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Boys don't read unless it is gory?
Posts
:^:
Also, again, intra-sex variation is important to keep in mind. A lot of boys would not be well-served by postponing literature (including, for example, Sam, jeepguy, and me -- just on this page). Even if we were outside the norm, why should we be fitted to your procrustean bed?
Somebody doesn't love Raymond.
Lets see, my questions were rather general. Still are, actually. I asked a simple question regarding that quote, and got railed for it. (Note: I'm not the one the brought the quote in.) (I'll confess I made light of the fact that children should be taught not to use excuses and exploit each others weaknesses... I still contend that is a whole lot easier said than done.)
Opting for advanced courses is also optional. Good luck if you don't "qualify" based on early behavior, though. Since the early behavior starts at a very early age, this quickly discourages many from thinking they can be any good at certain subjects.
Also.... I wasn't trying to argue for completely separate schooling. I see that seems to be the implication, so apologies on that. Though, to think that people are not excluded from sports or subjects due to ability is a bit naive. I know I was not allowed to try out due to my physique for many sports. I was also kept from trying to do advanced classes because I didn't do too well at them at an early age. Is this not virtually the same thing?
When did I say it was impossible? I was just arguing towards the difficulty of it. As much as I do like the "more discipline" argument, that is not one I'm ready to take to all of the working parents out there. Some of them are already in over their heads, more discipline sounds nice, but so would other forms of help. If a study can help teachers become better at teaching, I'm all for it. (Again, if it wasn't clear, that was how I was taking that quote.) Further, I know this did not work on me. (Below I explain how simply having the topics reintroduced a little later worked wonders for me.)
Also, any thoughts on the rearing comment? Is that completely off?
Huh? I thought the whole point of what we were talking about was the lack of "late bloomers" in some subjects is that by the time they are receptive to the teachings, the teachers (worse, society) have given up. If that is not the topic..... why not? Has this been disproved? (Again, I see confusion from the fact that I don't care for completely separate schooling. I agree that "separate but equal" is not ideal and I can more easily see why you'd make the parallel to race issues. This was not what I was aiming for with acknowledging differences in teaching. Would seem to me that the best way is to find ways to reintroduce topics at a later date to see who picks it up more easily the second time. Then to find a way to fast track them back into the advanced courses. This gives you the ease of not having to directly change all teaching, and still gets the reintroduction later.)
The brain is just a physical difference, was what I was getting at. I've seen the quotes saying that "Its been charted that the genders process certain tasks using different areas of the brain", but I have never seen "but that the end results of the different processes are pretty much identical, and speed differences are minor and quickly eliminated by task repetition..." Instead, what I did see was that the differences are most pronounced in children, and quickly disappear as people grow. So, from what you've said, their may be differences, but further stressing of teaching techniques at the same age will erase the differences? Isn't this still just a way of saying they should be taught differently? (I suppose that matters more on how "quickly eliminated by task repetition" the differences are.)
I should note, the topic I'm describing applies directly to me and many I went to school with. For some reason, speech and reading came very late to me. Thankfully, in later grade school classes (Not so late, I should add, around 3rd and 4th grade), I was placed in a "speech therapy" class where I had a wonderful teacher that helped reintroduce me to speaking and reading. I give a lot of credit to her for my present abilities in many topics.
I should also stress, I do not think "girls are dumb". Nor do I think "boys suck at reading." That was the entire reason I posted this thread, as I thought it was ridiculous.
ps. Tried trimming my post to be much smaller. Apologies if it reads poorly due to missing transitions and such... I think I replaced them all appropriately. (Mainly removed parts about googling when I didn't know what/who to google and such as most of those were provided in this latest post.)
Both are true. *shiver*
I, like any red-blooded nerd, read a shitload of Goosebumps, but they weren't really gory. Heck, there are only a few where there are deaths. The first book in particular, where they wipe out a town of dead people. So they we're already dead.
God I hated analyzing books in class. I remember avoiding books I had an interest in when we had the luxury of a list just so I wouldn't have them destroyed for me. This was probably for the best, as this meant I was picking weird books like English Patient, instead of the 20 other people who read and gave oral presentations on Life of Pi. Literally 14 presentations on it. The only one that made me want to actually read a book outside of class was one on Headhunter by Timothy Findley, which was disturbed in ways even the gore only accentuated. The worst example was probably Grade 8, where we analyzed "Where the Red Fern Grows" for 8 months. 8 months.
I need clarification from you on how teachers 'give up' on students or genders, how topics are 'reintroduced' to students in a mixed-proficiency environment without being detrimental to other students, how students can be 'fast-tracked' in a mixed-proficiency environment without being detrimental to any students, and what role and where 'advanced classes' fit into the current public schooling model that does not seem to employ merit-separated classes aside from the most basic concepts (in my junior high, there were four math classes and we were segregated based on the previous year's math performance -- however, all four classes had an identical curriculum and progression through it).
Additionally, suggest how teachers may 'teach differently.' I only need one example to be proven stupid, but it should also be an example that couldn't have arisen from something as simple as changing the teaching method to fall upon a different behavioral line (visual instead of writing, auditory instead of visual) unless that behavioral line can also be inextricably linked to a gender line whose differences between genders are greater than the intra-population variation.
Oh, and for extra credit, assert again that the self-deprecating idea of "I'm not going to try at math because girls are no good at math" is in no way, shape, or form dissimilar to the idea of "I'm going to say that the dog ate my homework." If the latter is the manifestation of the former, The Cat's ideas are the only way to broach the situation and if the latter is a separate thing than the former, and you remained adamant on it being 'almost impossible' to change, then The Cat's wanting to prevent the first train of thought still remains completely pertinent and valid.
Of course, you may opt instead to pick up the extra credit and say that those are just the same sentence with different words and there's no point trying to change it because kids will be kids!
Okay. You have your homework! Class dismissed!
I'm with you. I loved reading from a very young age. I too was obsessed with goosebumps around the grade 2 era. I remember reading heaps of the classics early high school and deciding to focus my VCE (last 2 years of high school) on english based subjects, only to end up hating them substantially, quitting literature and picking up accounting and business management. After getting awards for english in mid high school it ended up dragging my results down a lot, it was that far below the rest. I don't really know what the problem was, maybe its how the books are analysed and taught.
And kids, don't forget to do your reading. (taeric, I think that link is what you're looking for.)
All I can say, then, is that we had very different school experiences. We definitely had classes that you were, if not flat out prevented from taking, were highly discouraged from due to past performance.
If you never had anyone in your classes that was "just dumb at [topic]," than I don't know what to tell you. This was common in most things I've seen. And typically expectations were lower for certain students with regards to certain topics. In my schools, some of this was remedied by tutoring programs for the students. Others were dealt with by having topics go slower. Or by having shorter class terms such that it would be easier for people to move between them. (I confess, I was a huge fan of the quarter system.)
I do have to ask, what was the point of the 4 different math classes? If they were all identical, why have them separated?
I have no vested interest in proving you stupid. My "teach differently" proposal is simply one of extra persistence. Unfortunately, this is very very tough, as many teachers are incredibly dogged in many aspects.
What? I was saying that kids will look for advantages against each other. Parents should definitely not be encouraging the bullshit that girls suck at math. If I was supporting that, apologies. If you expect kids to play fair.... Good luck. (This is especially true if there are legitimate differences. If there are not, this gets clearly gets less worrisome.)
While I do wish we could make all children fair. To instill a sense of decency and respect in all of them. This does seem a lot harder than just finding better ways to teach them topics. That is to say, bullies exist. Trying to get rid of all of them seems a pipe dream to me. If you think it is possible, please show how. Saying "it should be so" is not making it sound like less of a pipe dream to me.
Also, we had four math classes because there were 120+ students at my grade level and we all needed to have a math class daily. Were you at a school where this didn't happen? My junior high class, in a town with a population of 30,000, was about 120 students: thusly, we had four separate math classes just so that it was manageable. Did you go to a smaller school without this problem?
Also, I consider bullies completely separate than kids who say I am a girl and girls suck at math and therefore I will not even try.
Please, please, do not keep ignoring that. Okay? Please do not keep equating kids who willingly give up or are underachievers with external pressure. Both exist. We fight both differently. You are denying, repeatedly, for four posts now, the idea that kids ever intentionally let themselves down and that we could somehow affect that.
Please stop doing that. I won't be glib or cute about it anymore. I'm just asking you to open your eyes, stop being so incredibly, willingly naive, and stop equating a kid consistently choosing to underperform (something statistically demonstrated, and referenced in the article just linked with 'stereotype threats') with the fact kids sometimes use excuses like 'the dog ate my homework.' It makes all of us look dumber.
I am not saying those are the same. What I said, is that I expect kids to say stupid shit like "I'm better at math than you are, because you are a girl." To think it won't happen is a pipe dream. Now, I fully agree that society should quickly educate people that this is not true. But I do not expect this to be gotten rid of in kids. They will probably make up advantages, so to think that education can remove them all in kids is still a pipe dream in my mind.
I honestly don't remember how many individual classes we had. Been a while. I do know that we had separate topics, though. I was taking geometry classes when others were basically retaking algebra. I was in calculus when others were in advanced algebra.
So do I. That is why I pointed out bullies. I apologize for portraying myself as thinking children should continue to think they suck at things because of their gender. That was not my point. My point was that other kids will keep telling them this whether it is true or not. If there is any basis of truth in it at younger ages, this will only be intensified.
I was not ignoring it. I had rather meant that as a point that I agree with.
That does look like a nice article. Though... there are a few points that have me laughing. "For instance, if we take an average measure of verbal fluency for men, about 50 percent of men will score higher that that mark, and about 60 percent of women will." For some reason, I find it funny that they have to point out what average means for the men.
Otherwise, if you have a scholarly search engine these should all pop up for you.
EDIT: I just tried scholar.google.com/, I am getting every article mentioned in its original publication just by entering the relevant details.
Otherwise, your thoughts tend to slip haphazardly around between several (hopefully) separate statements: for example, "Men are stronger than women" is only true insofar as it means "men are ON AVERAGE stronger than women." But, realistically, we're so used to thinking of men and women as totally different that it's easy to hear the first statement literally and try to reconcile it with reality by feeling that "Men [should be] stronger than women."
I saw the post for that article while I was writing the other post. So... I hadn't had a chance to read all of it, and I sure hadn't had a chance to find any. Most of the links I had looked at took me to other news papers. (Granted... I think I had only looked at two.)
Huh? I don't see what you are saying. I understand that on average I'm taller than most women. I don't get shocked when I see some that are taller than me. Same with Chinese people. On average, I basically tower over them. I feel no shame in expecting to be taller than someone if I hear they are Chinese. (Granted, I also do not get upset if I am not. Is this what you are trying to say?)
Maybe I should make my amusement clearer. I was amused that they had to say that they took the average score of men. They then had to point out that 50% of the men had higher scores. That is just amusing to me. It is akin to speaking of the ATM machine.
This thought experiment might work better if you were in fact uncommonly short, or had struggled with elementary-school math and been tutored by an older girl, or were perhaps an uncommonly tall women. In my experience it is always the people who fit in perfectly who claim not to see the normative pressures society attaches to averages, and I find this at least as frustrating as it is unsurprising.
edit: and, you know, what Oboro said.
You need a cite to know that boys think school is for girls?
The only time I ever encountered that mindset was in college, and in reference to Interior Design...which did happen to exclusively be populated by girls.
(And honestly, I am still only talking at implication, but the mentions of "calculus" and "advanced algebra" definitely do solidify in my mind the fact taeric is and was describing a high school.)
I think that if you are going to talk about high school anecdotes and high school situations and solutions, you really need to mention that because a lot of the biological postulates being discussed are happening years before students are entering that grade level and any action you undertake should -- in my opinion, at least -- follow different lines of cause, and find different solutions, for high school as opposed to grade school.
Um, yeah? I've never heard that one before.
I've never heard that sentiment outside of those foundry workers in Rudy, and I don't think you can construct an argument on that basis
Actually my high school was pretty diverse thanks to its size. My graduating class wasn't much under 1k and it was pretty diverse. Both ethnically and socioeconomically. It may not have been PS-118, but it wasn't New Trier either. Not that anecdotes are all that useful in the first place, though.
I was uncommonly short through most of school. I grew about 1 and a half feet over 2 years of high school. (Most over a summer, if I recall.) For elementary school, I was pulled out of advanced classes several times and placed back into the "normal" ones. As I had said, I had special "speaking classes." These were basically days I had to skip half of lunch to take an extra class with a specialist teacher. I recall getting help from anyone who would give it, male or female throughout. (I also somehow got mono in 6th grade, which one of my teachers did not believe at all. Led to some interesting fights between her and my mother/doctor. Her yelling I was lazy, and them yelling I was sick. Fun times.)
As for the numbers thing, I guess.... I still find it amusing. If they had wanted to press the point that there is only a 10% difference, make that point. Don't add unnecessary numbers to the mix.
I mixed them both. Apologies for any confusion that may have caused. I do recall starting in 4th grade we would have the classes separated into 3 classes for each subject. You had the two normal ones, and the one advanced. I recall this specifically, as I was pulled out of the advanced one year, and moved into it again the next. (We also had some sort of program where the "gifted" students were taken somewhere else. I wasn't a part of that, though I was later friends with all of the people that were.)
And we did have unique topics starting in 7th grade (that was when I had geometry and others had basic algebra again). At this point, though, most of the teachers already "knew" who the smart kids were. (Maybe this is just bias I have looking back at it?)
And none of this gets in the way of:
I mostly agree with you on this. So, apologies again for bringing middle and high school classes into this. That said, I remember quite a few students who didn't qualify for calculus in 11th grade that could have more than easily handled it.
In my high school, the remedial math track was the only one that didn't take AP/BC Calculus in junior year followed by discrete or linear algebra in senior year. In my junior high, algebra wasn't offered to anyone except the students accepted into the high school that I was -- because of this, 7 students were tutored in algebra for half of our lunch period every day so that we would meet the formal entry requirements. In grade school, we had two 30+ classes that were identical but for the teacher you had (which of course, meant they weren't identical).
Everyone who relates their experience will either reveal details that make it worthless as a tool of comparison or will omit those same details, whether by intention or accident. The only things that seem worthwhile to discuss are the generalizations some people want to see enacted (Sax), the studies (the linked article at Slate discussing them), or other things we believe to be axiomatic or believe should be enforced in an axiomatic way.
Even something as universal in this thread as the anecdotal sentiment that no one I knew had the opinion "school as for girls" probably can be discounted utterly in enough regions of this nation, let alone in the world, that the anecdotal verbiage is still useless.
I'm sorry you appear to live in a shithole. Many of us don't!
To add to the chorus of wtfs following your assertion, I've only ever seen this sentiment expressed by middle-aged opinion writers whining about 'the kids'. Usually, what they're doing is misinterpreting the fact that boys have a number of decently-paying opportunities that aren't yet culturally ok for girls (trade apprenticeships and the like) and that they frequently opt for those, choosing to spend less time in school in favour of avoiding debt and getting a nice income earlier in life. Which, come on, perfectly rational decision.
What they fail to note is that women also do that with industries like hairdressing, but that there really aren't any female-gendered jobs outside the beauty industry that aren't either unskilled retail or jobs that require college. So women with the means who don't want to work in a salon, and don't want to work at walmart, and don't want to be the only woman on the building site/ship/rig/mine and deal with all the stress that brings, they go to college. Its economics, not men sneering at knowing things.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3148375.stm
In the UK since 2000 and in every year thereafter in the top level UK 'high school' exam(the A-level) girls have done better than boys. And not just a bit better. Their overall pass(A-E) rate was 2% higher, and their rate of getting the top grades (A-C) was 7% higher.
Girls also took more than 12% more A-Level degrees in total than boys (indicating your average girl is much more likely to be engaged enough and pushed forward enough to do another course than a boy)
Here you can see how in 2007 the gap still exists, although it narrowed slightly from its current max in 2005 (this years results due out soon) The narrowing however is likely to be more to do with the closing of the results on such an incredibly high pass rate, not boys doing better comparatively.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6949084.stm
And a quote from that article
"Girls continued to outperform boys in every major subject except for modern foreign languages and further maths, though the gender gap again narrowed very slightly. "
So girls do better in every science, history, single award maths, geography, politics, latin, english, art, and so forth.
In this article you can see how the UK media tends to portray the "School results are out!" day, it usually is the front page story on most papers, and news websites. People tend to go with pictures of students celebrating...
http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2006/08/do_boys_even_take_alevels_thes.php
Ahh yes, but they always go with pictures of girls celebrating. Here is another commenter on the same issue, so you can believe this guy isn't some lone nutcase.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/aug/18/examschangingthepicture
The ideal girl today is smart, sexy and dedicated to her future. She doesn't have to be smart, it's true the media says being hot is more important (which is clearly wrong) but being smart does not prevent her from also being sexy. Our boy created by the media and such is dumb, skips out on school and knows learning isn't for him. All he enjoys is sex, drinking and sports. Should he enjoy learning he is obliged to be single, ugly and a loser.
In fact, this view is even supported by parents. Who are increasingly making girls their priority when it comes to a university education. Girls are also more likely to enjoy learning, and to aim to attend university and get a degree.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article1749964.ece
And a quick quote from that article
"Figures show that 47 per cent of women aged 30 and under had gone into higher education by 2004, compared with only 37 per cent of young men. Last year, 57 per cent of graduates with first-class degrees were women."
So admissions for girls are higher even in universities.
So, to summarize, boys...
i) Are less literate from an early age.
ii) Choose or are encouraged to do fewer exams.
iii) Perform worse in those exams they do do, except for a minor lead in Maths and German.
iv) On average have less desire to go to university.
v) Have lower expectations placed on them by their parents than those expected of their sisters.
vi) Are less likely to go to university.
vii) Receive fewer of the top degrees at university.
Enough citations for you? It is not girls nowadays with a problem in school, although clearly girls perhaps need to be reminded of this to avoid the "I'll never learn maths because I'm a girl!" effect. Girls receive more and better exam results, get more and better degrees, and have a greater expectation of success by society.
There are many arguments for why this is, a lack of male teachers, an excess of coursework, a move from Immediate Punishment/Long term reward to Immediate Reward/Long term punishment, lax discipline, portrayal of boys in the media and so on. However it is clear that it isn't girls with the problem today, it's boys.
I did look for the "Boys do better single sex" citation too, however in the end I decided it is impossible to untangle the results from the fact that single sex boys schools tend to be more expensive, have more male teachers and receive brighter boys since they are all private schools. However it is a commonly held opinion.
edit - Here we see the entire thing beautifully summed up in this picture and article in the Sun. Theo Walcott (Arsenal football star(Thankyou for the correction Evilbob)) receives news that his sexy and smart girlfriend has just got some decent A-Level passes. He conversely doesn't even know what an A-level is.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article264851.ece
edit2 - Look at this article...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article4488667.ece
Ignore the article itself, it's irrelavant. Look at the pictures for the related articles on the side and count up how many "Girls doing well and having fun learning" you see compared to boys. 10 girls, to 1 boy, and the boy is having the answer pointed out to him by the girl.
Ahh, oops, I see my mistake here. He does indeed play for Arsenal, although I don't think that is really very important to my argument
But 'footballers are stupid' is just a subset of 'men are stupid'. Footballers are successful people, they earn a lot of money and children view them as role models. By saying 'Footballers are stupid' you say to all the young boys who idolize them that school isn't important, and that if they are dumb and just bumble along then they will score with sexy smart girls.
I have quite literally never ever encountered this idea in all the insanity of gender stereotypes beforehand. "Footballers are stupid" has always, consistently, been used as the insult of the geek/nerd/etc. towards the idea that we all ran into in school which was that the "cool" kids were consistently the ones playing any one particular sport.
I refer you to my post #155 which was my response to the cat where I presented a huge number of statistics, opinion posts and news articles clearly backing the idea that both society and children believe that school is for girls and that results at all levels of academic achievement back this up. My posting of the Theo Walcott article w3as just to give an example of how a common male role model (Theo Walcott) is portrayed to be dimwitted and stupid, and yet this clearly is unimportant because look how hot and smart his girlfriend is and also he earns lots of cash etc