NYT: Education system unfair to boys

[MiamiDAP]

^Very many Asian girls, for sure, despite of ORM status and many many obstacles, like taking care of parents who have hard time adjusting, these girls (and boys) are getting thru, very hard working bunch!

[MiamiDAP]

"In the USSR, most doctors were women, and medicine was regarded as "women's work" and less prestigious than engineering. "
-Only 5 years of college (vs 8 = 4 + 4) and very low pay. Also it was all government. It has changed since then and might not be true at all, I believe there are lots in private practice and they have only 5 Med. Schools in the country. In the USSR, care was not there at all, most would go to the doc. to get excuse from work. Very high mortality rate (you will not get true stats, not possible) especially in infants and retirees as these groups are "unproductive" resources of society. This is a future of our health care here.....

[greenbutton]

SteveMA: you misunderstood my post, I was replying to something upthread. I agree with you.

[weatherga]

This is a future of our health care here.....

Really? Such an odd projection, that change in the US healthcare system would make it like the old USSR system, rather than the healthcare in other first world nations such as Canada, Japan or Germany.

[zoosermom]

I have three kids, age 13-23 and none ever had a male teacher for an academic subject before high school and the total number of male academic teachers in high school among the two have finished high shool is 4. I think it would have made a huge difference for my son.

[MiamiDAP]

weatherga,
Bless your heart, you are truly a very fortunate person as any who decided to close their eyes and dream on. I wish I was like this, I wish I did not have my experiences, but we are who we are, cannot change that.

[bluebayou]

I think on the pre-med page here I read that the past few years, medical school admissions have been strongly female.

Not really. Men outnumber women in med schools; last year there were 37.5k men, and 35.4k women in med schools. (In 2002, it was 37k and 32k, respectively.)

Women currently comprise 47% of the applicant pool, (down from 50% in 2003-04).

[cobrat]

-Only 5 years of college (vs 8 = 4 + 4)

Actually, many non-Combloc countries outside the US have the 4-5 year system vs the 4 + 4 system we have here....including Britain.

Medicine is also one of the most prestigious career paths as well....as shown by the extremely low admissions rates into the medical school. In most of the countries I know of, it's much easier to be an engineer than a medical doctor even if the education path is "only" 4-5 years.

Then again, most countries with the shortened medical school career path also have the same for other professions requiring grad professional degrees here....like Law.

In Britain, a law degree is a 3 year undergrad degree and one doesn't necessarily have to study in the law department to become a lawyer. If one has an undergrad degree in most fields....all they would need to do is complete a one year law conversion course and they'll be regarded at the same level as the 3 year law department graduates when it comes to required professional internships and licensing.

[ohiobassmom]

In my area, by middle school here there are a lot of male teachers. K-6 only a couple.

I do think this is at least partly due to the idea that younger kids need "mommy" type teachers but by MS and certainly HS they are old enough to be taught "serious subjects" by men.

[MD Mom]

My 60-something male boss was an elementary school teacher in his 20s. He said he grew a beard because the kids called him mommy all the time.

My son had more male teachers in high school than females. I think it was a good thing. We did not realize he would have so many male teachers. I can't explain the difference, but I think they made an impact.

[saintfan]

I am reminded of the "Regional things a student should know" thread where someone recently posted the warning for those headed south that "bless your heart" is never meant to be a compliment.

[Chedva]

Personally, I think there has been an increase in focus on things that don't really matter, like notebook checks (does it matter if each kid's notes look exactly the same as long as they are learning?) and artsy type projects. When I was a kid, you did your work and that was that. Nowadays, you've got to game the system. Nobody cared about things like glitter and color coding.

Now THAT I'll agree with. And I'm female with very little artistic "talent." No arts & crafts sense at all.

And for note-taking? I have a BA, a master's and a professional degree. But if anyone had ever checked my notes, I'd never have graduated elementary school! In fact, in several classes which I found deadly dull, I took my notes in mirror writing!

My notebooks were always a disaster, no matter how well-organized they were at the beginning of the year. (See Parents Cafe thread about "Messy or Neat.") I took notes in ways I understood. Didn't matter if no one else did.

When my D12 was in kindergarted our ditrict piloted a math curricumum called TERC (no idea what that stands for). It is heavily based on drawing and complete sentence descriptions of how you got your answer and why it worked - or didn't. You could have the wrong answer and describe your "strategy" well and get the points. D hated it, but as MiamiDAP said someplace back there, she just got it done and moved on. Many boys just flailed and failed because they refused to comply with the stupidity of explaining how they knew that 1+1=2 or draw anatomically correct turtles to demonstrate that fact. The "brighter" the kid the more trouble they had with writing about things that they just knew. Then there's the fine motor skills and penmanship issue. It took forever for DS15 to do his little worksheets and that doesn't include the time spent sulking under the dining room table.

Writing was the same - no open ended write about your weekend stuff. And, as Bay alluded to, if you do you'd better not write aboutt playing StarWars with your neighbors. They had this 4 square method of some kind with prompts like "write about and autumn leaf" while fitting your ideas into the blocks. Mr. verbal got writer's block every time which morphed into a behavior block. D12 really doesn't like to write, but she could follow the rules, giterdone and move on.

I was more like your DS. I rarely followed those rules - I challenged them. Luckily, I had some administrators who backed me.

I remember that we had to outline our papers before writing them. (Same in law school for our briefs.) I can't do it - I'd always find other things to say while I was writing, and then I'd move things around, etc. My papers never looked like my outlines. So I learned to write the paper first, and then write the outline!

My d also had a high energy level, and was not an auditory learner. She was a tactile learner. In first grade she was lucky enough to have a teacher who would allow her to stand & walk around the other edge of the circle at circle time as long as she didn't bother anyone else. Then she could listen to the story. Otherwise, she was just spending all her energy trying to sit still.

I'm not certain that these are male/female issues, though (as I said, I'm female). I'd like to see (yeah, pie in the sky time) more time devoted to learning styles, and not divide them by gender.

[saintfan]

In our district there was a period (now somewhat loosened) of a VERY strict mandated curriculum. A previous complaint was that the math wizards, competitive problem solving approach favored boys. That may be true and may have needed modification, but the pendulum swung completely the other way. It was not so much a matter of individual teacher style, but a systematic global curriculum requirement. As emeraldK mentioned up-thread, this particular math curriculum (now scrapped) fed into the state testing protocol (also scrapped) which made success more difficult for anyone of any gender who was strong at math but had writing, language or penmanship challenges (not to mention patience challenges!). Boys with learning differences and high performing boys seemed to be particularly impacted - based on anecdotal evidence and observation.

p.s.
Chedva: my D did ok with a go along and giterdone in math, but sounds like you with the papers requiring grades outlines and "pre-writes". She struggled through them in elementary and middle school, then did them after the fact in high school.

[boysx3]

Chedva,
my youngest son is a match with your D. When he was in the primary grades, he used to sit on his hands to try to keep still.

When it would be time for desk work, he would start out sitting at his desk....and then standing at his desk...and somehow migrate to doing his work on top of the bookshelves or window sill. And he would never even be cognizant of having moved around!

His second grade teacher had no problem with it....she said he never broke concentration and didn't bother any one else.

His third grade teacher gave him a nightmare year. He understood staying in his seat. But she had major problems with him swinging a foot under his desk (even though he did not invade anyone else's space) or flexing his fingers or squeezing a soft ball during any time that required sitting time.

To this day, he often works standing up....he has rigged "standing" desks both at home and at his apartment. This summer at his internship, he often uses his boss's standing desk when it is free...the boss has back problems.

[zoosermom]

Chedva, my son's middle school made the notebook 20% of the grade in every major subject. He always lost those points because he just doesn't learn that way. Let him listen and he will process and retain the information and then able to write about it with understaning and in detail. Make him copy from the board and he's lost. I don't think it's an accident that he plays three instruments and is known for being able to play music he's only heard once or twice.

To this day, he often works standing up....he has rigged "standing" desks both at home and at his apartment

One of the top partners in my firm works this way and even had his office arranged to accommodate his preference. He is a multi-million dollar a year lawyer who is an internationally recognized expert in his field. He is certainly in a position to know how he thinks best.