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<p>I’m not CPU, but the common thread of thought amongst our generation (or at least the liberal, socially conscious individuals) is that this dichotomy is bad for everyone. Boys who don’t conform to gender roles are teased and made fun of, and girls that tend to be tom boys are similarly hurt. It also pushes heteronormativity as a principle which also is detrimental. I’m not too into SJ (my friends can explain better than me), but if you google, it’s pretty easy to find.</p>
<p>So tell nature that she got it wrong with the different hormones, genitals, brains, development timelines, etc. you liberal folks can pretend whatever you want, but real children live in a world with things like facts and biology and anatomy. Boys and girls are different and you should feel free to tear at your hair and gnash your teeth but it will still be true. Neither is better, but neither is less, either. It is such a shame that some schools of thought are so terrified of diversity. The mosaic is such a beautiful thing. Open your mind and your heart to differences. Forced Conformity serves no one.</p>
<p>Your post is full of generalizations and there really is no point in continuing a discussion in this vein. However, I don’t think anyone here has made the case for pushing ‘conformity’ and ‘ignoring differences’. I think the fact, or rather hypothesis that males view school as an inherently feminine object and the fact that is ‘feminine’ the reason why its not good would be a problem.</p>
<p>I’m liberal and socially conscious, but I’d like to hear some boys talk about how they felt about school and the projects.</p>
<p>I found quite a bit of it tedious, and if anyone wants to act as if these projects are actually hands on, what they ought to do is go on back in the scene rooms and watch the kids with the power tools making scenery for the theater. That’s hands on. Not posterboards.</p>
<p>Boys do fine with powerpoint presentations from what I’ve seen. It’s the tedious, stuff, the time wasters, the sit still for a long time for no real reason things. Go on up to the technical drawing classes and watch the boys draw and letter the designs. Perfect, clean precision. </p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>It’s the point. I don’t see why this has to be a bad thing about boys. Why can’t it be a good thing about girls AND a good thing about boys, too. They really ARE different. Thank god.</p>
<p>Ecouter11, it is your post that was full of generalizations and group think. Also silly. That is why I was poking fun at it.</p>
<p>Proudpatriot can you give examples of existing school rules that a woman would make but a man wouldn’t? That a man would need to “balance” because it only makes sense to a woman? Just curious.<<<<<<</p>
<p>I saw big differences at my kids catholic schools. Female principals would get their panties in a bunch over socks length, while the males didn’t care. Women can get bogged down over minutia, which can interfere with Big picture vision.</p>
<p>My daughter is a new teacher. She does special Ed and its all about differentiation and learning styles. I think that is a great thing because different learning styles transcend but also include both genders. Some kids are artistic, some not. Some kids are visual, some auditory learners. My issue with the slant toward traditional female learning styles not only leaves out boys, it leaves out other girls, as well. It is all about conforming to a very narrow range of acceptable, which is no good at all.</p>
<p>The best principals any of my kids ever had were women. I think that was because they became principals at a time when that was less common and they had to deal with no preconceptions. They blazed their very own paths which was great for their students and colleagues.</p>
<p>Yep, it’s a system. </p>
<p>I don’t know why we are really arguing about it. It’s not like it’s working all that well just because it’s working “better” for the girls. How do we know it’s the best thing for the girls, either?</p>
<p>All we know, for sure, is that our schools are less effective than they used to be.</p>
<p>Well, poetgrl, if you are going to get to the heart of the matter so quickly, you are going to kill all our fun.</p>
<p>:p …</p>
<p><~
o tell nature that she got it wrong with the different hormones, genitals, brains, development timelines, etc. you liberal folks can pretend whatever you want, but real children live in a world with things like facts and biology and anatomy. Boys and girls are different and you should feel free to tear at your hair and gnash your teeth but it will still be true. Neither is better, but neither is less, either. It is such a shame that some schools of thought are so terrified of diversity. The mosaic is such a beautiful thing. Open your mind and your heart to differences. Forced Conformity serves no one.
~<<</p>
<p>Right</p>
<p>Males and females are not the same except for genitalia. If they were, we’d all be bisexual.</p>
<p>Except there are many studies out there that suggest that sexuality exists on a * spectrum *. </p>
<p>And [What</a> is heteronormativity? | GEA ? Gender and Education Association](<a href=“http://www.genderandeducation.com/issues/what-is-heteronormativity/]What”>http://www.genderandeducation.com/issues/what-is-heteronormativity/) the idea that heteronormativity exists and is a product of strict gender roles is also valid. </p>
<p>And there are studies that suggest gender roles are responsible for lots of violence. [What</a> Accounts for Men?s Hostile Attitudes Toward Women? The Influence of Hegemonic Male Role Norms and Masculine Gender Role Stress](<a href=“http://vaw.sagepub.com/content/17/5/568]What”>http://vaw.sagepub.com/content/17/5/568)</p>
<p>Look, I don’t agree with the idea that socialization is everything - there obviously are some biological differences (testosterone production, whatever) but I think socialization does play a significant role in development and I strongly believe that even now, being too ‘masculine’ or too ‘feminine’ for your respective gender is considered a problem in some circles. </p>
<p>If boys don’t like to go to school * solely * because society says it’s a ‘girl thing’, that implicitly suggests that there is a problem with being feminine and a boy. If there are logical reasons, like an abundance of projects (no, I, a female did not enjoy filming a trailer about Hamlet) or lack of free movement (this is a universal issue), that is a whole different point altogether. </p>
<p>I don’t really care to discuss this set of ideas here and so I will refrain from speaking any further on the subject. And my apologies for not recognizing that you were attempting to be sardonic - I have difficulty discerning sarcasm over the internet.</p>
<hr>
<p>Anyway, I think that people should be put into grades based on maturity, not age. We already kind of do this for classes, with accelerated math (my US elementary school began this in grade 3), why not go all the way? </p>
<p>I think teachers should provide options with projects. I go to a specialized school where everyone has some particular talent or the other. For some kids that are astonishingly creative, the teacher suggests visual projects. For instance, in my AP Literature class, a (male) student made chain mail and he and his partners acted out Beowulf. My group, which was decidedly less creative, selected two works of art relating to the time and wrote a detailed analysis identifying allusions to the bible and larger stories and whatnot. We also had a fair share of in-class papers and tests, too. </p>
<p>I think there should certainly be more free time. Middle school was absolutely the worst time because we didn’t get ‘free periods’ to relax, go off campus, hang out in the library but were instead forced to go to study halls and survive on a 28 minute lunch time. </p>
<p>I also want to reiterate my early point about heavy sports culture. I went to a school district that was quite wealthy and I think anyone who visited for a second would be able to tell that it’s much, much easier to be a ‘smart girl’ than a ‘smart guy’, at least up to high school. I think basically all the girls read a lot and carried (novel) books around throughout the day, so no matter who you were, you wouldn’t get ostracized for being smart. On the other hand, most of the guys who were actively interested in reading, doing well had fewer friends and were more isolated. It seems so silly now since HS is where everyone wants to be ‘intellectual’ but it was really like that. </p>
<p>I am not sure why boys prefer to be sports stars, precisely but a lot of literature that is marketed to this group tends to be sports heavy. Mike Lupica, I remember was very popular ([Amazon.com:</a> Mike Lupica: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Mike-Lupica/e/B001HD351U]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Mike-Lupica/e/B001HD351U) ).</p>
<p>@CPU,</p>
<p>There’s nothing wrong w arts & crafts. But there is something very wrong w one’s math grade being based on arts & crafts math projects. </p>
<p>In S1’s coed middle school, he was in the accelerated math track. He had to do a project every semester in math class w a grading scheme that was partly based on artistic presentation of the project. These projects were then displayed during parent-teacher conference time to impress the parents. When S1 continued on to a selective high school, he performed poorly on the school’s math placement test, despite having garnered A+'s in his accelerated middle school math class. The new school made him retake an entire year of math.</p>
<p>Wow, I leave for a while and now people are talking about a completely different topic. I need to catch up!</p>
<p>But back to the original article, I’ve been thinking about the results of this survey all day: </p>
<p>Quote: </p>
<p>"The underinvestment in education by adolescent boys and young men stems in part from out-of-date masculine stereotypes. Such things as a strong attachment to school, a feeling of closeness to teachers, an excessive interest in high academic achievement or a fondness for art or music are viewed by many young men as unmasculine.</p>
<p>In a recent survey of American 15-year-olds, 73% of adolescent girls expected to work in managerial, professional or higher technical jobs, versus only 53% of the boys. Boys were much more likely than girls (9% as opposed to 2%) to expect to make their living as athletes or work in other sports jobs or as musicians. Too many boys expected to be military officers, police officers or firefighters relative to demand, and boys were more likely to respond vaguely or not at all to the question of the job they expected to have at age 30.</p>
<p>Overconfidence leads to unrealistic career expectations and poor planning. In the same survey, remarkably few boys expected to be working in the lower-level production or service occupations, even though nearly half of their fathers held such jobs. Unfortunately, boys’ rejection of “bad jobs” did not mean they had made plans to enter skilled occupations that require higher levels of schooling.</p>
<p>Relative to women, young men also have unrealistically high expectations of financial success. A pre-recession Gallup poll found that an astonishing 58% of 18- to 29-year-old young men thought it was “somewhat” or “very” likely that they would someday be rich.</p>
<p>For many boys and young men, the changing world is a conundrum. They want better jobs than their fathers have, but their attitudes toward school and work are misaligned with the opportunities and requirements in today’s labor market. Many boys seem to think they will be successful career-wise and financially without having any idea about how they’ll achieve that success.</p>
<p>This misalignment is made worse in the U.S. by a lack of clear links between academic courses of study and the skilled, well-paying jobs that actually exist in the labor market. "</p>
<p>End quote</p>
<p>As I said before, this is also what I have seen with male college students who are thinking of dropping out because their grandfather had a HS diploma, and lived pretty well. </p>
<p>Besides the proposals others have made, I think being forthcoming with boys and young men about the importance of having a career plan B in case they don’t make the NFL is an important step. Or something like that.</p>
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<p>I think this is an important point. A better educational model for boys might be one in which they “do” something with the knowledge they are learning, or conversely learn the knowledge by doing something. The listen-study-regurgitate model may not provide an obvious enough purpose for boys. In my experience, girls will do well in school simply for the sake of doing well and being rewarded with a good grade or compliment. If a subject does not interest a boy, he sees no point in spending time on it. The relevance and practical utility of some subjects should be made more clear to him through doing something.</p>
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<p>I’m not so sure that we do know that. There’s been lots of data gathered over the years that demonstrate the errors causing this common perception.</p>
<p>[David</a> Berliner: The Manufactured Crisis Revisited | School Leadership Briefing](<a href=“schoolbriefing.com”>schoolbriefing.com)</p>
<p>I am not saying that we do not need to improve our education system, but that we need to recognize that we are trying to bring a greater percentage of students with differing educational needs to a higher level of academic achievement than ever before. It shouldn’t be surprising that doing this may require more resources and different approaches than we used in the past when we were not trying to ready every student for a college education.</p>
<p>I think that’s a good point, MD.</p>
<p>When I think back to school when I was growing up, I think kids have a lot MORE time out of the classroom and out of their seats now than back in my elementary and middle school. We did have recess, but we only left the classroom once a week for thirty minutes of gym, music, and the library respectively. My kids were out of the regular classroom at least a couple of times a day for art, music, foreign language, library, computer lab, and gym. They still have a recess after lunch in elementary school, too. And in the classroom it seems to me that they usually have more options “out of their seats” – reading corners where they can spend time, etc. that we didn’t have.</p>
<p>I just feel like there are a lot of excuses made about how somehow today’s schools are less “boy friendly” because kids have to sit still and learn. But I think they don’t have to sit still and learn as long as we did when I was a kid in my regular midwestern public school. Also… I can recall one male teacher in my elementary school, the rest were all women. Someone would have to prove to me that education is more female dominated now than it was 40 years ago, because I don’t believe it. When I was in school in the 60s, my parents still said the only jobs women could/should really have were teachers, secretaries, and nurses. Now that women have so many other choices and men are more accepted in the teaching profession, I don’t buy that the ratios are any worse than they have been historically.</p>
<p>I am going to be as blunt as proudpatriot. In the past 30 years girls and women have finally been given similar opportunities academically and in the workplace as men. Prior to that women were assumed to be intellectually inferior and given far fewer opportunities. I don’t think this is so much about the decline of boys as it is about giving girls an equal shot – and they are proving their ability in both the classroom and the workplace to perform better than the average boy. It would have happened 100 years ago or any time earlier in history if women had just been given the same opportunities as men at that time. </p>
<p>I certainly would like to see boys perform better in the classroom as a group. It is not good for our society to have men feel like they are not successful, that is for sure. And not good for our young women to carry so much of the burden of both career and family roles without a strong partner who can do the same. But these theories about how somehow things have tilted against boys due to changes in our academic system don’t wash with me. I always think of the title of Fareed Zakaria’s book, “The Rise of the Rest” – although he is not talking about gender differences, I think the same concept applies. The rise of women in the classroom and the workplace has essentially left boys and men behind. They may not be any worse at classroom performance than they were 40 years ago. But girls have gotten a whole lot better.</p>
<p>I don’t think academics are seen as a feminine thing as much as it is that it seen that males who are academically inclined are nerds and can’t be popular/pull girls.</p>
<p>Are you sure it’s with girls they can’t be popular and not with other boys? I think this is a male pressure.</p>
<p>Intparent, I will agree with your points, as long as you toss in the invention of the B/C pill.</p>