[Edu-sig] Acadmic gender gap (was Thoughts)

[ajsiegel at optonline.net]

This also a repost of a bounce.

What's with this Spam sensitivity all of a sudden?

> The dominance of girls/women in academics now is well-attested. At 
> the 
> undergraduate level we struggle to get high-quality male students, 
> and 
> our Dean's list is about 2/3 women. However, I personally doubt 
> that 
> this has very much to do with any pro-girl agenda in our schools. 
> As far 
> as I can tell (my first child is in first grade now), public 
> education 
> has not changed a whole lot since I went through. And the article 
> points 
> out that what changes have been made are a reflection of new 
> economic 
> realities, not any political agenda.


I have to disagree, but only to an extent.

My son ended up at a "progressive" public high school, where students were judged by their portfolios, the more elaborate the better - rather than by test.

Nothing like that existed in my time.

He barely got by. I was told at one point that his graduation was in doubt.  

He made his way to a large somewhat institutional college - where he is judged by performance on exams. And he is excelling.

The best I can figure out - and I can't help trying to put him in the best light (I'm kind of fond of the young man) - is that he has a lot more patience for learning than he has for proving to someone else what it is that he has learned. The bother of sitting for an exam is tolerable. The implied - what? - subservience, of the going out of one's way to the extent of elaborate "portfolios" of one kind or another. to demonstrate to someone else one's understanding of a subject  is more than he is willing to undertake with any degree of commitment or devotion.

We can argue about whether the method of judgement of academic performance has, in general and in fact, changed and the degree to which any such change is a result of gender or other politics.

And probably only argue. I say yes - it has changed and at least partly as a result of gender politics - recognizing there are other factors at work as well, including the self-indulgent whining of folks like myself in the 60's.
 
But as it turns out, sadly (in some sense) , perhaps, women are brought up more anxious to please and more willing to go out of their way to do so, and for the wrong reasons more prepared to thrive in this kind of environment.

Be that as it may, it seems to me we are measuring more the student's commitment to the environment and willingness to work to please  (and in that sense their successful socialization), than we are their acquisition of knowledge.

While this is *not* the whole of the story, I think it is a decent part of it.

Art


----- Original Message -----
From: John Zelle <john.zelle at wartburg.edu>
Date: Monday, December 6, 2004 7:12 pm
Subject: [Edu-sig] Acadmic gender gap (was Thoughts)

> OK, I lost one message, and then this one was bounced as Spam. I'm 
> trying to post this one last time with a clean subject heading.
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I had a long, detailed reply to this post that got "eaten" by the 
> dog 
> that is our email system. This is a shorter note, as Douglas has 
> already 
> posted some ideas that touched on mine regarding women in computer 
> science.
> The dominance of girls/women in academics now is well-attested. At 
> the 
> undergraduate level we struggle to get high-quality male students, 
> and 
> our Dean's list is about 2/3 women. However, I personally doubt 
> that 
> this has very much to do with any pro-girl agenda in our schools. 
> As far 
> as I can tell (my first child is in first grade now), public 
> education 
> has not changed a whole lot since I went through. And the article 
> points 
> out that what changes have been made are a reflection of new 
> economic 
> realities, not any political agenda.
> 
> What I think has changed significantly is what our children are 
> doing 
> outside of school. They are watching television, surfing the 
> Internet, 
> and playing video games. There is a growing list of credible 
> scientific 
> research showing that computers and video games for young children 
> are 
> actually detrimental to developing creativity, problem solving 
> skills, 
> concentration (on non-computer tasks) and social skills. There are 
> also 
> some preliminary studies showing a link between electronic media 
> exposure and the epidemic of ADHD diagnoses with its concommitant 
> drugging of our children to "improve their concentration." The 
> time 
> spent huddled with a video game is time not spent out experiencing 
> the 
> real world in all it's richness. It's time not spent in meaningful 
> social interation with peers. Although I love computers, I am in 
> no 
> hurry to expose my youngsters to the virtual world.
> 
> What has this got to do with an academic gender gap? Well, it's 
> primarily boys that are playing video games and messing around on 
> computers. I just saw an article in Newsweek or Time (can't 
> remember 
> which) that documented how traditional toy manufacturers are 
> getting 
> crushed by the gameboy, xbox, Playstation, and computer-game 
> competition. Boys are starting down this road already in the 3-6 
> age 
> group. Girls are increasingly affected, but still play with more 
> traditional toys up until age 10 or so.
> 
> It could just be that the reason boys are not succeeding at the 
> same 
> rate has nothing to do with education per se, but with the 
> increasing 
> number who are simply ill-equipped for school. My hunch is that a 
> well-behaved, non-video-gaming boy does just as well in the 
> supposed 
> "new curriculum" as his female counterpart. Some study needs to be 
> done 
> on this.
> 
> Given that fewer boys are succeeding, we darn well better figure 
> out 
> ways to attract talented girls/women to the IT field, or we will 
> be in 
> sorry shape. And heaven help us when the marketers finally find 
> the 
> killer electronic game for young girls; that will equalize the 
> playing 
> field in the worst possible way.
> 
> Those are a few of my thoughts...
> 
> --John
> 
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