There is an article in Newsweek today which I found particularly interesting. The Trouble with Boys
It talks about why America's boys are systematically doing worse than girls in school. The thing that I found most interesting about the article was the portions of it which discuss how the biological differences between girls and boys affect their attention spans and skill proclivities.
"For many boys, the trouble starts as young as 5, when they bring to kindergarten a set of physical and mental abilities very different from girls'. As almost any parent knows, most 5-year-old girls are more fluent than boys and can sight-read more words. Boys tend to have better hand-eye coordination, but their fine motor skills are less developed, making it a struggle for some to control a pencil or a paintbrush. Boys are more impulsive than girls; even if they can sit still, many prefer not to—at least not for long.
Thirty years ago feminists argued that classic "boy" behaviors were a result of socialization, but these days scientists believe they are an expression of male brain chemistry. Sometime in the first trimester, a boy fetus begins producing male sex hormones that bathe his brain in testosterone for the rest of his gestation. "That exposure wires the male brain differently," says Arthur Arnold, professor of physiological science at UCLA. How? Scientists aren't exactly sure. New studies show that prenatal exposure to male sex hormones directly affects the way children play. Girls whose mothers have high levels of testosterone during pregnancy are more likely to prefer playing with trucks to playing with dolls. There are also clues that hormones influence the way we learn all through life. In a Dutch study published in 1994, doctors found that when males were given female hormones, their spatial skills dropped but their verbal skills improved.
In elementary-school classrooms—where teachers increasingly put an emphasis on language and a premium on sitting quietly and speaking in turn—the mismatch between boys and school can become painfully obvious. "Girl behavior becomes the gold standard," says "Raising Cain" coauthor Thompson. "Boys are treated like defective girls."
The article also discusses single gender schooling, which appears to have a positive affect on the acheivement of both sexes, with single gender girls classes to the best, followed by boys, and then co-ed.
While it is sad that boys in America are suffering as their educational needs appear to be overlooked, other things about the article struck a chord with me as well.
One of the issues that I am constantly battling is those men who attempt to enforce "Hislam" on the female muslim populace, i.e. their misogynistic cultural values disguised as legitimate Islamic principles. The general attitude is to declare that women by their "nature" are weaker and less intelligent than men, need to be taken care of by men and therefore owe their due obedience to their protectors and sustainers. So when I see studies like this which show that yes, women are biologically different from men, but NOT inferior, it just makes me smile :).
I welcome any comments on the article in general, or the concept of single gender schooling. Do you think that it will affect kids negatively later in life when they have to work in a co-gender environment? How much of the problems confronting today's boys are due to the lack of strong male role models because of divorce or unmarried pregnancy?
