School Boys
Jan. 26th, 2006 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
astra_nomerSo, apparently, a student at a New England high school is claiming gender discrimination. The interesting thing is, the student is a boy. A white, middle-class male, suing for discrimination.
Certainly it's true that more women are entering college these days than men. But shouldn't we be saying, "You Go Girl!" instead of "ZOMG!! Save the boys!!!"
I cannot believe that education has changed so dramatically in this country over the last 10 or even 20 years that it's suddenly become biased toward girls. The educational system in this country was originally just for white males. Just 40 years ago, Harvard University did not allow women in some of its libraries. At the same time, the majority of elementary school teachers over the last century or more have been women, and while I won't rant about that issue now, it didn't seem to have hurt the legions of boys who were educated by them and went on to become successful men within the patriarchy.
Yes, it's true that boys have more behavioral issues than girls, and that will affect their educational opportunities. But is this really more of an issue today than in the past? Has boyhood really changed that much?
I recall being one of just a handful of girls in my high school science and math classes. I recall that when my calculus teacher handed out M&Ms to highest achievers in her class, that my candy was sometimes stolen when I turned my back, and at least one student complained that the girls always got the awards, even though we were vastly outnumbered by the boys.
Now I'm the mother of two boys myself. But I expect them to exert self-discipline in school. I expect them to do their best with their studies. I will help find opportunities within the educational system for them to get ahead. I will not tolerate them making excuses for themselves by saying they were discriminated against. If I've managed to succeed against the odds, they can too.
Certainly it's true that more women are entering college these days than men. But shouldn't we be saying, "You Go Girl!" instead of "ZOMG!! Save the boys!!!"
I cannot believe that education has changed so dramatically in this country over the last 10 or even 20 years that it's suddenly become biased toward girls. The educational system in this country was originally just for white males. Just 40 years ago, Harvard University did not allow women in some of its libraries. At the same time, the majority of elementary school teachers over the last century or more have been women, and while I won't rant about that issue now, it didn't seem to have hurt the legions of boys who were educated by them and went on to become successful men within the patriarchy.
Yes, it's true that boys have more behavioral issues than girls, and that will affect their educational opportunities. But is this really more of an issue today than in the past? Has boyhood really changed that much?
I recall being one of just a handful of girls in my high school science and math classes. I recall that when my calculus teacher handed out M&Ms to highest achievers in her class, that my candy was sometimes stolen when I turned my back, and at least one student complained that the girls always got the awards, even though we were vastly outnumbered by the boys.
Now I'm the mother of two boys myself. But I expect them to exert self-discipline in school. I expect them to do their best with their studies. I will help find opportunities within the educational system for them to get ahead. I will not tolerate them making excuses for themselves by saying they were discriminated against. If I've managed to succeed against the odds, they can too.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 03:59 am (UTC)And c) it's hard to figure out how to really do *good* social science type research, I think. But I also have the impression some people do know what they're doing and have techniques that work at least somewhat. But then you come down to the fundamental choice between things that are true/accurate, and things that are easily summarizable. I presume hard science has this problem as well, but there's lots more things in hard science where you can isolate some one little thing and poke at it and say "yup, that's how it works." Can't so much do that when you're studying human behavior, or if you can, it's not clear how much you've actually learned, because you've decontextualized it so much.
Also, I think for a lot of these things people want research to tell them the One Right Answer, and there probably isn't one.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 04:03 am (UTC)Also, there's no lab. Any time you want to do research, you need to find districts/schools/teachers to sign onto it, get various sorts of permissions, and get them to take time out of their ridiculously busy work lives to deal with you. This makes it really hard to get enough sites for your research, let alone geograpically/demographically/etc distributed the way you'd like.