Elizabeth Weil: Teaching Boys and Girls Separately

1. "Scans of boys and girls brains over time also show they develop differently. Analyzing data from the largest pediatric neuro-imaging study to date-829 scans from 387 subject’s ages 3 to 27-researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health found that total cerebral volume peaks at 10.5 years in girls, four years earlier than in boys."

To me this quote stood out to me because when people usually compare boys and girls, it seems to be that boys are better than girls. I feel that girls can do anything a boy can do and with other readings they have the boys being superior to girls but in this reading, I feel that they are not judging a boy or girl; they are basically stating facts about scans that have been tested about boys and girls about their cerebral volume peaks. I feel that they do these tests all the time so I feel that these are right but not going against a certain gender.

2."One of Sax’s core arguments is that trying to teach a 5-year-old boy to read is as developmentally fraught as trying to teach a 3 ½-year-old girl and that such an exercise often leads to a kid hating school. This argument resonates with many teachers and parents, who long for the days when kindergarten meant learning how to stand in line for recess, not needing to complete phonics homework."

I feel that this argument Sax says is probably one of the reasons why boys and girls are separated because boys and girls or even anyone learn at a different level at different times. I feel that kids really need to learn things at a young age because these are the years where kids learn mostly everything they need in life. The parents and teachers are a big part of the kid’s life and they need to realize that they are the ones who have to set ground rules to make sure their kids get an education. Also these two people have big responsibilities in what they teach kids because if they don’t teach their kids when they are young they will never want to learn.

3."65 percent of boys complete high school in four years; 72 percent of girls do. Boys make up two-thirds of special-education students. They are 1.5 times more likely to be held back a grade and 2.5 times more likely to be given diagnoses of A.D.H.D."

From this I really like picking out statistics from this reading. I feel that from what I can see is sometimes when boys are in high school they tend to get frustrated and quit school. From what I can recall from high school more boys dropped out than girls did and I feel that girls like school more and sometimes from what these statistics say, boys just don’t have the patience’s to sit in high school all day. Also I think that most special education students are boys because one girl in class stated that she teaches a classroom full of all boys who are in special education. I feel that from what she said and my own experience it is true but there are also girls who are special education students.


Questions/Comments/Points to Share

Before reading this I never really knew that public schools separated boys and girls. I feel that it may be a good thing and a bad thing. From what I can tell from this reading is that girls learn faster than boys do but I feel that some boys can learn faster than girls. I also found interesting was that boys make up two thirds of special education. I relate this to my own experience because in high school there were a lot more boys than girls in special education and I question why this may be the way it is. I feel that this text is making girls seem smarter than guys but then I think to myself, how come all of the other text we read they have the boys being superior and above girls when in this text, girls learn faster than guys and are less likely to be diagnosed with A.D.H.D. Another thing I thought caught my eye was some of the things Sax said because he never was in a classroom before and I really got frustrated with him at times because I feel that you need to have the experience before you can really say you know something. Overall this was a good reading and it opened up my eyes to see what kinds of school setting they have for the kids.