Saturday, October 24, 2009

Boy oh boy . . .

Toronto District School Board director Chris Spence is proposing all-boys schools as the solution to boys’ underachievement (see article). Really?

First of all, not all boys are underachieving and not all girls are achieving better than boys.
Saying that boys are underachieving reduces the problem to a ‘boy problem.’ No longer are boys seen as individuals with, possibly, individual issues/problems that are affecting their achievement. Other factors, such as socioeconomic background, parents’ attitudes towards education, and so on, affect student achievement.

Second of all, gender is a cultural construct. A recent study shows that there are strikingly few differences between the hardwiring of girls’ brains and that of boys’ brains. What makes a boy a boy and a girl a girl is the culture. I fear that same-sex schools would simply reinforce the dominant hegemonic definitions of gender. Not much is mentioned as to the staffing of these all-boy schools, but it might be not too much to assume that they would seek out male teachers. The problem with this is that again things are reduced. Put boys with male teachers and boys will do better. Things are reduced because male teachers are seen as a homogenous group. Not all male teachers are alike. Seeing male teachers as the solution to boys’ underachievement is fallacious in its reductionism.

The same article mentioned above, does conclude that there some between the genders.
"This idea that boys and girls learn differently is misleading. They clearly havedifferent interests and somewhat different needs as far as physical movement. But the idea that the process of learning how to read or do arithmetic is fundamentally different for boys and girls is wrong and probably even dangerous."
Moreover, "Knowing that children tend to play to their strengths, I think what we can do as parents and teachers is provide the cross-training that will benefit them later on. Learning is so cumulative; everything we know about the brain says the earlier you start the more successful you will be." So a broad range of teaching strategies will benefit all learners.

Bottom line: What is needed are good teachers, regardless of gender, ethnicity, orientation, and so on.

Just a few concluding thoughts.

I am not saying that I want anyone to underachieve, but I have to ask why shouldn’t girls do better than boys? Is it really a bad thing? Is it just a matter of our patriarchic society to keep the boys on top? Who says that boys need to be on top anyway? It might be more important to ask who is to say that there needs to be a top?

2 comments:

  1. Does there need to be a top??!?!

    In our society of course there needs to be a top, otherwise there will be no one below you and that is all that matters to most people in this society. The more people below you in status, monetary achievement, grade achievement... etc, the better you are!!!

    I wonder if things had been different early on if these statistics we are finding now (girls achieving better than boys) would be the same. What I mean by this is, say that women were suppose to do the hard labour, be the strong ones and all the "manly" work you can think of. Would women still be achieving better than men in the classroom? Or is this more about the fundamental concept of school that has somehow been put into boys brains. The concept being that they don't need school as much as girls, because they are better. I honestly don't think many men think that way anymore, or that they know they think that way but if they do think that way, then they are the biggest idiot I know. But I think maybe subconsciously it is ingrained that school is not as important.

    If there is no proof that our bodies are structurally that different then why is it that girls are achieving better? Is it really that the education system is set up more biased towards females? Is that possible? I mean, boys, girls we all have different learning styles, not all girls are auditory learners...

    As for this all boy school, I think it is a horrible idea. I can see this impacting their social skills completely! How to interact with a girl (especially one of interest) is completely different than a guy. Can you imagine what the social norms in that school would be compared to a 2 sex school or an all girls school? It would be ridiculous to see.

    I don't think separating the sexes so that one can achieve better is a good idea at all. Nice work David, you really raised some good points. Nice presentation as well... mostly the dress, just kidding :)

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  2. It concerns me a little Brandie that you feel there needs to be hierarchy. I don't disagree that people are motivated by the need to be than the next person. But why is that? Why doesn't a B have the same value as an A? What if that student, who received a B, had up until then, only scored Ds. And what if the person who received the A always receives As? I think there might be more value in that B than that A.

    Assuming that there needs to be hierarchy also concerns me because, it seems that you accept hierarchy as normal. Taking a conflict theorist/feminist stance, I would like you to question why it is that males tend to be the dominant gender. Is this the way it should be? Is there really anything that determines that the men should rule and that the women should follow? Is this way of thinking not just a result of being socialized in a patriarchal society?

    So this reasoning could also apply heirarchy in our society. What makes one person different from another? When it gets right down to things, we are all humans with inalienable human rights and we should all be valued equally (oh the dreamer in me is coming out). Even if an athlete is making a killing pushing around a puck or hurling a football, s/he should still be as valued as a person digging a ditch. So I am not necessarily asking for monetary equality (but I still don't see why the person who built the stadium doesn't receive the pay as the person who plays in the stadium or the person who serves drinks to the fans) but I asking for social equality. Every person should be valued and has a contribution to make. Again I am dreaming, but that is one of the reasons that I want to become a teacher. Every person has inalienable human rights and should be valued. One of those human rights is a right to education.

    Will an education level the playing field and topple our heirarchical society? Probably not. But you and I are not that different and we might benefit from recognizing it.

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