<p>As a girl with a highly 'spatial' brain, a girl who was frequently on the wrong side of primary and secondary school principals, people always say to me: "Oh, you must have been bored in school".</p>
<p>Honestly, I am not sure what sort of school, particularily secondary school would have suited my brain. I wasn't bored per say, but I couldn't behave in the normal spectrum. My mind was keen, I read voraciously but my mind and my will wouldn't come together for subjects that didn't interest me. I see the same issues with my boys.</p>
<p>Finally, when I was 20, my brain came into complete focus and I could easily absorb, retain and manipulate information about any subject. shortly thereafter, my ambition kicked in --and rose to the top of the group fairly easily. </p>
<p>In retrospect, no 8 hour per day high school was going to hold my interest.</p>
<p>I don't think the academics at a boys' schools are more fun or more interesting--though it does help if all the fiction has a military theme ;). Boys' high schools do less damage though. Mischieveious boys are sent to dig ditches for six hours on a Sunday--rather than to the psychiatrist. Cs are perfectly acceptable at a boys' school. A C in algebra won't keep you out of Calculus in a boys school. </p>
<p>The out of classroom atmosphere at a boys school is more fun for boys. In a boys' school, boys don't get caught up in the "She said this! She said that!" nonsense that girls engender. They maintain playground sports for a few more years without feeling like idiots. They wrestle and get up to stupid pranks, generally trying to find their place in the pack. </p>
<p>Many boys are pack animals. They are happiest in a functioning pack of boys. Says me.</p>
<p>My son has some personal observations about his middle school and hs experiences. He noticed in middle school that girls were treated differently from boys. For example, when it came to late homework assignments, he told me that if a boy who was notorious for turning in assignments late, forgot his assignment, the teacher would be cold and not understanding. When a girl who was known for following the rules and getting As made the same dreadful mistake, the same teacher would be kind and understanding. He found this to be a profound injustice.</p>
<p>He also feels that some teachers grade essays by the author, rather than using a fair grading sytem (rubric or not). He feels that the tendancy to do this, allows girls to be marked higher than boys because girls tend to have higher grades on writing assignments. He feels, for example, that if the teacher knows that a student usually receives Cs on writing assignments, then they will tend to grade a paper as a C, regardless of the quality of the piece that was turned in.</p>
<p>I am not saying that his perceptions are completely accurate, although I feel that there is some element of truth to his observations.</p>
You sound a little like Saul Kripke from my earilier link. Is it possible that a more involved type of program might have caught your interest at an earlier age?</p>
<p>Perhaps boys and girls would benefit from more hands-on learning. I know hands-on programs work well in learning science but maybe it has other applications as well.</p>
<p>I could have been happier in a better primary school--like the one my sons attended. But I have yet to see a high school--magnet, hands on or otherwise--that would have turned me into the kind of student I became as a 20 year old.</p>
<p>As a teenager, I had the willpower, the focus and the passion to systematically read my way through the Classics section at the library. But I loathed the structure of school at that age.</p>
<p>
[quote]
For example, when it came to late homework assignments, he told me that if a boy who was notorious for turning in assignments late, forgot his assignment, the teacher would be cold and not understanding. When a girl who was known for following the rules and getting As made the same dreadful mistake, the same teacher would be kind and understanding. He found this to be a profound injustice.
[/quote]
I don't see the injustice of this. The boy was notorious for turning assignments in late. The A girl, presumably was not. She was given the benefit of the doubt. I would assume that he had run out of excuses long ago.</p>
<p>I think this young man's experiences are in line with those observed by your son:</p>
<p>
[quote]
At Milton High School, girls outnumber boys by almost 2 to 1 on the honor roll. In Advanced Placement classes, almost 60 percent of the students are female.</p>
<p>It's not that girls are smarter than boys, said Doug Anglin, a 17-year-old senior at the high school.</p>
<p>Girls are outperforming boys because the school system favors them, said Anglin, who has filed a federal civil rights complaint contending that his school discriminates against boys.
<p>I recall that in my high school, we had much longer recesses than my sons did. As well, teachers came to our classes rather than we to theirs, so five minutes' interval between classes was used by the students to play while the teachers made their way to the different classes. In my sons' high shool, there was a 3-minute pass time during which students rushed from one floor to another, from one building to another. We also had a two hour break for lunch, instead of the 20minutes my sons had. I think our system worked much better for both boys and girls.</p>
<p>I find it odd that ten years ago we were wringing our hands that schools were toxic for girls. Remember Failing at Fairness? Now the pendulum seems to have turned. I don't think the schools have changed that much - in fact if anything I'd say the schools my boys went to were much more boy-friendly than what was typical when I was growing up.</p>
<p>mathmom, thanks for the perspective! Yes, in "Failing at Fairness", it was said that traditional classroom teaching marginalizes girls and favors boys because boys are willing to raise their hands and girls are not, because boys call out and girls do not, because teachers call on boys more than girls, etc.</p>
<p>The book mathmom may be referring to is: "Failing at Fairness: How Schools Cheat Girls":</p>
<p>
[quote]
The primary advantage of this book is that it unintentionally launched the recent wave of scholarly research investigating the education of boys. It is from this "second wave" of research that the focus on the gender gap in reading and writing, as well as ideas such as recruiting more male elementary teachers, including literature that engages boys, and encouraging movement and activity during teaching have developed.
<p>Historically, a renewed call to feminism always appears in this type of CC thread. As a radical feminist, I have questions about the so called "success" story for girls.</p>
<p>The National Merit scholarship still gives double weight to the verbal part of the PSAT in order to provide an even number of scholarships. Strictly scored, boys would take the majority of the finalist positions.</p>
<p>Whereas I was one of 25 females in a class of 80--a huge leap from the 2 out of 80 in the classes above me--do those numbers translate to professional successes for girls? In my profession, they do not. In law, they do not. In media, they do not. In politics, they do not. In science, they do not.</p>
<p>On the one hand, women are still bumping up against their own biology. They must reconcile their desire to raise children against their desire to nurture an aggressive stance. The two spirits are not compatible (which is why men do not gravitate towards primary school environments. Primary schools are natural love fests which abhor aggressiveness. Very frustrating for a grown, testosterone charged male). On the other hand, women are not trained to compete--without supervision. Our current system "You can't say you can't play" may be at fault?</p>
<p>My solution would be to encourage society to lighten up about the academic success of boys in high school. Wait for them to mature. Don't bar the door so early.</p>
<p>For girls, I would toughen the university environment and reward risk, efficiency, stoicism, aggressiveness and non-compliant behavior.</p>
<p>Marite, I am not saying that it was fair or unfair. I am just relaying my son's observations. He saw different treatment for "the same crime" as unjust. There seemed to be a difference in the treatment of an A student from an average student, the difference in treatment between a girl and a boy, and the difference in treatment between one who turns in most assignments on time, and the one who does not turn them in on time. They both were late handing in the same assignment, and he observed a difference in treatment between the two students by the same teacher. That memory has stayed with him.</p>
<p>I am just going by what you reported. I do not see anything unjust. A recidivist does not merit the same treatment as a first time offender, whether from teachers or from judges and juries. Sorry.</p>
<p>Don't get me started on the 20 minute lunch....grrrrr. That isn't even enough time to shovel in a sandwich without indigestion. In elementary school, this hurried, (albeit quiet) lunch, is followed by a ten minute recess. Total of 30 minutes to get to the lunchroom, unpack lunch, eat it, clean up table and go outside for a couple minutes. The hour lunch/recess is a luxury I'd like to see back again.</p>
<p>And hurry back to the classroom for what? More sitting and acting complacent, reading mind numbing texts.</p>
<p>I am not advocating out of control wild classrooms where kids are doing whatever they want. But I am not seeing the experiential classroom that MomofFour describes either. I see the sit up and shut up methodology, which I thought had gone out with June Cleaver.</p>
<p>It seems she is back in vogue in some circles too. I don't know that the return to rows of quiet children is simply coincidental (to the desire to return to the 50's) or not. It seems all connected.</p>
<p>DJR, Thank you for that post. I know that my son views treatment of boys and girls in a similar manner to the boy in that article. My son would not necessarily agree with this boy's ideas as to solutions. Actually, my son also always resented points being given for artwork. My son laughed in the middle school and early hs years, saying the girls were happy to sit and color all day.
He always said that teachers loved this, but that it was just a waste of time, and a good thing to do for those who don't want a life. Well, I guess this boy opened up the eyes of some educators. It is a shame that he felt a need to sue in order to try and improve the situation for boys in his school.</p>
<p>marite, I see your point of view, and I see my son's point of view. I also think that children view things differently than adults. Perhaps the teacher should have pointed out to the class that there is a different consequence for the same action b/c one is a repeat offender, and the other is an occasional, or first time offender, especially since the teacher was so open about her different treatment of the two students. That may have clarified "why" for all of the other students hearing this, or she should have been more discreet.</p>
<p>I had the exact opposite experience in middle school. "First time offenders" were usually made an example of (unless they cried), whereas teachers just shrugged off the chronic forgetfuls (usually boys).</p>
<p>Another course I would offer university women: "Have It All"--real life tips--economics, logistics, assessment, team building etc--laying out the various ways to combine a demanding profession with child rearing.</p>
<p>My son's 150 year old traditional boys' school has two two hour lunches per week--on the days when sport makes the school day run until 5:30. The other days have one hour lunch periods. Despite a fairly rigorous load, my son rarely brings work home. He gets it done at school. Teachers teach in a tutorial style, covering the new topic in the first ten minutes and leaving the boys to do the work during the rest of the class period. C</p>
<p>DRJ4: Well, this is America, of course there would be a lawsuit. </p>
<pre><code>Interesting story. What particularly struck me was the decorate-your-notebook assignment. While the boys are rolling their eyes, the girls already know what they're going to use. Same assignment for my son for a writing journal. He left it to the last minute and haphazardly glued a lot of pictures cut out of magazines on his; the girls tended to turn in works of art that must have taken hours. There was more than one assignment like this, involving artwork and giving presentations in costume and such. No wonder that out of 15 students acknowledged for freshman English awards at our high school, only four were boys.
</code></pre>
<p>Northeast: I understand your son's reaction. On that day, both assignments were late and to him, the boy and the girl should have been treated equally. It doesn't sound like your son was aware of any class policy that indicated first time lateness gets a free pass. Or a stated policy that the free pass goes to students who are generally good about turning assignments in and also get As. If, the first time the boy was late with an assignment, the teacher treated him with undertanding and let it pass, then she was justified in being harsher with him on the 10th time than with the girl on the first. But if she was just as rigid with him the first time, then no, she did not treat these students fairly.</p>
<p>How old was your son when he reported this? In my school, this kind of lesson was internalized pretty quickly without the teacher having to spell it out. In fact, repeat offenders were made, depending on the offense, to run ten laps around a very large courtyard or write I will not xxxx 100 times. There were not many repeat offenders.</p>