Are Women Teachers to Blame for Boys' Low Test Scores?
In "The Mind of Man" by David Thomas, the academic performances of both men and women are scrutinized. He quotes an old calypso song "Man Smart, Woman Smarter" (120). But is this true, and if it is true, why are women generally regarded as being smarter, especially in their primary and secondary education?
Dr. John Nicholson, author of "A Question of Sex", states that men and women are different in the types of mental tasks they perform (120). Times magazine states in an article published in January 1992, that "Males excel at rotating three-dimensional objects in their head. Females prove better at reading the emotions of people in photographs" (121). The author of the article is referring to the fact that maybe our brains are put together differently.
Girls and boys performances in school are much different. The girls get the high grades and the boys leave. Why? Is it just because their brains are different? David Thomas argues that there has to be other factors involved. It can't just be brain function. He suggests that the social aspect in these studies must also be looked at and considered.
He looks at how boys speak up more in class and girls remain quiet. He states society has often viewed a girl who speaks out as "hectoring and domineering" (121). He also points out that boys get punished more for their behavior. Tony Mooney wrote in the Independent on Sunday: "Women teachers find boys too noisy, too aggressive, too boisterous" (121). By this he means teachers favor girls over boys because boys are not acting like the girls. And the majority of primary school teachers are women. Mooneys own son remarked how the female teachers shouted at him more than the m...
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... but how do the students learn to respect and get along with one another when finally put together? It seemed to work for David Thomas, but even he states it could be different for anybody.
So there is not one answer to why boys perform lower than girls in certain areas. It is a combination of social, economic, and neurological factors. Even with this combination every student has a different experience and circumstance. I learned quickly not to base whether or not my child will get a good education based on a school and its reputation. For in every school there are good teachers and bad teachers (both male and female) and it all depends on which one you get.
Work Cited
Thomas, David. "The Mind of Man." The Presence of Others; Voices and Images That Call for Response. Ed. Andrea Lunsford and John Ruszkiewicz. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 120-124.
He discusses the differences between boys’ and girls’ behavior in academics, “girls suppress ambition, boys inflate it” (432). Kimmel believes that girls do better in some academic areas, and males do better in others. He provides a logical explanation for rising test scores of girls compared to boys. Kimmel states, “Girls are more likely to undervalue their abilities, especially in the more traditionally “masculine” educational arenas such as math and science. Only the most able and most secure girls take courses in those fields.
3. Konstam, Angus, David Rickman, and Giuseppe Rava. 2011. Pirate: the Golden Age. Oxford: Osprey Pub.
Brooks argues that male and female brains work and experience things differently. He suggests that this theory is also the reason as to why young girls are surpassing their male counterparts in school settings. He incorrectly assumes that by separating males and females, males will be allowed to break free from gender stereotypes. Brooks strengthens his argument with results of brain research on sex differences. But, Brook’s argument is unpersuasive. He categorizes all young males, and suggest that single sex-schools are the best solution for them. He wants to apply a black-and-white solution to something that is just not that simple. While Brooks uses comparisons and surveys to convince the reader, his argument simply does
It is no secret that boys and girls grow up hearing about all of their differences. In Hyde’s article, “The Gender Similarities Hypothesis”, she recognizes the frequency of psychological studies done to prove that males and females are very different. It is a common belief that males and females have more mental differences than similarities. As Hyde’s article explains, this seems to be untrue. In fact, it is the opposite that Hyde finds true. She claims that males and females are almost completely psychologically the same, with only a few differences. In her article, she compares meta-analyses of different functions such as math computation, special perception, helping behavior, and more. She found that the vast majority of these experiments showed small differences between the abilities of males versus those of
The assumption is that men and women are fundamentally different, that women are for example naturally more empathetic or emotionally-centered. In particular the belief she questions is that differences between the sexes can be easily explained by "natural" sex differences in the brain. One example of this that she lambasts involved researchers examining brain activity while men and women performed an emotion-matching test and subsequently taking the findings as concrete support for the idea that men are naturally more rational and women more emotional2. Brain activity during these tests was at least partially present in different regions of the brain depending on the sex of the participant, but the use of these minor differences to reverse inference a psychological state from brain activity is fundamentally flawed.3 Less activation in an area can actually mean that the connections have become more "streamlined" as expertise has increased and the activation of different regions of the brain is also highly context
A common belief at the time was that women did not have the same intellectual aptitude as men (Murray 176). Murray sets out to disprove the belief through the image of children; “Will it be said that the judgment of a male of two years old, is more sage than that of a female’s of the same age? I believe the reverse is generally observed to be true” (Murray 178). Murray makes her point. In general young children have the same intellectual level, regardless of gender. Therefore, why later in life are adult men smarter than adult women? Does age and time change aptitude and gifted ability? Continuing with her line of reasoning, Murray proposes that women are not as smart as men because they are not receiving an education; “Are we deficient in reason? We can only reason from what know, and if the opportunity of acquiring knowledge has been denied us, the inferiority of our sex cannot fairly be deduced from thence” (Murray 177-178). Murray suggests that an accurate scaling of mental prowess cannot be deduced because men and women do not have the same educational level; the very reason that women are being denied and education in the first place. Women’s education has become a paradox. Women cannot receive an education because they are not smart enough, but they are not smart enough because they are denied an education. Murray, having now established that women should have an education, then sets out to explain its
“Blacks, women, and the lower classes were seen as having more ancestral brains than white males and they were said to have brains more equivalent to those of white male children rather than white male adults; that is, they were not considered to reach a fully developed state of intellect” (Kaplan and Rogers 35). According to this quote, there is no such thing as a smart woman. Society expected women to have no great intelligence. This goes back to the idea why women can’t be scientist due to their lack of intelligence.
"The Mozart Project- Biography." The Mozart Project. mozartproject.org, 25, Apr 1998. Web. 22 Jun 2010. .
It is also important to consider the role of gender stereotyping, attitude and classroom behaviour, and consider how these affect the learning process. In this essay I will discuss the key issues and the reasons behind this underachievement, the ways these can be addressed at school level and the impact these have within the classroom. Boys and Literacy It is a common belief that historically girls perform better in English than boys. Past and present research support this theory as the table below illustrates.
The history of concussions in football brings up suspicions and questions about the safety of the sport. The number of devastating head injuries has been on the rise in little league football and desperately need to be addressed. A study from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that between 2001 and 2009, emergency room visits related to traumatic brain injuries from sports increased by 62 percent for those younger than 19 years. Of these numbers, boys 10 to 19 showing the highest rate of concussions (Smith, 2014). Many parents and coaches believe that because the children are so young that they are unable to get seriously hurt. However, studies show time and time again that this is not the case. Due to the
The National Football League is considered one of the most lucrative sports corporations in the world, with millions of people devoting their Sundays to nonstop action and the intense drama that is the NFL. But, what we don’t see as passionate sports fans is the trauma that our favorite players have to go through each and every play of every game. We watch as a player lies on the ground, but what we don’t notice is the pain that they are going through at that moment. According to Spinal Surgeon Michael Glieber, “Concussions are the most common injury in all levels of football.” Concussions can change an individual’s life in the blink of an eye, it’s not something you can take for granted. That’s why today I am analyzing the different views
As we all know the brain is one of the most amazing mysteries in the world; there is a lot to be discovered. This topic hits home for me because most of my life I have always wanted to know how is the brain any different between men and women.
It is a common phenomenon in coed schools that when an instructor asks a girl to answer a question in a science or math class, some boys always interrupt and answer that question correctly. Many girls at that moment may feel embarrassed, frightened, and even want to be invisible. In many cases, instructors do not punish the boys for their rude behaviors. As The learning environment and teachers’ attitude make girls feel pressure and decrease their Learning enthusiasm. As a result, girls and boys receive a different education even though they have the same class. In the U.S., the discrepancy in academic performance persists across gender. In order to close the gap and provide an equitable and quality education
Communication is an essential part of human life. People perceive things in a different way because of ethnic background differences, attitudes and beliefs, etc. These differences may affect our ability to communicate with our counterpart. Therefore, it is necessary to keep our mind open so that we can reduce the risk of communication breakdown. Men and women are different as everyone knows that. However, their differences are no just physiological and anatomical. Recent researches have concluded that there are remarkable differences between the two genders in the way their brains process information, language, emotion, cognition etc. Scientists have discovered the differences in the way men and women carry out mental functions like judging speed, estimating time, spatial visualization and positioning, mental calculation. Men and women are strikingly different not only in these tasks but also in the way their brains process language. This could account for the reason why there are overwhelmingly more male mathematicians, pilots, mechanical engineers, race car drivers and space scientists than females. On the other hand, there are areas in which women outperform men. Women are naturally endowed with better communication and verbal abilities. They are also effective than men in some of the tasks like emotional empathy, establishing human relations, carrying out pre-planned tasks and creative expressions (Kimura 1999).
Same sex classes make it possible for teachers to cater to student needs in a more efficient way. In general boys benefit from hands on learning, but girls benefit from calm discussions (Mullins 3). Girls tend to doubt themselves while boys think they can do anything. Boys need to be brought down from the clouds while girls need to be dug out of a hole (Mullins 3). David Chadwell says, "Structure and connection are two key concepts when examining gender in the classroom. All students certainly need both, but it seems that teachers need to consider the issue of structure more with boys and the issue of connection more with girls" (7), and Kristen Stanberry’s research has shown, "Some research indicates that girls learn better when classroom temperature is warm, while boys perform better in cooler classrooms. If that's true, then the temperature in a single-sex classroom could be set to optimize the learning of either male or female students" (1). These observations further support the idea that same sex classrooms can cater to student’s...