Teaching Girls and Boys Differently
While the debate continues on psychological sex differences (discussed on PsyBlog here and here), a doctor and psychologist, Leonard Sax, argues that boys and girls should be educated differently.
Diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are on the rise, most notably amongst boys - something Dr Sax partly ascribes to an approach to child-rearing that is 'gender-neutral'. Perhaps by wilfully ignoring the differences between boys and girls we are not educating them as well as we could be.
There is gathering evidence that, on average, boys and girls process all sorts of stimuli in quite different ways. There is evidence for hemispheric differences, with male brains being more compartmentalised, female brains better integrated.
Perhaps as a result, girls are better at interpreting facial expressions and talking about emotions. Boys, on the other hand, take more risks, are more likely to over-estimate their own ability and are generally more attracted to violence and conflict.
Apart from that, boys and girls' learning styles are different, with girls tending to ask for help while boys use the teacher as a last resort. Similarly, the two sexes respond to different motivational techniques - boys responding much better to time-constrained tasks and pressure situations than girls.
Dr Sax also points out that attributing the differences between boys and girls to the idea that girls mature quicker than boys is too simplistic. Certainly linguistic abilities develop more quickly in girls, but it is the spatial abilities that develop more quickly in boys.
This not a strong enough argument for single-sex education (not something it seems Dr Sax is advocating), but certainly these are differences that need to be understood by educators. Acceptance of these findings is particularly important in a society where to talk about the average psychological differences between boys and girls can be extremely controversial.
Zenit (Article on Dr Sax)
Dr Leonard Sax's website
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Fascinating entry.
I teach both of the low-ability, Year 9 French classes at my school. In both classes, there are several statemented or "school action plus" students.
One class has 16 boys and no girls. The other has 10 boys and 6 girls. The former has been the biggest challenge of my NQT year. The latter is much like any other class - some ups and some downs.
I am 100% sure that the all-male class has been the challenge it has because of the lack of girls. Girls tend, as you say, to ask for help more readily and also tend to be the peacemakers. The all-male class is very rowdy and does not have the tempering influence of girls. There is also the added challenge of me being a young, inexperienced, female teacher!
Neither class has outperformed the other, but the atmosphere in the mixed class has been much calmer and more conducive to learning!
Thanks again for the entry.
There should be no question for anyone who has taught one or more years that boys and girls learn differently. Unfortunately, to say so is sometime conceived as political incorrectness.
However, one thing we must keep in mind is that the differences between boys and girls is not as great as the differences among each group. There are always boys who exhibit girls' learning preferences and vice versa. For this reason, single gender classes and schools miss the mark. Further, they error in the notion that all one must do is separate the genders--nothing else changes int he delivery of instruction.
No, the solution lies more in educating educators (and students, and parents) of the differences in the genders and then to teach appropriately to recognize the differences.
Dr Kommer, yes, I recently posted on the psychological similarities between males and females.