Who is Smarter? Essay

Whilst there are factors outside school, internal factors also impact gender differences in educational achievements hugely. According to Tony Sewell, boys fall behind in education because schools have become more 'feminised', as indicated in Item A. This means that feminine traits such as methodical working and attentiveness have

Deborah Tannen, who is a professor of linguistics, says in her essay, "How Male And Female Students Use Language Differently", that after she made her book, “You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation” that one of the unintended benefits was that she gets to reevaluate her teaching strategies and see how male and females act differently in class. As you read through her essay you can tell that Deborah Tannen wants her readers to think about why males tend to speak more in discussions than females and the reason for this difference in the classroom and also how we can improve the classroom for both men and women.Although Tannen tends to get off topic and doesn 't have much evidence to back up some of her claims, she states

Historically boys were top of the class. Today that is no longer the case. A recent article in The Economist discusses a 2009 study by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) that examined how 15-year-old boys and girls performed in reading, mathematics and science. They found that girls are performing better than their male classmates. This gender gap is worldwide. Girls score higher than boys on tests measuring reading ability in every country in the world (Loveless).

There are multiple reasons why Kelley King, Michael Gurian and Kathy Stevens are on the pro side. For one reason, they believe that the differences exist due to boys being more interactive with certain topics and methods that don’t usually interest girls or vice versa. For example, the Wamsley Elementary School in Rifle, Colorado has both boy and girl students. However, in the past, the girl students over accomplished the boy students due to the school staff being more experienced in understanding how to teach girls than understanding how to teach boys. So, the school focused on teaching the boys with their own learning styles that are also girl friendly such as online courses. The result of this was successful as boys became more accomplished than they were from before. (Pages 147 – 148).

When it comes to the classroom, there are several differences between girls and boys. There are physical differences in the way their brains work, differences in the room temperature that is best for boys and girls, and differences in how girls and boys respond to various tones of speech (Sax, 2006). While girls prefer soft-spoken teachers, Sax (2006) notes that boys prefer to be spoken to “loudly and in short, direct sentences with clear instructions” (p. 195). According to Sax (2006), “the ideal ambient temperature for boys is about 69 degrees and about 75 degrees for girls” (p. 193-194). Further differences involve how boys and girls learn. McNeil states that “boys may learn better under pressure and when allowed to move around...while girls may perform better in group situations and with a lot of encouragement” (McNeil, 2008). Because of these many differences, it would stand to reason that boys and girls would benefit from being in separate classrooms. According to Hughes (2007), “the teacher would be able to concentrate on the learning-styles of each sex and use the styles to bring out the academic best in each students. Lessons and activities could be designed with a single-sex in mind” (p. 11). As Principal John Fox states, “the single-sex environment enables you to actually focus on the particular needs of each gender, and those needs socially and

Secondly, the interaction between teachers and male and female students. Sociologist Francis (2000) argues that classrooms are still male dominated and that boys are disciplined more frequently and harshly by teachers compared to girls. Therefore, it is seen that boys get more attention than girls as they are disciplined more harshly than girls, leading to girls getting less attention than boys, also in terms of ethnicity, boys from African Caribbean backgrounds are also more likely to be disciplined than white British boys. This may result in boys feeling picked on in school which may result in gender and ethnic differences in achievement.

Schlosser. She carried out the study while on a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University, and will study the effects of gender in higher education lecture halls next. This is one of few studies of its kind to use scientific data to address the question of gender effects in school. Boys with more female peers in their classes show higher enrollment rates in both advanced math and science classes, but overall benefits were found in all grades for both sexes. Prof. Schlosser found that primary-school classrooms with a female majority showed increased academic success for both boys and girls, along with a notable improvement in subjects like science and math. In the middle schools, girls were found to have better academic achievement in English, languages and math. And in high school, the classrooms which had the best academic achievements overall were consistently those that had a higher proportion of girls enrolled. A higher percentage of girls lowers the amount of classroom disruption and fosters a better relationship between pupils and their teacher, a study of the data suggests. Teachers are less tired in classrooms with more girls, and pupils overall seem to be more satisfied when a high female-to-male ratio persists. Prof. Schlosser was inspired to the study by a “renewed interest on the effects of classroom gender composition on students’ learning, since a new amendment to America’s Title IX

Christine Cosker responded to Mooney's article indicating that it is not the fault of the women teachers, but the society in which these boys are raised. The boys are taught that women are

51). There are some people that believe there are behaviors that reflect socialization: girls are praised for cooperation and compliance, while boys are rewarded for activity and competition. The thought that many girls prefer to learn one way, and many boys another, suggest a useful generalization that can present information about gender that can help a teacher plan more successfully. Based on this information as an effective teacher it is important to include competition and cooperative activities.

A teacher is an important key element in the educational system as well as a role model. Some teachers hold traditional gender stereotypes about their students’ views of what is expected of them. Many children develop social

Boys and girls learn in two different ways. This reason is why having a single sex school is more rewarding than a co-ed school. According to Dr. Schlosser of Breckinridge County Middle School's (Kentucky) the difference between the way boys and girls learn are the type of weather boys and girls prefer.) Boys prefer to learn in a cool, dark room. When there are two different people wanting two different things its hard to please both sides. Boys also learn much slower than what girls learn, this could be a problem for girls in the same class as boys for girls would learn and to move on, but would have to cut back their learning to wait for the boys to learn the same material. Boys also are interested in different subjects than what girls like. Boys are most secretly interested in music, science, and math. According to GreatSchools.com says boys feel girls won’t like them when they know they are interested in other things such as music and math and not baseball, football, and soccer. Many boys won’t show interest in music in a co-ed school. When boys are placed in a single sex school they won’t have the feeling of impressing girls so more boys will show their interest in arts and music. Boys are much better with math and science than what girls are says NASSPE VIII. NASSPE Vlll is single-sex school out of Huston Texas. "The most profound difference between girls and boys is in any brain structure per se, but also in the sequence of

The class I was in when observing had boys and girls raging from ages of 3 to 5 with two female teachers. Ages 3, 4 and 5 are years with huge growth in developmental milestones for kids. They go through many physical, cognitive, emotional/social and language changes from the time the become young children instead of toddlers. Observing a room full of girls and boys I got to compare and contrast the differences in the way each gender develops. It is said girls and boys usually develop at different rates. During my observations I saw that girls and boys not necessarily developed at different rates, but develop in different areas quicker than the other gender. Physically yes, boys were slightly taller and more filled out than girls. Both genders were very high energy,

Females are better at verbalizing and verbal tasks and use double the amount of words than males when talking. Females also learn how to read and write earlier than males and also have a superior sensory system. Females use their five senses much better and are able to remember sensory information easier and have better hearing ranges than males (Sasser). It may often seem that males do not pay attention in the classroom, but in reality it may not be a case of attention at all. Males actually might not hear the frequency or pitch of the teacher’s voice, so in turn a teacher needs to talk louder. Females may take this the wrong way and consider it yelling when in fact the teacher is just trying to get everybody’s attention (Moton). Males are able to spatially process information better. Having this advantage makes them better at multiple skills such as motor skills, mental manipulation of objects, mathematical and abstract reasoning, processing symbols and pictures, navigation, and computer processing (Sasser).

Thomas provides various arguments as to how boys and girls are different; therefore they are treated differently in a classroom. It cannot be argued that boys and girls are different, especially at such a young age, but to say that teachers specifically do treat boys in a rougher manner would be going too far. Thomas introduces the idea that society instills ideas of prejudice towards women in young boys, so that when they do go into a classroom governed by a female teacher, they are predisposed to be defiant and unruly. In my opinion, it is unfair to judge teachers based on the performance of their students on various tests. Thomas's article introduces the idea that as the number of female teachers is increasing, the performance of boys in school is declining. One much question whether it is in fact the teachers who cause this

Boys or girls- Who are better or smarter? This is a well known worldwide phenomena and controversy when it comes to gender that is better in comparison since the beginning of the creation. Many debates and researches have under taken to answer this question but in end no one can conclude this. When it comes to competition the enthusiasm of