Re: [Edu-sig] Thoughts?
From: Marilyn Davis <marilyn@deliberate.com> Date: Saturday, December 4, 2004 1:45 am Subject: [Edu-sig] Thoughts?
My thoughts? I would like to use the information - if nothing else - to quiet talk of manipulating programming/math educational curricula to better appeal to women/girls. Those kinds of efforts and that kind of thinking was yesterday's academic flavor of month, and at least partly responsible - in my mind - for the statistics you cite. That being another thought - my objection to the article is only to the extent it gives credit to the "report" and the "small group of experts". Other reports and other small groups of experts had formally concluded much about the male-dominated nature of the curricula and the vital need for reform on this score. Why to someone like myself, without an agenda, was it clear that this agenda was overstated, and likely to lead to more "injustice" than it corrected. This *is* political. And the antidote is unfortunately too simple to be taken seriously. To trust more our senses (I think we have more than 5 of them). And trust less the small group of experts. Another thought is more controversial and more dire - that the "girl" friendly curricula to which we have evolved is a seriously inadequate curriculum on the merits, irrespective of the issue of the gender to which it better appeals. But it will take many years to reverse and correct where good intentions and the experts have brought us. Art
struggling academically
Fri Dec 3, 6:17 AM ET
Op/Ed - USATODAY.com
Girls are taking the nation's colleges by storm. They're streaming to campuses in greater numbers, earning better grades and graduating more often. The same phenomenal success shows in high schools, where girls dominate honor rolls, hold more student government spots and rake in most of the academic awards.
So says a just-released report from the U.S. Department of Education (news - web sites).
Impressive. But the real news is tucked into the deeper, darker corners of the report. Boys are doing miserably, and nobody knows quite why. On measures ranging from writing ability to the likelihood of needing special education, boys are flat-lining - or worse.
The phenomenon is most serious in inner cities, but it's evident in even the wealthiest school districts. And it's not confined to the United States. The same trend is turning up throughout the industrialized world.
The impact could hardly be overstated. College-educated people earn twice as much as high school graduates. If boys can't get to the good-jobs starting line, which these days is a bachelor's degree, they won't get a chance to use their natural competitive skills in the marketplace.
And when fewer men earn college degrees there are fewer partners whom educated women find desirable to marry. That's a debilitating social phenomenon African-American women have struggled with for years.
The problem has already grown so severe that three out of every four private colleges (an informal estimate from admissions directors) quietly practice affirmative action for boys, favoring them over girls in admissions to get near balance.
Yet for most educators - from kindergarten on up - the problem is invisible. Any teacher looking for national research that might define classroom solutions won't find any. They don't exist.
The small group of experts who research the problem only now is beginning to trace its outlines.
It isn't so much that schools have changed in ways that hurt boys. It's that society has changed in ways that help girls.
Increasingly, success requires verbal skills, which everyone agrees come more naturally to girls. Industrial-age jobs that required minimal verbal skills are disappearing, replaced by information-age jobs that range from filing insurance claims to law. Even in technical fields, verbal skills are at a premium. An auto mechanic or TV repairman now needs to master complex technical manuals.
School reformers eventually spotted the need and reacted strongly, setting standards and writing tests that demand verbal skills. The SAT and ACT required for college applicants, for instance, now have an essay component.
This puts boys at a huge handicap, and schools haven't begun to adapt.
One hint of the inadequacy can be found in research done by Michael Gurian, author of Boys and Girls Learn Differently. He surveyed the course offerings of schools of education throughout the country. His discovery: 99% of universities and teacher colleges do not offer a course on the biological differences between how girls and boys learn. So teachers enter classrooms unprepared to turn boys into successful readers.
Other factors also come quickly into play, setting off a downward spiral that looks something like this: At home, dads read to their daughters and throw footballs to their sons. In elementary school overwhelmingly female teaching staffs naturally teach in ways that connect better with girls. Fidgety boys are quickly defined as suffering from reading disabilities. In middle school, teachers - still unattuned to the boys' disadvantages - take no action to correct swelling reading gaps.
That brings boys to the pivotal ninth grade, the first year when they run up against the heavily verbal, college-track curriculum that school reforms demand of most schools. And the boys flounder.
The trend holds through the remaining school years: Girls shine; boys fade.
Some responses suggested by researchers appear easy. Assign boys books that they find more appealing, for example. And bring them along gradually, so they don't quit.
But in the end, the problem runs much deeper. It surely won't be fixed until educators first come to see that it exists.
_______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
I'd like to see the data that the article uses, especially for the sciences, and computer science, specifically. I teach computer science at an all-women's college. We haven't seen a jump in any enrollment statistics. Although we did have a general enrollment decline (like most colleges/universities did) after the tech-pop, and also after 9/11/2001. I would be very hesitant to link these stats to changes in the way we teach computer science. For one thing, most of the research doesn't advocate teaching a topic in a "girl-centered" way, but rather teaching in a more inclusive manner. That would include making assignments and examples accessible to all. For another thing, I don't think most people in CS have changed the way they teach. I have heard too often that schools "don't have any gender issues", because *they don't have any women in their CS classes*. I don't know what Art (and his ESP) have in mind when making his general criticisms, but my colleagues and I see Python as being an instrument to make computing more accessible---to everyone, and that the status quo of how we teach CS needs some serious revision. For further information, I suggest taking a look at Margolis and Fisher's "Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing". Also, you might enjoy a short article on "Patterns of Curriculum Design" and other ramblings at: http://dangermouse.brynmawr.edu/publications.shtml -Doug ajsiegel@optonline.net said:
From: Marilyn Davis <marilyn@deliberate.com> Date: Saturday, December 4, 2004 1:45 am Subject: [Edu-sig] Thoughts?
My thoughts?
I would like to use the information - if nothing else - to quiet talk of manipulating programming/math educational curricula to better appeal to women/girls.
Those kinds of efforts and that kind of thinking was yesterday's academic flavor of month, and at least partly responsible - in my mind - for the statistics you cite.
That being another thought - my objection to the article is only to the extent it gives credit to the "report" and the "small group of experts". Other reports and other small groups of experts had formally concluded much about
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=742&e=1&u=/usatoday/20041203/cm_usatoday/paycloserattentionboysarestrugglingacademically the male-dominated nature of the curricula and the vital need for reform on this score.
Why to someone like myself, without an agenda, was it clear that this agenda
was overstated, and likely to lead to more "injustice" than it corrected.
This *is* political. And the antidote is unfortunately too simple to be
taken seriously. To trust more our senses (I think we have more than 5 of them). And trust less the small group of experts.
Another thought is more controversial and more dire - that the "girl"
friendly curricula to which we have evolved is a seriously inadequate curriculum on the merits, irrespective of the issue of the gender to which it better appeals. But it will take many years to reverse and correct where good intentions and the experts have brought us.
Art
struggling academically
Fri Dec 3, 6:17 AM ET
Op/Ed - USATODAY.com
Girls are taking the nation's colleges by storm. They're streaming to campuses in greater numbers, earning better grades and graduating more often. The same phenomenal success shows in high schools, where girls dominate honor rolls, hold more student government spots and rake in most of the academic awards.
So says a just-released report from the U.S. Department of Education (news - web sites).
Impressive. But the real news is tucked into the deeper, darker corners of the report. Boys are doing miserably, and nobody knows quite why. On measures ranging from writing ability to the likelihood of needing special education, boys are flat-lining - or worse.
The phenomenon is most serious in inner cities, but it's evident in even the wealthiest school districts. And it's not confined to the United States. The same trend is turning up throughout the industrialized world.
The impact could hardly be overstated. College-educated people earn twice as much as high school graduates. If boys can't get to the good-jobs starting line, which these days is a bachelor's degree, they won't get a chance to use their natural competitive skills in the marketplace.
And when fewer men earn college degrees there are fewer partners whom educated women find desirable to marry. That's a debilitating social phenomenon African-American women have struggled with for years.
The problem has already grown so severe that three out of every four private colleges (an informal estimate from admissions directors) quietly practice affirmative action for boys, favoring them over girls in admissions to get near balance.
Yet for most educators - from kindergarten on up - the problem is invisible. Any teacher looking for national research that might define classroom solutions won't find any. They don't exist.
The small group of experts who research the problem only now is beginning to trace its outlines.
It isn't so much that schools have changed in ways that hurt boys. It's that society has changed in ways that help girls.
Increasingly, success requires verbal skills, which everyone agrees come more naturally to girls. Industrial-age jobs that required minimal verbal skills are disappearing, replaced by information-age jobs that range from filing insurance claims to law. Even in technical fields, verbal skills are at a premium. An auto mechanic or TV repairman now needs to master complex technical manuals.
School reformers eventually spotted the need and reacted strongly, setting standards and writing tests that demand verbal skills. The SAT and ACT required for college applicants, for instance, now have an essay component.
This puts boys at a huge handicap, and schools haven't begun to adapt.
One hint of the inadequacy can be found in research done by Michael Gurian, author of Boys and Girls Learn Differently. He surveyed the course offerings of schools of education throughout the country. His discovery: 99% of universities and teacher colleges do not offer a course on the biological differences between how girls and boys learn. So teachers enter classrooms unprepared to turn boys into successful readers.
Other factors also come quickly into play, setting off a downward spiral that looks something like this: At home, dads read to their daughters and throw footballs to their sons. In elementary school overwhelmingly female teaching staffs naturally teach in ways that connect better with girls. Fidgety boys are quickly defined as suffering from reading disabilities. In middle school, teachers - still unattuned to the boys' disadvantages - take no action to correct swelling reading gaps.
That brings boys to the pivotal ninth grade, the first year when they run up against the heavily verbal, college-track curriculum that school reforms demand of most schools. And the boys flounder.
The trend holds through the remaining school years: Girls shine; boys fade.
Some responses suggested by researchers appear easy. Assign boys books that they find more appealing, for example. And bring them along gradually, so they don't quit.
But in the end, the problem runs much deeper. It surely won't be fixed until educators first come to see that it exists.
_______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
_______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
-- Douglas S. Blank, Assistant Professor dblank@brynmawr.edu, (610)526-6501 Bryn Mawr College, Computer Science Program 101 North Merion Ave, Park Science Building Bryn Mawr, PA 19010 dangermouse.brynmawr.edu
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