Boys vs Girls in College

Parent Cafe
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<p>This article from today’s Washington Post <a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120201334.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120201334.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>claims that boys are getting systematically maltreated by schools, starting at a young age and going up through college.</p>

<p>This is the opening paragraph:</p>

<p>“In the 1990s, I taught for six years at a small liberal arts college in Spokane, Wash. In my third year, I started noticing something that was happening right in front of me. There were more young women in my classes than young men, and on average, they were getting better grades than the guys. Many of the young men stared blankly at me as I lectured. They didn’t take notes as well as the young women. They didn’t seem to care as much about what I taught – literature, writing and psychology. They were bright kids, but many of their faces said, “Sitting here, listening, staring at these words – this is not really who I am.””</p>

<p>I don’t know if I can agree… I still see certain fields in college dominated by men–and I still see businesses dominated by men. OTOH, even MIT has a female President these days.</p>

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<p>sometimes I feel white males are being discriminated and I feel sad.</p>

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<p>There are too many factors raised in this article to single out the classroom experience as unsuited to boys’ style of learning. I fail to see the connection between boys’ lack of role models at home and the sit still in class mode of teaching.</p>

<p>Furthermore, it is not really possible to disaggregate some other issues. The author claims that the “industrial classroom” was not really suited to boys’ learning but that lack of suitability was not evident when the student pool was smaller. This is an interesting choice of words in itself since that style of teaching was designed NOT to train students for factory work but was aimed at middle and upper class male students who would be captains of industry, not its minions.</p>

<p>The influx of girls into coed schools coincided with the expansion of schooling for boys as well so that the student pool not only became more gender balanced but included students of both sexes who might otherwise have stopped their education earlier. </p>

<p>While the sit-still model may not be as well suited to boys, in fact, there is less of that in many schools. Our Ss’ school had desks arranged so that students worked in groups, rotated among groups that got reformed periodically. Traditionally-minded parents disliked what they considered the chaotic atmosphere. Some have also complained that this emphasis on group learning and greater motion in fact enables boys to pay less attention to teachers, masks their lack of learning, etc… Parents who were concerned about their children’s behavior to start with overhelmingly chose the more traditional, highly structured schools over the less structured ones. Interestingly, middle-class parents are more inclined to favor the latter. But what is cause and what is effect? If the students who go to the less structured schools perform better than the ones attending traditional schools, is it because of the classroom environment and teaching style or is it because of their middle class home environment with books in every room, trips to museums, etc…? I, for one, would not be so ready to suggest that the sit still model of teaching is what is short-changing boys.</p>

<p>As for girls being favored, an interesting consequence of the Summers flap earlier this year was the publication of data that showed that the proportion of women who got tenured positions in math and sciences did not correspond to the size of the pipeline. Did they drop out to raise families? to join the private sector? Or were they discriminated against by university departments when it came to making tenure appointments?</p>

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<p>It may be true that girls are more suited for the current learning environment than boys - I don’t know for sure because I haven’t seen any evidence or done any research. </p>

<p>I know there is a huge movement to get more girls in business, engineering, the sciences, computer science, etc - we all see those commercials. However, the people who benefit from this movement are the wealthy / upper-middle class girls. </p>

<p>In other words, if you are well-off, boy or girl, you will do well.</p>

<p>People who are poor (regardless of race or gender) are the ones who we should really be focused on - not just if you are a girl or if you are a boy.</p>

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<p>Females not getting apointments to university math and science depts has no relevance to how males as a group are handled in secondary and higher education where the gap is widening.</p>

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<p>I agree that the issue of university appointments is not directly related to how males are being taught in high school; but in college?</p>

<p>Personally, I think the sit-still model of my own education resembled the </p>

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<p>Interestingly, traditional boy’s schools use the ‘sit still’ method to great effect–when combined with intense competition, such as massive end of the year exams. Boys can cram like nobody’s business. Traditional Anglican tutorial classrooms also give bright boys a chance to complete prep work in class. After the teacher gives the lecture, the boys have 20 to 30 minutes to complete the work or do the reading while the teacher gives one on one attention to those who need it.</p>

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<p>I think there are differences in the aggregate between males and females. In the aggregate, girls are better note takers than boys, for example. However, that does NOT mean that every girl takes notes well or that no boy does. It’s just that if you did a 25/75% analysis, the range for girls and boys would be different. That’s one reason boys who aren’t good note takers tend to do better in all-male classes–teachers intuitively change speeds when they see kids still frantically writing things down. (A girl who is a poor note taker will do better in a co-ed school where teachers do slow down a bit for the boys than in an all-girls school, where her poor skills will put her in far worse position that in a co-ed class.) </p>

<p>But one of the problems with the whole “we need to make things better for our girls or our boys” approach is that there are girls who don’t fit the stereotype and boys who don’t too.</p>

<p>Why are the majority of NMSFs female? Simple, because the rules were changed back in 1998 or 1999 when the majority of NMSFs were male to benefit females. The writing part of the PSAT was introduced. It was based on a test that had been discontinued in the 1960s. It was chosen because it was the only standardized test on which girls in the aggregate scored better than boys in the aggregate. Including it changed the % of NMSFs who were male/female immediately. However, the first year the change was made, there were girls who would have been NMSFs the prior year who were not. There were boys who would not have been the prior year and were because they did well on the writing portion of the “new”–in 1998 or 1999 or so–PSAT. </p>

<p>IMO, it was an incredibly unfair change because it hurt immigrant kids , especially those from public schools. They could write but had trouble figuring out which sentences on a multiple choice test were the “best” way to say something in English. </p>

<p>If NMSF were based on the SAT, males would dominate. They dominate the high end of combined scores. IMO, it’s silly to change the rules to benefit girls and then act surprised when it hurts boys. </p>

<p>But, the real lesson in all this, IMO, is that we ought to offer a variety of learning methods. We should not assume which ones work for boys and which for girls because not all girls or all boys will learn in a manner “typical” of their sex. Believe me, the penalities imposed on highly active little girls who won’t sit still are more severe than those imposed on boys for the same behavior. </p>

<p>Part of the reason for this, IMO, is that the vast majority of elementary school teachers are female. I think that if we had more male teachers, some of these issues would be solved automatically. My own experience is, of course, anecdotal, but I think male teachers teach differently in the aggregate than female teachers do in the aggregate. Change the style of teaching by increasing the number of male teachers and more varieties of experiences would be available.</p>

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<p>Agree with Jonri. Wholeheartedly agree with Jonri.</p>

<p>I’m a girl who learns like a guy. I think like a guy. My SAT splits were more like those of a boy. Heck, my verbal/writing hurt me. Every profession I’ve seriously considered is dominated by men. </p>

<p>Now, the part where y’all slam me… but I have a lot of difficulty mustering any sort of crocodile tears for upper-middle class white boys at a private liberal arts college. If they aren’t faring as well… um, maybe it’s Darwinism. Or maybe they just don’t think they have to, while women tend to think that they need more credentials to get ahead. Maybe it’s true - although women in the under-30 age bracket are more educated, they earn less than men. Extended adolescence, IMO, is not something to blame on schools.</p>

<p>I also think there’s a TON of intellectual dishonesty in using Howard, an HBC, as an example: black women radically outperform black men, in ways that aren’t seen across other races. Use it as an example of that specific issue (which is another can of worms), but don’t pretend that it’s the same issue.</p>

<p>Don’t like the fact that some crucial areas were omitted: like the fact that it’s women, not men, who drop out of the higher-education pipeline in engineering. Every step you go up (undergrad, master’s, Ph.D) there is an increasingly higher percentage of men. </p>

<p>Also don’t like the fact that the author omitted one crucial little fact: that the average man with a high-school diploma only earns, over his lifetime, the same thing that a woman with a college degree will earn ($1.38 million and $1.36 million, net present value.)</p>

<p>One final thing: so when boys underperform when we level the playing field, it’s because we are really discriminating against them (by using the same system that worked for hundreds of years). When girls underperform in math and sciences, it’s because we aren’t as smart. Grrr!</p>

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<p>I’m trespassing here, but I shall speak. Is it fair to concentrate on the performance of women at the expense of the performance of men? I don’t think it’s fair to help improve the performance of girl’s math and science performance because they are not doing as well on average as their male counterparts and ignore the reading and writing abilities of the guys, who tend not to do as well when compared to their female counterparts. Steps are being taken to improve the girls situations, while the guy’s are being ignored. An example happened recently in a public school in New York. All girl math classes were created, but I didn’t hear about any all male literature courses. Also, keep in mind this was a public school. How about resources and equity? Should everyone be trained to a certain level as best as possible, hurting the strongest students, or should the weakest be left in the dust?</p>

<p>How about encouragement, ariesathena? Is it fair to encourage girls to perform better and go to college, while doing much less for the guys, as if that is expected of them? I find that troublesome and unfair, and if this occurs, as I think it does, it is something to blame on schools and teachers. Like you, I also agree with Jonri. I do agree with you, ariesathena, in that the article is flawed, but I think it points out what some people choose to ignore- that guys are getting unfair treatment in the education system, and it should be brought to attention just as any information about girls being mistreated should.</p>

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<p>But at the college admission level, more recently co-ed schools like Skidmore, Wheaton, Goucher and others favor males in their admissions process.</p>

<p>Obviously, schools have to be structured to meet the differing needs of boys and girls and to give all types of children an opportunity to flourish–perhaps more opportunities for some single sex courses within coed schools might be a good option or at least differentiated courses by interests made possible – a science fiction oriented lit course, or math applied to music, art and architecture?</p>

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<p>Cheers, I agree that the traditional all-boys schools are just different. My kids both attend (ed) such a school, and I believe there is some literature to support single gender education. I read one such book, which discusses adolescent boys’ need for ‘tribal’ identification, which may be one explanation for gang membership as well. fwiw, I found that my sons really excelled in a competitive, demanding environment. I think many teenage boys are anxious to be treated as adults, and enjoy the high expectations of a rigorous, or even military, type of HS.</p>

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<p>Schools and teachers should not be blamed for the poor performance of males. It’s absurd. Who should be blamed is society. Starting from early childhood, males are not taught to be held accountable. They can goof off, and that’s accepted. They are not held to the same standards as females are. </p>

<p>As a younger child, I could not pull off 1/5th of the behavior my younger male cousins take part in now. I was expected to be docile and obedient and serious about my obligations. My cousins can act as stupid and immature as they want and will not be reprimanded. It is this attitude that is taken into classrooms. Boys don’t care about their studies, and they are not expected to care. Instead of reprimanding boys when they goof off, people say, “Oh, they just need to be outside,” “they just can’t sit still,” or, my favorite, “just boys being boys.” I know girls, such as, me, who dealt with those same urges. We simply learned to restrain them early. </p>

<p>Sidenote: As far the “tribal” theory, that makes sense. My cousins, and nearly all the boys I know, always strive to be in groups and do things in groups. Girls seems to be more indepent-minded, which is why I think we tend to excel in the humanities and verbal aptitude. They require that a person have deep individual understanding and can analyze, while engineering, and fields related to, concentrate on community-work and hands-on application. Of course, these are all stereotypes, so…</p>

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<p>In my last 5 conversations with boys who are underachieving (for lack of a better word) in school the theme was very similar. They like classes where teachers are ‘entertaining’ and they dislike classes where there is excessive emphasis on note taking and listening (these are MS and HS aged boys). They tend to find these classes boring and they find themselves not listening and then of course the classes are even more boring. What goes on in a classroom is only a part of the issue here in my mind. </p>

<p>However, the more significant and striking theme had to do with what happens at home in the evening and nighttime hours. All these boys complained of fatigue in school. Not surprising since they all were getting 7 or fewer hours of sleep per night. Why was this? Excessive homework and EC loads? No! </p>

<p>Not sleeping enough was specifically related to the availability and lure of technology in their study and sleep rooms (which sometimes were one in the same). I have come to ask this question- “How many times per week do you set your alarm for the middle of the night so you can play runescape without your parents knowing it?” of every boy who presents these patterns.</p>

<p>Boys, more than girls, are clearly vulnerable to the overwhelming lure and immediate gratification of video/gaming/computer technology. Girls may chat on end, but they are not typically the gamers that boys are. Gaming does not require the sort of sustained attention to tedium that is frequently needed in a school setting, gaming provides an instant level of stimulation. Gaming is entertaining, the bits of focus needed are often of short duration, etc. </p>

<p>Whatever changes are made in schools, whatever school changes are made to move a given child to a different sort of environment, nothing will be nearly as effective until parents take the steps of getting the computer with internet access and the TV out of the bedroom, controlling through whatever means are necessary the readiness of access to technology, etc… </p>

<p>There are definitely people who disagree with me, who think that kids need to learn to keep these elements of their lives in balance and that access should not be substantially withdrawn. I believe that over many generations the human brain, both male and female, might evolve to be able to cope more with the bombardment of instant and highly intense stimulation that is represented in current gaming modalities. In the meantime, the current crop of kids are living in a petri dish, and we need to provide controls externally until they can learn to do it internally.</p>

<p>When will they be ready to do it themselves? Like everything else it depends on the kid. Conversation yesterday with the ‘newly arrived home but jet lagged’ population of kids here suggests most are finding the access to really fast internet in the dorms an issue they have had to figure out how to deal with-- most have pretty good study skills and most are motivated by what they are studying- so they are coping.</p>

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<p>In light of the above comments, I would like to offer a theory. I have no idea if it is correct. I have noticed that boys are far more likely to be interested in video game than are girls. I have noticed that boys are more likely to watch cartoons than are girls. It is not because boys need constant and easy stimulation to retain interest. It is the type of stimulation that is important, namely – overt and explicit competition. Most video games involve a competitive race, a competitive fight, or a competitive (timed) puzzle. (I have watched boys spend hours studying “tip sheets” or “cheats” or “code sheets” to perform better in a video game.) Most cartoons involve a chase or a fight or both. </p>

<p>In the game of life, education is the most important competition of all. That may be obvious from a big picture standpoint, but it is not obvious to the average growing boy. To the extent a lesson can be tranformed into an overt competition, boys will learn it better. If note taking was necessary to improve performance in a game, I would expect boys to become tremendous note takers.</p>

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<p>It’s also true, from my personal observation, that if boys sense the competition is easily winnable (i.e. they can get an A without trying) it is very hard for them to actually motivate to do so.</p>

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<p>A few years ago there was interesting article about getting a car being the ruination of education for HS students. Now, this doesn’t occur as much in the northeast, or larger cities in the midwest where there is good public transportation, but in the south, west and rural areas, this is a fact of life.It’s a right of passage, and many kids have to work to pay for their cars and insurance. And the car is much more important to boys than girls. And it is much more important than their education. They work a lot of hours to make those car and insurance payments. Rather simplistic perhaps, but so very true - take it from a southern teacher. I even know of some parents who used this a part of the criteria in determining whether to hold a boy back a year before starting kindergarten - if they were a young 5 year old, holding them back a year would make them be one of the first ones in their class to get a car instead of one of the last, and they worried about their fitting in. Believe it or not.</p>

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<p>I think that learning differences tend to be drawn on gender lines, but as one of the other posters said, it may not be the most efficient way to do so. They say that boys tend to learn better in a hands-on, active environment with less lecturing, but that kind of environment would have frustrated me to no end. I always hated those hands-on activities, and just thinking of an English class (my major by the way) of only guys aggrevates me–the guys in my English class never took it seriously. If they are going to try to teach students differently, it should be on learning style not gender, and I think that it is coming. When I was in elementary school, teachers of gifted classes would give students a list of projects that they could choose to do (one would be drawing, one would be writing, one would be active or physical, one would be musical, etc.) I think that if this practice were moved from just gifted classes to all classes, it might start to even out the trends.</p>

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<p>I think girls do very well in school because you are given assignments and asked to complete them. That is pretty much what school is about. I think the reason men are more successful in business is that you have to think outside the box and be much more aggressive than you do in school. I don’t think school prepares people for the real world very well. Maybe that’s okay, but it doesn’t surprise me that girls do better in school and men do better in the work force.
In my company, there are very few women past mid-level, if that. While some of it is sexism, overwhelmingly it is because the women chose to drop out of the work force after they marry. My mother says maybe it proves women are smarter - they get a good education and job, then marry well and don’t have to work anymore while their husbands slave away. But I wonder what happens to all that ambition and drive.</p>

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<p>I coach a math team for homeschoolers. The kids generally come in at age 11-12, having had no traditional school experience at all. They can continue through high school, and most of the the older ones take traditional classes at the local CC. The team practices themselves are very different from a traditional classroom. Kids sit around tables eating snacks and working on problems together. They are free to move around. I tell them they can leave early if “their brains get full”. There is no lecturing, no taking notes, no homework – none of the trappings of a traditional classroom. But I still see gender differences that persist year after year. I have had a total of only 3 unusually successful girls (I’m hoping to send one to MIT this year), and many more unusually successful boys. Girls seem much more likely than boys to be turned off by the competitive aspect of it. And the boys just seem to be better at competition math, which involves a lot more reasoning and creative problem solving than “school math”. As a general rule of thumb boys are more likely than girls to visit, to choose to join, and then to excel at it. My group ends up being just as gender-skewed towards boys as the school groups we compete against. The homeschooler chess team sees the same thing. It’s much bigger than my math team (100 plus kids) and has been going on for a few more years. They also have the same gender balance on overall kids and top kids as the school groups they compete against. So I dunno. There’s more to the girl/boy thing than just school.</p>