http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/meread_andhow.pdf

The nonsense-in my reading clinic from 1999 to 2005 I saw more boys in grade 3-10 that had never been taught than actual L.D. students that my clinic was supposed to serve.
In testing them,99.9 percent had weak phonemic awareness,not because they were dyslexic,because they were caught in the above and had never been taught how to read,spell and print…

A tremendous tragedy!!!!!

As a parent, I have personally experienced the gender bias of the educators. If my youngest was a boy, she would have been better off initially, but be worse off in the upper grades since educators have lower expectations concerning boys with reading difficulties.

A paper - The Truth About Boys and Girls - “Unfortunately, the current boy crisis hype and the
debate around it are based more on hopes and
fears than on evidence. This debate benefits neither
boys nor girls, while distracting attention from more
serious educational problems—such as large racial
and economic achievement gaps—and practical
ways to help both boys and girls succeed in school.”
http://www.cpec.ca.gov/CompleteReports/ExternalDocuments/ESO_BoysAndGirls.pdf

And then there is the biological and cognitive differences between boys and girls. “Although researchers have long agreed that girls have superior language abilities than boys, until now no one has clearly provided a biological basis that may account for their differences.
For the first time—and in unambiguous findings—researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Haifa show both that areas of the brain associated with language work harder in girls than in boys during language tasks, and that boys and girls rely on different parts of the brain when performing these tasks.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080303120346.htm

“Author Michael Gurian is the author of “The Minds of Boys”, which is an explanation of why boys are failing at school. He researched schools in 35 countries to find out why girls were outstripping boys. He believes the reason lies mainly with the learning differences of the two genders which are pre-determined by structural differences in the brain. Girls have a greater capacity for verbal skills, which encompass reading, writing and speaking, while boys have a natural advantage with spatial/mechanical skills. (Originally aired October 2006.)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXR5giU0gs4

Then there is the biases of teachers as this education article points out - “In a new study, researchers at the University of Georgia and Columbia University postulate that it’s because of their classroom behavior and approach to learning — which may lead teachers to give girls higher grades than boys.”
http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/01/05/why-girls-do-better-in-school/50050.html

The complexity in the number of variables driving the very real differences in achievement, is daunting and the research is still in the infancy stage on the biological and cognitive differences of boys. Its too bad, that the differences are often used as the excuses by the public education stakeholders, not to provide a well-rounded education for all students.

As Joanne pointed out, the students whether boys or girls have never been taught. Yet, the very same public education stakeholders, will used the research and advances being made, to advanced their latest pet project or education fad.

“Current gender theories enforce old stereotypes by claiming that the learning styles, brain development, motivation, cognitive and spatial abilities, and “natural” inclinations of girls and boys are so fundamentally different that they require unique styles of parenting and education.”
https://twu.ca/news/2013/016-pink-for-girls.html

The truth is the differences are so small, that do not require unique styles of parenting and education.

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

In say my last ten years I did find that girls seemed to take the whole thing a bit more seriously. I have always put this down to faster female maturity and ability to look down the road further and contemplate the consequences.

Many girls have finally dumped the Prince Charming myth and realized that they very well might need to make their own way in the world.

They seem to appreciate and understand the educational opportunity more.

Boys too Peter Pan refusal to grow up fixated on video games.

All of that said; class SES,  is a FAR greater divide in education than gender.

Response to Doug - from the dean of UBC - The Faculty of Education.

http://www.etfo.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/Publication Documents/Voice - School Year 2004-5/Winter 2005/Addressing_Boys_Achievement.pdf

Two video clips on boys’ achievement - the first one - ““It’s much more complicated than just ‘boys and girls’” – Blye Frank introduces the idea of celebrating gender differences. He also addresses the problem of having a ‘one-size fits’ all curriculum.”

The second one - “Blye Frank shares his thinking about boys and literacy. He discusses issues surrounding a boy-focused curriculum, girls’ learning, sexisms and male role models.”

Its interesting how Frank is brave enough to speak about the inequalities that arises from focusing on the differences, while leaving others out such as white boys and girls because they are part of the white privileged class. Frank does raise the bar, by going beyond to the public education system and its culture that ends up replicating many of the stereotypes with gender, My youngest was impacted by it in the early grades, where she was discouraged from playing with her blocks, puzzles and other spatial skills and encouraged to do more girl things such as playing house, and reading books that targeted girls.

The trouble with focusing on the low social-income students to solve achievement, it causes a whole lot of inequities at the higher social-income students. The students of low-income also received a double whammy of never reading about how the upper-income kids lived their lives. All they read about the poor kids, but they never really find out that the higher income kids have the same type of problems. My youngest who came home, out of breath, crying her eyes out, and waving her letter of final acceptance, crying, “I’m in”.

Its been a long road for the kid you wanted to become a scientist, since she was 9 years old. It took me back to the days when my youngest was forced to read books, stumbling over the words, and in the middle of it, tossing the book across the room - “What a stupid book!”.  I walked over to retrieved it, knowing my youngest would explained to me another version not based on reality, and on some stereotype and/or adult version of what should be. In her reality, smarter kids did not help her, they told her to keep quiet. In her world, girls would tease her because she was at the local pond, playing nice with the sea otters. In her world, teachers did not see her as being a budding engineer or even a scientist. The tears on her face today, was all of the above because she risen above the stereotypes and faux-realities imposed upon her, and did it on the terms imposed by the public education system’s criteria and standards for admittance to university.

My youngest did it where the public education system does not respect diversity and truly appreciate the neurodiversity of their students. Nor truly appreciate the biological and cognitive differences of boys and girls. I now wonder, would my youngest if she was born a boy, would be looking forward to university in the fall, given what I have read today.

Dr. Blye Frank has a lot to offered and ponder about. Its the complexity…...........

I forgot to include the video clips.

http://resources.curriculum.org/secretariat/snapshots/boys.html

Its important, it backs up my post.

Boys used to do as well as (or better than) girls in school, but now they’re doing much worse. A number of theories have been advanced to explain boys’ problems, but none of them is particularly convincing - mainly because little or nothing is ever mentioned that is true now but wasn’t true 50 years ago when there was no gender gap.

A theory that isn’t even being considered, however, is the change in the way children are being taught to read. In most North American schools 50 years ago, teachers used a mixture of Look Say and phonics - not the best way to teach beginning reading, but better than the current Balanced Literacy, which typically contains even less phonics instruction.

The reduction in phonics is obviously not the only factor in boy’s decline. However, it is well accepted that a student’s reading ability at the end of grade 1 is a powerful predictor of his or her academic achievement in high school and beyond. At a minimum, it would surely be a good idea to teach every child to read in grade 1.

Due to language differences, it is hard to draw conclusions from the fact that the size of the gender gap varies greatly from country to country. However, there is one English-speaking country where gender differences are smaller than in the rest of the English-speaking world – and that country is Scotland.

As late as 1992, there were no gender differences in the reading scores of Scottish eight-year-olds. At that time, Scottish children were reading well above grade level on average. The usual explanations don’t apply here, since the storybooks in Scottish schools contained the same proportion of masculine heroes, there were just as many female teachers, the Scottish curriculum was quite comparable, and Scottish boys are similarly made of snakes and snails and puppy dog tails.

However, there was one significant difference between North American and Scotland at that time: the way beginning reading was taught. Somehow, Scotland managed to escape the worst excesses of “progressive” teaching methods, retaining more
traditional and phonics-based instruction.

Even today, a few Scottish shires, like Clackmannanshire and West Dunbartonshire, have excellent phonics instruction and, in these shires, the boys are reading at least as well as the girls. In some categories, they are actually reading better than the
girls! Unfortunately, some progressive elements have gradually crept in to the rest of Scotland, and so now Scottish children are not reading as well as before and a slight gender gap has developed in reading.

When good phonics programs are introduced, there is always significant improvement in students’ reading. A typical experiment in Bristol, England tracked about 700 primary age children who were taught to read by means of an excellent phonics program. Although there were children with every sort of special need, including some in the severe and complex category, not one child was omitted from the results.

The average reading and spelling age for these 700 children was 15 months ahead of chronological age at the end of their reception year (when they were about five years, nine months old) but reading and spelling at the 7:00 year level.
• The boys did just as well as the girls.
• The younger children in the age group did as well as the older children.
• Socially-disadvantaged children did as well as advantaged children.
• Children whose first language was not English did as well as native English speakers.
• No child developed “dyslexia”, even though many came from “dyslexic” families where the older siblings had struggled to learn to read.

The children in the research project were followed through to the end of their primary education at age 11. The boys were reading as well as the girls, with both sexes reading better than other children in the same school board. Even more remarkable, the
boys were better writers than the girls!

Experiments like these prove that boys can become good readers if they receive proper instruction. Most if not all of the usual prescriptions for improving boys’ academic performance (male role models, masculinised books, all-boys schools, etc.) are difficult to implement and unlikely to yield major improvement, certainly not in the short term.

The introduction of systematic phonics instruction in kindergarten and grade 1, on the other hand, is easy to implement, inexpensive, and likely to yield major improvement almost immediately. At a minimum, systematic phonics should be included in the list of measures for improving boys’ academic achievement.

To add - mainly in UK where systematic phonics will appear in the classroom. However, on the other side and that is mainly the education stakeholders will begin to split hairs.

“Ministers fail comprehension test – cited evidence supporting synthetic phonics doesn’t actually do so.” - See more at: http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/09/ministers-fail-comprehension-test-cited-evidence-supporting-synthetic-phonics-doesnt-actually-do-so/#sthash.Ujrkixe9.dpuf

Its the same tactic being used in NA to prevent synthetic phonics entering the primary grades. You will find the same type of arguments being used for the whole language supporters. It almost seems and probably is a fact, that reading instruction is decided on the politics, rather then what is the best interest of children in learning to read. In fact, systematic phonics instruction studies have all shown, that it is far superior than all other reading instruction.

In a slide show - systematic synthetic phonics instruction is significantly more effective for children of low SES status, then any other phonics instruction.  The slide show, is about the pilot program called the Orton-Gillingham Pilot program for 2012-13 at the Indianapolis Public School.
http://www.slideshare.net/peavlerj/may-7-20832792

The evidence back up my research - two mountains tall, have given little sway to the public education ivory towers to trained the primary teachers and reading specialists in instruction and for remediation purposes. A school could be transformed within 5 years where all of the curriculum would need an overhaul so all students could achieved at their best potential.

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

Phonics or balanced literacy


http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/Reading_Wars.html

Doug brings us the link that connects the powerful lobby groups in Washington D.C. Its where reading instruction is decided on the political agendas of the teachers’ unions and the education stakeholders plus their associated organizations to wage war against systematic synthetic phonics. Easily done, when teachers do not have the training in the first place, and secondly to become a teacher, there is no requirement to be trained in reading instruction.

Below a 2012 article from Australia. “THE woeful results of Australian primary students in an international reading test are a disgrace. Our Year 4 students are ranked the lowest in reading skills of all the English-speaking countries tested in the first Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) of 325,000 students.

Australia came 27th of 48 countries tested, behind top scorers Hong Kong, Russia, Finland and Singapore, and also behind Northern Ireland, the US, Ireland, England, Canada and New Zealand.

One quarter of our students even failed to meet the minimum standard for their age group, despite being among the relatively most advantaged in terms of reading resources, home environment and the emphasis on early grades on reading skills.

In science and maths, our students are similarly languishing, at 25th and 18th place, respectively.

But it is not the fault of the students that they have performed poorly. Nor is it entirely the fault of their teachers. The fault lies with the progressive education ideology that has infected teacher training establishments and education departments in every state for 40 years.

Faced with more proof that their methods haven’t worked, education academics last week flocked on to the universities’ website, The Conversation, to declare that the PIRLS test is suspect, the results meaningless, and all that is needed is more taxpayer money.

That was the blindingly brilliant recommendation of the Gonski review, to pour $5 billion extra into schools for smaller class sizes and more specialist teachers. In other words, do more of the same that hasn’t worked.”
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/weve-failed-to-give-kids-education-they-need-to-give-kids-education-they-need-writes-miranda-devine/story-e6frezz0-1226537513129

The worse part, is that systematic synthetic phonics is very effective for countries where the main language is English. But no, the education establishment wants to do more of the same that has not worked and to replicated the dismal achievement outcomes being played out in today’s schools, as if we are all living in 1928, and not 2013.

Data from a large unbiased sample show that there are no significant differences between boys and girls in the incidence of reading difficulties. http://ldx.sagepub.com/content/38/5/473.short

More, there isn’t much difference in parent reporting of learning disabilities - except for ADHD where boys outnumber girls by a wide margin.  http://bsnpta.org/user/SEELS_disability_profile.pdf (page 11).

The increase in ADHD and the decline in boy’s performance seems to have both emerged in the last few decades.  I am not aware of anyone who has attempted to correlate them (would love to see some research).

There is an argument that television and computer games have hurt boy’s performance. Is that valid?  It it an alternate to Malkin’s suggestion about the decline of phonics?  Or one of many factors?

Personally,I feel there is something to it,the computer games that begin at such a young age and our boys seem to love them more than the girls,I have heard a lecture at an IDA conference that said it altered the frontal lobe thus increasing ADD problems in kids.

I don`t have time to provide a link at the moment but it is totally true that as many girls as boys have reading disability however,that is only 5 % of the population.

In students who struggle to learn to read when there is no L.D. or Dyslexia boys outnumber the girls as our dear EQAO has found out.The corpus callosum in girls is fleshier and more vascular and it allow girls to use both hemispheres of their brain more easily to learn language(why girls can sometimes multitask more easily than boys)even if the instruction is fuzzy they figure it out..Boys excel when finally getting the chance to learn their phonemes and learn explicitly how to read and spell.Girls actually do just as well with both methods because if we teach properly day one,we`re into whole language by grade 2 and enjoying the stories and vocabulary.
ADD-Did you read the research on how there is less of it in France as they are much more prone to discipline their children at a very young age:).
I know ADD is a neurobiological disorder but why is it now an epidemic?
My theory,it can and does present as anxiety in boys who don`t know how to read and spell and are trying to memorize their entire world.Empathy and instruction are needed instead of Ritalin etc…most of the time.I`ve worked with many boys who can`t read or struggle to do so,it`s no joke to be smart and stuck in that trap!

Here’s an excerpt from our archives. It is adapted from an article by Bonnie Macmillan (a Canadian) in England’s Times Educational Supplement, 1997, and I would be happy to provide a link or more information on request.

First, boys do mature at slower rates than girls. Australian research shows that young boys are eight months behind girls in their ability to remember some letters in a word. At the age of five, boys can remember on average only one letter in a word. Yet in England, boys of this age are expected to remember words such as “crocodile” or “slippers.”

In Scotland, where teaching focuses more on phonic-processing skills, boys are given the opportunity to process letters one at a time and to transfer visual information to auditory memory (an area where they are not at such a disadvantage). Thus their low visual memory skills become relatively unimportant.

Second, boys and girls do appear to use different areas of the brain when reading. Areas predominantly in the left hemisphere are activated in boys, whereas areas in both hemispheres are activated in girls. Evidence suggests that methods that encourage the use of pictures, word shape and word length as reading strategies (largely activating right-brain processes) put boys — who have all their eggs in one basket, so to speak — more at risk of failing to use the appropriate left-hemisphere skills.

Third, it would not be surprising if English boys behaved badly compared to Scottish boys. If a boy is fed a teaching diet heavy on guessing and the use of minimal phonic cues, when faced with a word such as “bark,” the two letters that he may be capable of
holding in visual memory are just the end letters b**k. Possible guesses will include book, beak, back, bake, buck and so on. If the boy is only 5, he will remember the initial ‘b’ at most, and the possible guesses become almost endless. Boys’ ensuing frustration and boredom could easily lead to lack of motivation and bad behaviour.

Boys and girls have the same teaching requirements when it comes to learning how to read. The reading achievement of all children can be enhanced with the appropriate instruction; without it, the reading progress of all children will be curbed. However, since
the factors described above may make boys more susceptible to developing reading problems than girls, it seems likely that the lack of appropriate instruction will take more of a toll on the boys.

ADHD = boys are bored out of their trees.  They need to be academically challenged in order for them to settle down.  (Poor kids in these non-learning environments.  What a waste of their time and taxpayers dollars!)

I remember in the late 50’s, early 60’s being lined up according to where we stood in a class academically.  Almost always boys stood first.  One year a girl stood first.  I was always somewhere in the middle .  Most of these kids were from very poor families and we all attended one of the poorest schools in windsor, Ontario.  We were kept busy every single day doing our math; spelling; reading; grammar; with art and music (in grade one we were taught to sing the solfege and by grade seven we played in a band); along with science, that had a fully equipped lab; social studies; gym; and we had a library class, with a stage to learn a little drama and dance as well.  The school, was for grades one—eight.  We could all read, and I remember that mostly the boys excelled, although there were some smart girls.  Perhaps because by nature boys are more aggressive, they generally did better academically.  Their aggression is what gets them diagnosed with ADHD nowadays.  I know my son was very aggressive, and if we hadn’t had him in schools in Asia during his first few years—where he was academically challanged—he would have been diagnosed with ADHD.  We were so lucky to have our kids start their schooling in Asia.  I remember one of his teachers telling me that there was nothing that she could give my son that he couldn’t do, and even in a strongly academic school, she had a hard time keeping up with him. 

The above is my take on what’s wrong today with boys.  When you see teachers in schools with very poor eqao scores (hovering around 10%) walking children to the park every morning, it’s obvious that they’re not teaching their charges.  The children suffer terribly from not learning, by being plagued with boredom (therefore diagnosed with ADHD) and later in life being unable to get a good job because their minds have been badly neglected.

Since the union has taken over our educational system, there is no direct instruction, no memory work, no spelling, grammar, phonics, no drill in math, almost no music, and many school buildings are falling apart.  It’s become way more expensive to educate children; yet they’re getting nothing, and especially boys are suffering.  Money is siphoned off for inflated salaries, benefits and gold-plated pensions, along with layered bureaucracy.  Besides it costing more to send a child to school, there are user fees (which we didn’t have).  What began (till the unions took over) as an exemplary system which was fair for all classes of people, has now become self-serving.  It’s rotten to the core and our children are suffering.

Part 1

The Neurobiology of Reading and Dyslexia
by Sally E. Shaywitz, M.D., and Bennett A. Shaywitz, M.D.
http://www.ncsall.net/index.html@id=278.html

“Good evidence based on sample surveys of randomly selected populations of children now indicate that dyslexia affects boys and girls equally (Figure 1); the long-held belief that only boys suffer from dyslexia reflected sampling bias in school-identified samples.”

The top reading, dyslexia researchers and other related fields agreed that reading difficulties found in any schools, should reflect no gender differences between boys and girls.

Dr. Mel Levine on Children of the Code
http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/levine.htm

Essentially, Dr. Levine main interests is it learning disability or learning difference, but his work has taken him to the schools, education practices, instruction methods and its culture that all aids in the long line-ups at his clinic, of kids that have been written off by the school system. The vast majority have reading difficulties.

It is worth the read, and near the end, “On the other hand, I saw a little girl in Harlem who was having a lot of trouble with expressive language in middle school. After we evaluated her and found that she was a really bright kid who had so many strengths, really good spatially, good socially, fantastic motorically, had all kinds of strengths in her profile but getting thoughts into language, particularly literate school kind of thoughts was really hard for this girl. Well, I met with the principal of the school, and I explained to him what her problem was. He leaned back in his chair and said, “Mel, that’s terrific. I’m glad you helped us with her.” He said, “But guess what?” I said, “What?” He said, “You just described seventy percent of the kids in this school.” And I said, “What are you doing about it?” He kind of shrugged his shoulders and I said, “Well, if I were you, I would just have a major campaign in this school emphasizing loads of oral presentations and we’re going to build those expressive language muscles. We’re not going to write these kids off and say they’re supposed to have expressive language problems.”  My type of guy, because the pubic education system makes it far too easy to write off children as not being academic material, and spends no time correcting the learning problems.

Louisa C. Moats - “In our haste to understand and address the new CCSS in English Language Arts, we must not lose sight of research-based practices, especially those most likely to benefit students who lack proficiency in language and who must be taught systematically how to read, write and speak”
http://aasaonline.mediasite.com/mediasite/Play/c70686d007f74391bc2bebe7c1ed8aea1d

While worth the 30 minutes of time, because it returns to the research of   Sally E. Shaywitz and Mel Levine, based on the science. In essence the public education system are writing off kids by the use of labels, improper education diagnoses based on subjective observations, and not enough objective testing to assessed where the difficulties lie. Reading difficulties run across a spectrum, no two kids are alike and it holds true for dyslexics. As Joanne stated in her last post - only 5 % of the student population should have reading difficulties, and yet well over 40 % of any classroom have various reading difficulties.

Part 2

Its so dispiriting combing through the research of the ivory towers of the public education system. Reading difficulties of students are seen through the window of the SES variables, that colours the educators perceptions that reading difficulties cannot be corrected, unless the SES variables are corrected first. Made even worse, for the dyslexic and LD students who are considered broken, and therefore prognosis - the children are not academic material, and will do less well. In fact, in the public education research, and was spoken verbally at the Supreme Court of Canada, that 50 % of children will never obtained average to above reading levels. Its a good thing that the nine Supreme Court Justices did not buy the 19th century argument.

Instead, educators at the moment are taking a whole lot of courses during the summer running on themes of motivation, parental/student engagement and a host of other teacher development courses on social justice. Meanwhile, the public education stakeholders ignore the biggest social injustice, and will fight tooth and nail…............On the Children of the Code -  http://www.childrenofthecode.org/Tour/c1/emotionaldanger.htm

Watch the clips of academic and emotional dangers. It ties in directly why boys do worse then girls, but it certainly shows throughout the public education system and its ivory towers, there is scant attention and learning by our educators on the science of reading, learning, biological and neuroscience. The latest findings on dyslexia, and one would be hard pressed to find a group of educators, let alone the Canadian education gurus discussing the advances in dyslexia and learning disabilities and how it could be applied to all students.

“Yale researchers unravel genetics of dyslexia and language impairment

A new study of the genetic origins of dyslexia and other learning disabilities could allow for earlier diagnoses and more successful interventions, according to researchers at Yale School of Medicine. Many students now are not diagnosed until high school, at which point treatments are less effective.

The study is published online and in the July print issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics. Senior author Jeffrey R. Gruen, M.D., professor of pediatrics, genetics, and investigative medicine at Yale, and colleagues analyzed data from more than 10,000 children born in 1991-1992 who were part of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) conducted by investigators at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom.”
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/yu-yru061313.php

On Learning Stewards - “In a recent keynote to the Georgia School Superintendents Association, I reviewed the poor (statistically insignificant to ambiguous) progress of the US DOE’s “Struggling Readers Grant” program. I went on to make the case that a big part of the problem was that teachers were ‘trained to implement’ reading programs without having a sufficiently granular, shared understanding of ‘what’s at stake’ and ‘what’s involved’ in learning to read. Absent sufficient “1st person understanding”, teachers: 1) don’t have the correct mental models to learn from their students’ responses and adaptively differentiate their instruction, 2) don’t have the shared understanding and vocabulary they need to learn together as a community.”
http://www.learningstewards.org/superintendents-do-you-lead-your-teachers-learning-or-do-you-train-them/

Food for thought…..............

Nancy,95% of reading problems ,except in the case of Dyslexia,are caused by flawed instruction.

This research has been frequently shown on this blog but we are discussing the difference in success in education between boys and girls and exploring why that difference exists.

I sense general agreement that girls and boys are equally intelligent.

There have been two hypotheses advanced about why boys, despite their equal intelligence, are doing much worse than girls in school (and, as a result, in the work place).

The first theory is the advent of computers and video games. The second theory is the way beginning readers are taught.

Would anyone like to comment further on either of these two theories? Would anyone like to suggest additional hypotheses on why boys aren’t doing so well?

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

Some have suggested that the whole structure of school, established way back for the sanity of overwhelmingly female teachers was to have both genders act like girls. Sit still and do what you are told. Some have tried to say that the whole thing does not fit boys who are much more active learners.

Where this theory falls apart is that all of this was also true in the 40s and 50s when boys dominated.

Whether one used phonics, phonemic awareness, blended literacy or whole language, most children learn to read and the system, good or bad ought to be evenly good and bad between the genders.

It still watch boys waste endless hours on “war style” video games of gruesome battles of survival.

My father always told me my spare time activities should

1) make me smarter (books educational TV, ...) OR

2) Make me fitter (sports exercise…..)  OR

3) Make me money ( paper route, save for school….)

If he could not fit into one of these areas it had to be severly limited (a stupid movie Saturday afternoon…Jerry Lewis)

Too many parents allow too many boys to waste too much time on line.

A World Bank report on Boys’ Underachievement in Education
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoysUnderachievement.pdf

While worth the read, because it has come full circle that is a combination of factors both inside the school and outside the school, creating a world wide phenomenon of girls outpacing boys.

Another British report - Boys Reading Commission 2012 - The historical aspect - ” During the 1970s and 1980s, a major concern in education in the UK and elsewhere was the
consistent underperformance of girls in maths and science. While these issues seem to have
been successfully addressed – girls’ performances in these subjects now matches and even
exceeds that of boys – concerns have now shifted to the underperformance of boys in reading
and English.
However, Gorard (2001) disputed the fact that boys have ever attained higher grades than girls
in compulsory education at any time over the past 25 years. Analysing the gaps in entry and
performance of school leavers obtaining five or more A* to C grades at GCSE or O level from
1974 to 1998, Gorard showed that a similar proportion of boys and girls achieved these grades
in the period 1974 to 1987, with girls performing marginally better than boys. The gap then
increased in favour of girls between 1987 and 1989, a period which coincided with the
introduction of the National Curriculum.”
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/assets/0001/4047/BRC-_Research_overview_-_Final.pdf

Another British report - “The ‘Raising Boys’ Achievement Project’ (RBA) was a four-year project (2000-2004) which focused on issues associated with the apparent differential academic achievement of boys and girls at key stage 2 and key stage 4 in schools in England. This report highlights some of the dilemmas which are implicit within the debate, explores different interpretations and perspectives about boys’ ‘under-achievement’, and challenges some common misconceptions.”
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/RR636.pdf

Its not as simple as video games versus reading instruction. My personal observations, being a parent for well over 35 years, the schools are not very kind to the cognitive processes of boys and some girls. Saying that, it was for me a difficult task finding toys and other educational items such as chemistry lab kits or a microscope because I had kids who like to build things, take things apart and look at the stars. When my youngest came along, who was a girl, she certainly had the talent from the beginning putting things together, and came in handy around the house. She always acted more like a boy, and now after 12 years of learning to advocate for my child, I have observed in the schools, far less learning using the spatial visualization ability or visual-spatial ability skills. To which it has been determined a long time ago, that men on average, are one standard deviation higher spatial quotient than women. Likewise, dyslexics are known to have very strong spatial skills, for both boys and girls.

As noted in the above reports, and other reports it has been suggested for schools to have more activities of the nature that brings out the spatial skills of boys. However, its just one of the many suggestions coming in from the top researchers on gender differences and achievement gaps. Its not as simple as what Doug has outlined, but then again its the complexity that has confounded the very best educator in the classroom…..........and it requires a dynamic process in the classroom and a very knowledgeable and skillful educator, to managed the complexity of variables.

Also noted in the reports are the biases both inside and outside that society has for boys and girls. The biases often gets in the way, and in the case of my youngest, the adults would not select her for the engineering feats at sciences fairs, but the boys ganged up on the adults insisting they must have my girl. The educators asked them why, and the boys went all the way back to grade 1. The educators relented, knowing full well if one wants to have a respectable showing at a science fair dealing with engineering - used the students, girls or boys that have high spatial skills.

Girls vs.  Boys…..

the paradigm shifted in reflection to a bigger inversion.

Our world until the 80ies was all about the individual and their ability to manage outcomes.  Boys were and still are good at that.

From the mid 80ies to now we have had a intellectual revolution.  The internet generation is about the collaborative “hive think “.  Girls are better at that.

This is an evolutionary dilemma.  The ground has shifted to skill sets that favours the double X chromosome.  Evolution is a tough task master just ask the ...

cheers, Mirka

Mirka suggests the nature of school, work, and life has changed in favor of women.  But that doesn’t make sense in the absence of a biological difference in cognitive skills, as the research seems to indicate.

It could be as simple as Doug suggests, that we let our sons play video games.  But I think there is something stronger going on.  We celebrate positive female role models - for example that women dominated the recent Premier’s conference.  We hold “Bring your daughter to work” days, and raise funds for ‘Because I am a Girl’. 

But I can’t think of a similar positive message for boys.  We’re happy if our male role models stay out of jail.  Today’s Star highlighted the amazing Teriano Lesancha and her work with the Maasai, back-to-back with articles about Chris Spence.  Look through tomorrow’s paper, you will likely see more of the same.

I’m afraid Doug’s observation about video games is just a symptom.  We need more parents like Doug’s dad.

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

We may have the problem of female education solved to a large extent in the developed world but in the developing world we have a long way to go. There are more total illiterates in India than all of Africa and 80% are female, In many parts of the Islamic world the education of girls is forbidden on very low level. Chinese rural women lag way behind.

The UN UNESCO are finally clueing in to the fact that the education of women can change the fate of the nation. When educated the women do not want to be “baby factories” they want to educate their own limited families and they double the brain power of the nation as engineers, scientists, doctors….

Men in these developing places are slowly shifting from “we can’t let her know to much or she won’t take orders from me” to “OMG she can double the income of the family.”

Well, I think it’s time to wrap up the debate. I wish I could put a neat bow around the discussion in summation, but unfortunately there has not been a consensus - other than the unanimous view that boys and girls are equal in intelligence with nobody being sure why the former tendency of boys to do better than girls in school/career has reversed.

Silence is consent. I will revert to the one-a-day format for the next while.

Sorry Malkin,  have a bit more to add….

This conversation is both interesting and important.  When I write my little posts they are based on a rigorous knowledge of the discipline of science with a special focus to biology and psychology.  This passion has been tweaked and examined in terms of the strategies that yield real results in the real world with happy and competent students—25 years in the classroom——- classes at capacity—students vote with their feet. 

I loved Tom’s post.  It is a kind comment given what I posted.  And I thank him.  But I must insist evolution is a mechanism that does not takes sides.  The entire mechanism is based on genetic diversity.  Some genetic traits/ strengths are advantageous in some environments and become deleterious when the environment changes.  There is a real difference in the male and female mind.  There is real data and research discussing this.

The knowledge revolution brought in with the internet age changed the paradigm for success.  Individuals with an ability to hive think are better suited to make this new scenario work.  That is what explains the explosion of female candidates in all fields of study that were till the 80ies were male dominated.

For any parent out there in this blogosphere that that children at school—- I give you exhibit A:  Group Work.  Students are herded into arbitrary groups, given an arbitrary topic within some sort of context, GIVEN NO REAL STRUCTURE TO MANAGE THE ENTERPRISE.  Given no real direction from the teacher except ‘work it out’.

Group work is a relatively new approach that started in the late 80ies, not a fan, but in my experience—now is an epidemic. Hive think.

Now for Doug and his analysis of the international scene….  Thank You!  The United Nations have maintained for at least 30 years that if you want to improve the quality of life for everyone in any third world cess pool you educate the women.

The challenge in the first world is very different to the one in the third world as we are on different parts of the evolutionary continuum.

 
cheers, Mirka

Mirka, would you please explain what ‘hive thinking’ is?