve been visiting the schools to see which one we might like. They hold introductory evenings for prospective parents and pupils. I heard an interesting comment from one of the teachers that might add a new dimension to the idea of competitiveness.
They split up the classes for language lessons - not science, as you might expect - teaching boys and girls seperately . The reasoning is that boys hinder their own prospects. Many think that French is sissy subject and only for girls. To quote the teacher: “Getting a 4 (that’s a bad mark) in a French test, is where it starts to get cool.” That’s the sad truth for many kids: there’s often a moment where competitiveness gets inverted. (I should know - I used to do this in sports lessons all the time.) It’s achievement we should be talking about.
I have to agree with Foster that there is probably no one solution that is best for everyone. A wise woman, a superintendent who was schooled in a one-room schoolhouse growing up, once told me that nothing has changed about good teaching in 100 years or so. The longer and more closely that I look at education, the more I agree with her. The best education is not designed to fit generalizations, it is tailored to each student’s abilities.
Also, I should have stated this earlier: we are expecting our first baby in July. Shortly after his arrival, I fully expect him to start feeding me all the words I’ve ever written about children for me to eat. So, get my opinions while they’re hot, because soon they’ll be replaced with all new (and improved!) opinions.
On this subject, people might be interested in this live chat, on March 15, “The Problem With Boys.” It is hosted by edweek.org. Before you ask, I’m not affiliated with them and I don’t know if they have a particular bias or not, although they are considered by many to be the paper of record regarding education.
WHEN: Wednesday, March 15, 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern time
WHERE: http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a15864a143825a153984777a0
Please join us for a live Web chat to discuss the growing concerns about the academic problems of boys. After years of efforts aimed at boosting girls’ achievement in science and mathematics, researchers, writers, and educators are turning their attention to the plight of boys.
The gender patterns now generating worries are not new. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests in reading, for instance, boys at every age tested–9,13, and 17–have trailed behind girls since at least 1971. What is new, though, are trends at the college level in the United States. According to a report published this month by the National Center for Education Statistics, men went from being the majority to the minority of the nation’s undergraduate population between 1970 and 2001. Over that time, men’s share of undergraduate enrollment shrank from 58 percent to 44 percent.
Our featured guest for this chat is Thomas Newkirk, a professor of English at the University of New Hampshire, and the author of “Misreading Masculinity: Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture.”
Submit questions in advance, here:
http://www.edweek-chat.org/question.php3/
People are negative?
WOW - well put and so on target. THANK GOD I’m not the only who doesn’t get the concepts on not keeping score during organized games such as soccer. Who are they kidding? The kids know damn well who is winning. Everyone’s a winner and everyone’s the same and good at everything.
No they are not.
That’s how you find out what you ARE good at. You find your place in the world.
If we as parents stop protecting our kids from getting their feelings hurt - maybe they would grow up to be well rounded individuals who know that hard work brings results - not that it is expected to be given to them.
For the record, I don’t disagree with you. I just don’t think competition is going to fix things by itself. I think lack of movement is a stronger factor in why boys aren’t doing as well, followed by lack of sleep, and then competition.
Or maybe boys just need to go to Jupiter.
Agreed. There are lots of things that go into making good humans.
Actually, you say that it’s good for EVERYONE, but that’s clearly not supported by your facts that girls don’t learn as well under a competitive atmosphere.
What really needs to be done is include both types of teaching. Or, given these facts, maybe not “coed” education. (Not that I would EVER support that, I’m just saying that’s one idea based on these facts.)
I completely agree with you, however, that bringing a little competition back to the classroom would liven things up a little bit. I bet now they won’t even do the game where you have students stand in two rows, then whoever gets the math flashcard right first gets to stay and the other one goes to the end of the line. (that doesn’t really make sense, but it was something like that) I loved that game because I could always win. Yep, I’m a competitive GIRL! :)
If everyone is special, no one is.
That thought has been running around in my brain ever since my son “competed” in his first T-Ball season. Everyone got trophies, just for showing up. This was years ago, and just this weekend he and his sister competed in a Tae Kwon Do tournament where everyone (again) got a trophy for participating, but the best performers in each category/age group won medals. My daughter won a medal. My son did not. He was devastated, for sure, but now he *gets* it. He has made a promise to himself that he’ll keep doing better and better and next time he’ll win a medal. All the lecturing in the world that we did didn’t make a bit of difference to him. He had to lose something to make that connection between winning and awards. The token trophies don’t *mean* anything.
Now, he’s lucky that his little brain is a sponge. He doesn’t have to put forth much effort to be at the top of his class. I sometimes wish that he would have to try a little bit more so he’d appreciate it, but that’ll probably happen soon enough.
This struggle is so typical of the way we handle education as a society. Setting aside the way that parents unload all their problems and responsibilities on teachers for a moment, there’s this myth that solutions in education are one-size-fits all. In reality everybody has a different preferred learning style, and although gender is an easy categorization it’s not the only one that should be considered. Administrators and politically-motivated officials don’t want to take the time and energy to create programs which identify those styles and build curriculums around them, so they end up with these blanket decisions. In the end there’s value in almost all of these learning styles, so long as it’s applied to the right population.
That’s why my child will learn via flatline download directly into her brain. I’ve nearly perfected the technology in my garage…
I agreed with you the first time and I still agree with you. I just didn’t say it last time.
I’m glad that I’m not yet at the point where I need to find schools for my kids (my oldest is two). I want them both to do well, and the first step to doing well in school is having an involved parent. That being said, if schools were forced to compete for kids and that meant more innovation in teaching styles for both boys and girls, I think we would all benefit.
There’s also this EdWeek article about the growing concern over the gender gap: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/03/15/27boys.h25.html?levelId=1000
It’s interesting to see that the opinions of the experts who have studied this range about as widely as the opinions of the parents here.
This discussion (here and in the education world) is heartening because it shows that people are aware of the problem, deeply concerned about it, and committed to finding a solution. Those three elements are probably more important than any single technique or regulation.
The article you linked to doesn’t say what you think it says. The article does not show that competition is good for boys learning. The study showed that confidence was important for doing well on statndardized testing. According to the article, the boys tendency towards competition and lack of concern for learning in of itself hampered the boys ability to learn. The girls’ lack of confidence hampered their ability to do well on standardized tests. You don’t fix this by introducing more competition, you fix this by creating incentives for boys to engage in actual learning or removing disincentives from actual learning. Boys are often told to figure out for themselves while girls are often told to seek help from a teacher. Which do you think is going to lead to better results? Which are you going to tell your children to do regardless of their biological sex?
ubjankt…
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Girls rock!