Here's 100 Years of Proof That Girls Are Better Students Than Boys. In all subjects, even math and science.
In 2006, Newsweek magazine declared it, loud, on their cover: America's boys were in crisis. Boys were falling behind their female counterparts in school. They were getting worse grades, lagging on standardized tests, and not attending college in the same numbers as girls. "By almost every benchmark," Peg Tyre, the author of the cover story, wrote, "boys across the nation and in every demographic group are falling behind." And so it began-the end of men, but also an ongoing conversation on how to better boys' performance in the classroom. From the article:
This "boy crisis," however, was based on an assumption: that males had previously been on top. Granted, there was evidence to support that idea. For one, educational institutions for most of modern history have been openly sexist, favoring boys. And traditionally, males had outperformed girls in standardized tests and in math and science. But "by the mid-1990s, girls had reduced the gap in math, and more girls than boys were taking high-school-level biology and chemistry," Tyre wrote.
The assumption that boys had been the better students didn't seem right to (married) researchers Daniel and Susan Voyer of the University of New Brunswick in Canada. "I've been collecting grade data for a long time," Daniel Voyer says in a phone interview. "Typically if you find gender differences, they are in favor of girls - it doesn't matter what it is. So it started to kind of puzzle me." And so the pair set out to test, collecting every study they could find on grades and gender since 1914 and crunching the numbers in a mega-meta analysis, the first of its kind.
While the girls' advantage is largest in reading and language studies, it exists for all subjects, even math and science. And though they tested data from across the world, the Voyers found the gender gap was largest in the United States.
What's most striking is that the gender gap held across the decades. If the boy crisis existed, they would have seen boys' performance peak and fall over time. That wasn't the case. "Boys have been lagging for a long time and ... this is a fairly stable phenomenon," the paper concluded.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @11:30AM
The future will be openly sexist, favoring girls.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday May 02 2014, @11:47AM
What's this sexist shit? Are you implying girls cannot raise to the level of lameness as boys in all subjects (even math and science)???
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @11:50AM
Girls will never be better rapists than boys.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @02:01PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Boxzy on Friday May 02 2014, @06:05PM
I think you just mistyped 'prosecuted'
Go green, Go Soylent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 03 2014, @07:04AM
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday May 02 2014, @04:39PM
Or we could continue fighting for a non-sexist world, like we have been for over a century now. Taking the idea the generalizations do not work well for intelligent, self-determinant individuals, beyond some statistical utility.
We don't have to accept that any person is better than any other for imagined and simplistic reasons.
(Score: 2) by velex on Friday May 02 2014, @04:55PM
It won't happen. Because feminism. Because [cis] women who, themselves want traditional gender roles, for whom feminism has a complete and utter blindspot. And the only alternative is the MRM (Men's Rights Movement). It's a world full of folks who want female hegemony, institutional gender discrimination, and handouts/privileges based on one's assigned gender at birth and folks who want traditional gender roles with wink-and-nod gender discrimination.
And I'd also point out that both movements are incredibly trans hostile---hostile against both assigned males that prefer living as female (she-males and their transsexual empire in the view of feminists; brainwashed, feminized, and failed men in the view of the MRM) and assigned females that prefer living as male (traitors to their gender in the view of feminists; the MRM lost me before I could find out what they think of trans men, but I'd bet most of them are completely unaware that such people as trans men even exist). It would be difficult to be hostile towards the idea that gender is anything other than the body part between the legs and to hold that the determination of one's gender at birth based on that body part is a final assignment to a gender caste despite any actual medical evidence to the contrary in a non-sexist world.
If only gender were like hair color. Everbody has one, nobody has a choice in what it is at birth, and it's not a problem if one wants to change it. (At least if one is a woman..., but I digress.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @10:22PM
Velex, you're full of shit on Slashdot and you're full of shit here.
(Score: 2) by velex on Saturday May 03 2014, @02:14PM
Well, then, log in and mod me down. BasilBrush was willing to open himself/herself to the possibility of mod points and even got a funny mod in the process.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday May 02 2014, @10:29PM
I see a LOT of resistance to all of these phenomenons among 20-somethings. Every week or so there's a new "meme" going around about how traditional gender roles can be feminist too; about how trans women are women too; etc. Not that sharing pictures on Facebook is gonna actually change anything, but the right attitudes *are* developing. These will be the next battlegrounds once more "traditional" LGBT rights become accepted.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 02 2014, @11:30AM
Makes sense. There are more exceptionally smart and exceptionally stupid men than women by a small but notable percentage and both of these often lead to doing poorly in public education. I know it was certainly pulling teeth to get me to repetitively (homework and slow class pace) solve problems that I'd understood since, or before, they were first explained.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @11:41AM
I was also a boy who tired of being held back by the status quo. I read ahead in the textbooks out of interest and lack of anything else of worth to do in a classroom, and mastered subjects before the teacher had taught them. By the time I actually needed homework and study skills for something really difficult, it was too late. Thanks, public schools.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by buswolley on Friday May 02 2014, @04:47PM
Maybe. I'm not sure.
However, I think the school setting as it currently stands does not do men well. I think that many men would do better under a small tribal learning environment...like a hunter squad in the hunter-gatherer years, or the apprenticeships of the last centuries. In college I would do something like:
Professor->2-5 male graduate students->Each graduate student has a small squad of undergraduates (15) that he dorms with, and commands their educational priorities. Part of their time would be in their class work, and part of their time would be working on the graduate student's research as lab assistants. All is graded. The grades are determined by the achievements of the squad.
subicular junctures
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Covalent on Friday May 02 2014, @12:39PM
As a teacher, I can (anecdotally) support this:
I think the data will show that the variance across the male population is greater than that in the female population, but that the average female "intelligence" (whatever that means) is higher than the average male intelligence. That is certainly what I have seen in my career.
Result: Women outperform men, on average, but unusually brilliant and unusually unintelligent people are more likely to be men. That is not to say there are not brilliant (and stupid) women, just that the outliers are slightly more likely to be men.
That said, all of this data brings up a more pertinent question: Who cares? If we eventually find that the hypothesis above is correct, or that it is wrong and women are both smarter on average and more exceptional, or that men are smarter, or whatever...so what. What are we going to do with that information? Are we going to ban men from jobs because they, as a group, are not as smart? Are we going to segregate education? Are we going to deny education to people based on their base intelligence (or lack thereof)?
No. People rise above their limitations by utilizing other skills, particularly in the intelligence department. There is so much to be said for communication skills, interpersonal skills, motivation, work ethic, etc. that these variances far overshadow whatever differences exist between the intelligence of the sexes (which we know for a fact are small, if they really exist at all)
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 02 2014, @01:01PM
That's exactly what the studies show, a flatter curve. It's been to long for me to remember where though; I'll let someone else google it.
That isn't. The peak and mean of the curves* are functionally (within the margin of error) identical. Going strictly by IQ score on both replies.
* I find it exceptionally odd that the peak and mean are exactly the same as each other as well as the same for both sexes. The high side and low side are essentially exact mirrors of each other.
Absolutely. You left out wisdom and creativity though, the abilities to use what intelligence you have to its best effect. Wisdom, creativity, and drive are the differences between being a wage slave and creating a multi-billion-dollar company. And they are the only differences. To quote the light bulb guy "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety nine percent perspiration". Without both the one percent and the ninety-nine, you're a wage slave.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday May 02 2014, @10:37PM
My ex-girlfriend's cousin is currently getting rich after pulling a few million from his trust fund to set up a company selling bottled water about five years ago (ie, LONG after you could walk into any gas station and find a dozen brands of water already.) Hardly an inspired idea; and it certainly wasn't founded on *his* perspiration either. Any idiot lucky enough to have the money can make a hell of a lot more just by throwing it all at whatever's popular...
The skills you mention are the skills that it takes to move beyond your birth class. Those skills, and a LOT of luck. But they are neither necessary nor sufficient for success in general. Any idiot can make themselves rich if they're born into it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 02 2014, @11:27PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Saturday May 03 2014, @12:21AM
Hah. I'm quite privileged myself. I've got more money than I know what to do with, work exactly 40 hours a week, including right now while I'm posing on Soylent. Life is good :)
But that doesn't mean I'm blind to the failures of our current society either. All you've gotta do to prove that is look at a graph of wages vs. productivity over the past few decades. People keep getting more and more work done -- but getting a smaller and smaller portion of the profits for doing so. Or look at all the CEOs who run their company into the ground then get rewarded with their "golden parachute." Or all the ISPs charging higher billing rates for the same service, which they can do not because they've got great innovative ideas, but because they're big, wealthy, and powerful.
We're an oligarchy, and there are now studies to prove it. America's class mobility is far lower than many other industrialized nations. So, what, all Americans are just stupid and lazy...? Or are there other factors that are more important -- like luck of birth?
If hard work and perseverance are all it took, then it would be just as likely that someone born to poor parents would end up a millionaire as someone born to rich parents. And there are a hell of a lot more poor parents than rich parents, which means if that were true you'd expect the vast majority of wealthy Americans to be first generation wealth. They get rich, then they die, then their kids slowly fall back to middle class or something. Instead, we see most wealthy families stay wealthy; most poor families stay poor; and only the extraordinarily lucky move between.
This also happens to be why I find capitalism to be such a horrible system. It's all about the momentum of inheritance. Eliminate inheritance, put every newborn at an equal start, and capitalism would be great. But eventually wealth and power concentrate and lock everyone else out.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday May 03 2014, @05:19AM
Except for the part where most of that isn't remotely true, I'd agree. Most of the rich in the US have become rich since the 80s. Most of the poor stay poor because they lack two of the following: wisdom, inspiration, or drive. Most of the middle class only lack one. Hard work and perseverance alone will get you nothing if you don't have the wisdom to know you need marketable skills and the drive to get and sell them.
Again, luck has nothing to do with it except to set your starting capital and that can only take you so far. Put every newborn at an equal start? Yeah, definite jealousy. Do you really hate yourself that much for having more than others? Give your money away then and leave what doesn't belong to you the hell alone.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by metamonkey on Friday May 02 2014, @01:47PM
The problem I see is all of these programs that are targeted at girls while ignoring boys, when it turns out the boys have bigger problems than the girls. "Get young girls coding!" "How do we get more girls interested in science?" "After school math clubs for girls!" I just don't see the same kind of programs for boys.
I think if you tried to create a program specifically targeting improving the performance or interest level of boys you'd be screamed at for sexism, and promoting the patriarchy or whatever. And that's sad because according to this study (and other studies I've seen reported) the average girl is doing better than the average boy. As you say, the outliers are more likely to be boys, but the dullards are more likely to be boys, too.
If we're going for equality of outcome, we need to focus attention on average boys to try to get their scores up to the level of average girls. The brilliant boys can teach themselves. Just give them an open avenue to explore, create and learn and they'll take off all by themselves. As for the dullards, well, somebody's got to dig ditches. But it's the average boy who's falling behind, and all the programs are targeted at girls.
Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 02 2014, @01:48PM
Are we going to segregate education? Are we going to deny education to people based on their base intelligence (or lack thereof)?
We'd be much better off if we did. Mainstreaming has been a disaster in our public education system; just look at all the other people here complaining about being held back and being bored in school because the pace was too slow. Germany doesn't have this problem, because they DO segregate education; dumb kids go to different classes and schools than smart kids, and their economy is probably the most productive in the world.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Covalent on Friday May 02 2014, @03:08PM
Sadly, I have to agree. The "American" in me says "NO! Fairness for everybody"
But that was before the great state of Michigan made chemistry a graduation requirement for all high school students. Not everyone is cut out for chemistry, which has forced me to vastly dilute my course. This is to the great detriment of many students who could handle more rigor. Add to that the pressure to not fail any students (low graduation rates = unofficial bad evaluation = early forced retirement) and I've got a bunch of students earning 30% in an easy chemistry class and getting a D- anyway.
Maybe I ought to move to Germany...
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 1) by MrNemesis on Friday May 02 2014, @04:11PM
I think that depends on your definition of "fairness". The culture when and where I was growing up (UK in the 80's) and one shared by almost everyone was that it was unfair to all concerned *not* to segregate education, so that people who were good in one subject weren't held back by the people who weren't and the people who weren't good weren't continually put to shame or marginalised by the brightest. There were even additional classes ("curriculum enrichment") for the very best in the subject where you'd be whisked off to another classroom for a whole day and given interesting free-form problems to solve. Conversely, people with learning difficulties were put in "special needs" streams where they'd receive more intensive tutoring.
From the context of your post, it sounds very much like state education in america isn't tiered at all, is this true?
No idea if the UK curriculum still follows the same principles, but personally I'd consider it essential for compulsory education. The terminology used here was "sets" - after the first year of secondary once they had an accurate measure of your performance you'd be put in a "Set" for each particular subject. School for me in the pre-sets days was full of interruptions from people who either had trouble understanding concepts that had been gone over many times before or were deliberately disruptive because they didn't enjoy or see the benefits in learning. Once you got a bunch of like-minded people together in the same class, everyone was able to go along at the same pace.
Surely fairness is giving everyone the same opportunities, but giving those with the will to surge ahead the means to do so?
"To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 02 2014, @05:02PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by BasilBrush on Friday May 02 2014, @05:02PM
The system you describe is called 'streaming" and then as now, some UK schools do it, some don't.
Many primary schools now do it, which was either unknown or at least rare back then. And it's not a good idea. Many kids true potential hasn't surfaced in the primary years, and in any case it's good for kids to learn early on how to mix with anyone and not just their intellectual peers.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday May 02 2014, @11:10PM
US schools do this to some extent. They call it 'tracking' I think. Lots of anger over it. But it's not even that huge of a difference between classes. The thing that gets people upset is it can become difficult to advance if you've been assigned to a lower level.
When I was in school, it stated out with three or four levels of each class, which began around 6th grade. High, Medium, Low, and sometimes Remedial. Same *basic* topic (ie, all years studied US History at the same time) but of course the higher classes would go into more details and cover more ground. In some classes (math, science) the top 10 or so students (wasn't a fixed number, that's just how many we usually had, out of ~300) would be placed in the classes for a higher grade level. Then in highschool you get AP classes as well in the last couple years, which are intended to be near college level. By senior year in some schools you can start taking college courses directly for half the day. Many of our schools also have trade programs where you can spend half the day learning welding, cosmetology, culinary, getting some IT certs, or whatever the local district happens to offer. Such programs don't exist everywhere though.
Personally, I agree with many here that we need more of that. I have some sympathy for those who oppose it as well though. The problem is that usually the teachers alone decide which track a student is placed in. In the earlier years the students themselves aren't even told, though they tend to figure it out. And they can't move to a different level unless recommended by their current teacher. THAT is a HUGE problem.
The root of the issue here is one of equality. Equality of WHAT though? Similar to what you said, there's a phrase that right-wingers tend to throw around that's quite fitting here -- though not in the way they use it. "Equality of opportunity, not of outcome." When THEY use it, it often means something like 'hey, you had just as much chance to be born to millionaires, not my fault you're starving!'. Beware of such false arguments. Education must surely begin "equal outcome", all on one track, but there is definitely a point where the students start to decide what they're going to be doing with their lives, and they certainly SHOULD be empowered to work towards those goals, even if that means some go to college, some go to trade schools, and some may even drop out.
We don't say it's unfair that not everybody gets a computer science degree, do we? Of course not! Not everyone *wants* one! It's only unfair if someone *other than the students themselves* get to make that decision for them. And of course, they should be free to make mistakes -- we need to make sure students can freely move between tracks as long as they're willing to do the work to catch up.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Friday May 02 2014, @03:23PM
The flip-side of that is by placing slower kids in with smarter kids, it encourages the slower kids to work harder. For example it looks like holding a child back a year before starting kindgarten so that they are among the oldest and more developed in the class actually retards their development. [newyorker.com]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 02 2014, @04:53PM
So you want to hold the smarter kids back for the sake of the dumb kids? You can't have it both ways; either you pace things for the dumb ones, and bore/alienate the smart ones, or you pace things for the smart ones, and lose the dumb ones who can't keep up. That's the whole problem with mainstreaming. If you want kids to learn at their own pace, you have to break them up.
It also doesn't help that the dumb kids like to bully the smart ones to make up for their mental inadequacy. Separating them into different schools solves that problem.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Friday May 02 2014, @05:37PM
> You can't have it both ways;
Black and white thinking is rarely true. In the article I previously linked to they found that as long as the differences aren't too extreme, the advanced children do not suffer a significant detriment by having the less developed children in the same classroom.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 02 2014, @06:57PM
No one said you have to have 30 classes for 30 different kids, since every kid is unique and doesn't learn exactly the same way or at exactly the same pace. However, taking 30 random kids and sticking them together is exactly what mainstreaming is, and doesn't work because the difference between the smartest and dumbest kids is too extreme.
It also doesn't help that some kids value education, while others don't, and sticking them together just yields bullying, and kids learning that it's not "cool" to get good grades.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Friday May 02 2014, @07:16PM
> No one said you have to have 30 classes for 30 different kids
So where are you drawing the line?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 02 2014, @07:25PM
Well in Germany, at around our high school level, they divide kids into 3 different schools: one for the dumbest kids, one for the reasonably-intelligent ones who will end up in trades or technician-type jobs, and one for university-bound kids. Seems like a good system to me, and seems to work quite well for them.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Friday May 02 2014, @08:01PM
And you think that is a significant factor in their economy's productivity? They aren't the only country with segregated educational tracks, most of europe has some variation on that theme.
As for bullying, it doesn't seem to make all that much difference with 29% of german students saying that bullying is a problem at school, [theguardian.com] putting them in middle of the pack for europe.
(Score: 1) by BasilBrush on Friday May 02 2014, @04:54PM
Taking the first results that came up for me in Google...
Nope._ GDP_(PPP)_per_hour_worked [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by
Nope./ the-pursuit-of-happiness/ [forbes.com]
http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/10/30
Nope.L [oecd.org]
http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=LEVE
Nope./ [247wallst.com]
http://247wallst.com/investing/2010/06/28/72005/2
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Friday May 02 2014, @02:51PM
I think the data will show that the variance across the male population is greater than that in the female population, but that the average female "intelligence" (whatever that means) is higher than the average male intelligence.
The averages are the same; the difference comes because grading is such that you can only lose points -- there is no chance to get higher than an A, no matter how good you are. As a result, the low end of the male curve significantly lowers the average male grade, but the high end of the male curve cannot raise it in proportion to the drop.
Women being more toward the average, there are fewer women at the bottom to drop the average female grade as much as the males at the bottom, and those on the high end of the female curve score similarly to the males on the high end -- grades being insensitive to differences in this range.
This gets a lot more interesting when you consider salaries of working people, sorted by gender. The underperforming men can't earn less than the minimum wage, so they can't drag down the male average too much. On the other end, the most exceptional men stand to earn boatloads of cash, significantly raising the male average.
The women workers have fewer than men on the very bottom, but they didn't affect the statistics too much due to minimum wage. The women also have fewer at the very top, leading to a very different average salary.
This isn't to say that there is no discrimination, but analysis should take the above factors into account to be accurate. I'm getting this from the book "Is there anything good about men?" by Roy Baumeister. A free summary can be found here [denisdutton.com]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 02 2014, @05:23PM
Maybe it's because "you have to be a good girl" while "boys will be boys".
Most tests tend to reward people who have been told all their life to behave and do things properly, over people who are allowed more leeway.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 02 2014, @06:25PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @11:39AM
There has to be some hand-wavy bullshit soft-science faff that will FUD this finding up. Girls do better on standardized tests? Maybe the openly sexist pro-male bias on the part of faculty puts too much pressure on males. Or maybe its the opposite, and what appeared to be pro-male bias has in fact always been pro-female bias, expressed in subtle but significant ways (language choice, seating patters, whatever, take your pick).
'End of men' is frankly disturbing. If lower standardized test scores means people can openly talk about writing off a segment of the population, then why aren't people crowing about the end of blacks or the end of hispanics?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @11:42AM
As any feminist will tell you, the only place for men is prison.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday May 02 2014, @12:34PM
Some non-hand-wavy soft-science findings: The most important thing to remember about most gender-related statistical differences is that variation within genders is almost always much greater than variation between genders. For example, on average men can run 100 meters faster than women, and Usain Bolt can run faster than Florence Griffith Joyner, but Joyner is much faster than most men. On average, girls score about 10-20 points higher on the SATs than boys, but there are boys who score 1600 and girls who do terribly (or don't even take it).
So what this basic point means is that regardless of this or any other finding, you should not be treating kids significantly differently based on gender, but on their actual skills and personality. You should be giving girls the chance to be great athletes or mathematicians or scientists, and boys the chance to be great therapists or romance novelists or nurses, if that child wants to pursue those kinds of activities and/or is good at them.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @12:36PM
> There has to be some hand-wavy bullshit soft-science faff that will FUD this finding up.
> Girls do better on standardized tests?
From TFA:
I suspect your analysis is about as capable as your reading ability.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @01:59PM
I didn't RTFA, I read TFS, which at several points stated or implied that girls are doing better on standardized tests.
I take from your passive-aggressive put-down that you think I'm a moron. Fine, you can think that. I submit that you've dismissed what I wrote based on an unfounded assumption about what I did and did not read, and that you have narrowed your interpretation of the issue to suit your desire to insult me.
- My point was about the implications of the 'End of men' idea, and that point still stands. The idea that we've reached the "end of" any group because they are doing worse in school, whether on standardized or not, is abhorrent to me
- If anything, we may be seeing the end of patriarchy. Fine, good. But immediately replacing one biased structure with another, seeing this as the end of men('s rule) and beginning of women('s rule), keeps the same basic problem, which is that individuals are limited by factors assigned at birth
(Score: 1) by Oligonicella on Friday May 02 2014, @03:16PM
And you don't understand that this alone makes the drawn conclusions pretty much worthless? That teachers are damned near purely female and that will affect grade assignments?
Social "Science" isn't. It has always been, but is becoming even more so, a means of projecting the author's wishes, not anything reality based.
No?
An assumption that the researchers held. Note: The sentence in the article following your quote. In other words, they immediately do in their favor exactly what they believe the tests are doing against it.
You should also have noticed that they:
cherry-picked their data. This in the paragraph *prior* to your quote.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @11:45AM
Where is the runoff? I may be missing something here, but isn't it just a matter of running a script to process the votes & then sending out new vote emails? What's the reason for the delay?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by VitalMoss on Friday May 02 2014, @12:05PM
As a guy, the girls can keep their broken system, but some observations as someone in school;
Girls generally hold on more to the belief that without schooling, they will fail horribly in life. They are the obsessive studiers and if they get anything below a C they proclaim the end of the world.
Guys tend to be less stressed about it, though this doesn't always hold true.
(Score: 1) by BasilBrush on Friday May 02 2014, @05:07PM
Girls generally hold on more to the belief that without schooling, they will fail horribly in life.
I've certainly observed the girls you mean, but they aren't in a majority, any more than the boys that think that are. And don't forget the girls with the belief that they simply have to find a successful man...
There are all sorts. It doesn't help to generalise, without actually collecting data.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 1) by VitalMoss on Saturday May 03 2014, @06:58PM
That's why I pointed out it was an observation. I actually don't see as many that are just looking to find a man, even the party girls I know are hoping to go into nursing.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday May 02 2014, @12:30PM
Since no one else has yet, I'll state the obvious. The foundations are laid in early education, ages 5-12 or so. In this age group, on average, young girls find it easier to sit still. Young boys are, on average, more physically active.
At least when I was in school (ya know, back in the Stone Age), teachers let us out for recess in a big dirt lot. We were allowed to let off steam however we wanted: run around, play soldier, play tag, whatever - get rid of excess physical energy.
Today that is apparently too dangerous, at least in the US, and increasingly in other countries as well. Playgrounds are covered with rubber mats, no contact games, no competition - heck, some schools even apparently try to outlaw running. When the boys turn out fidgety in class, diagnose them with ADHD and drug 'em. Make them behave like good little girls, because that's what the almost entirely female staff really understands.
Is it any wonder that boys have trouble in education?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by velex on Friday May 02 2014, @01:47PM
Not only that, but elementary schools are openly, institutionally sexist against boys. They routinely implement policies that favor girls, such as allowing girls to use the gym and wander the halls during indoor recess. This is justified by the supposed male privilege that boys will enjoy later in life and also as a punishment for future rape and future sexism that the boys will invariably engage in. Girls are routinely given more interesting projects, and boys are given bland projects with studies like this used as justification, for example, for allowing girls to use proper tools like hot glue guns while restricting boys to paste.
Later in schooling, the institutional sexism shows itself in other forms than outright policy. I remember once in "English" class, an assignment was to analyze a short story and identify how the house in the story itself was pregnant. The teacher made it a point to tell the class that none of the [assigned males] would be able to complete the assignment because males are unable to become pregnant and thus are incomplete beings.
I don't think I even need to get into an incident where I started a computer club and was then set up by the [cis] female network administrator to be accused of hacking. Years later, a girl founded another computer club and the school district triumphantly trumped in the local newspaper that their first computer club was founded by a girl. Feh, if only I could have known back then what I was up against.
In all seriousness, this study, if anything, shows that when you openly discriminate against a group based on body parts other than the one between the ears, that group tends to do more poorly vs. the privileged group.
There is no more disgusting form of sexism than sexism justified by presumed sexism.
I'll say it again. Fuck feminism. It's the beta of gender equality. And I'll add, if only I had a red creeper card for every. single. damned. time. I was reduced to the body part between my legs and openly discriminated against. And I wish I had a red creeper card for every. single. damned. time. I've had to listen to some [cis] woman go on about wild sex.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by BasilBrush on Friday May 02 2014, @05:16PM
And now those girls have grown up they won't even fuck you! Damn girls!
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by velex on Friday May 02 2014, @05:59PM
I know, right! Because everybody is attracted to girls! hurr durr
Because anybody who would dare criticize cis women must be butthurt about not getting laid.
God, what a fucking stupid comment. I shouldn't even reply to you, but I am that fucking sick of this kind of bullshit.
Although come to think of it I haven't had a good cock in me in about 6 months, though.
(Score: 2, Funny) by BasilBrush on Friday May 02 2014, @06:21PM
I see there's been no lasting psychological damage...
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @01:55PM
Thanks for having the BALLS to say that out loud.
(Score: 1) by BasilBrush on Friday May 02 2014, @05:13PM
And the girls were doing group activities too. Skipping and other games.
Well whatever they did do at your school seems to have turned you into a whiner with little respect for the facts.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Saturday May 03 2014, @10:46AM
I just entered "elementary school playground rules", and clicked on the first link [srvusd.net]. Here are some of the rules:
So, what facts did I get wrong? What kind of "playground" doesn't allow tag, balls, jump ropes, or running?
By the way, I never said that girls weren't doing activities as well. However, it's a pretty basic and well-known fact that young boys have more trouble sitting still in a classroom than girls.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Saturday May 03 2014, @03:32PM
The ban on balls and running only applies to "the playground apparatus area" which appears to be a small area with swings, slides and climbing frames. It makes a lot of sense to not allow ball ga,es and running there as they are likely to cause accidents. There is no such ban on the main playground. In fact if you'd read further down the page you'd have found handy instructions for how to play certain ball games.
The only one you mentioned that applies to the whole playground is games of tag. And it doesn't appear to apply to the playing field, as one of the games described involves being on the playing field and tagging.
So basically you got all of it wrong. Even after having found the page yourself. Typically right wing distortion with no respect for the facts.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Dutchster on Friday May 02 2014, @12:32PM
Schools have been historically openly sexist by favoring boys? Hmm, perhaps they were just ahead of the curve with their affirmative action programs :-)
I, for one am not a fan of affirmative action programs but it stands to reason that if you're going to have them then it may be time to unapologetically favor boys in this regard.
(Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Friday May 02 2014, @12:43PM
TFA has a curious definition of either "modern" or "history", that's for sure.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 2) by velex on Friday May 02 2014, @01:26PM
I'm convinced that feminists are all stuck in some kind of alternate 1955, like some kind of time loop where they appear to be in the present moment to an observer. Quick! Somebody call the Doctor! Or would this be a chronoton fluctuation? Quick! Send a message through the Pegasus Array and get Captain Janeway on the horn!
(Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Monday May 05 2014, @12:28PM
I'd suggest Dr. E. Brown for this one, considering his expertise in that particular timespace domain, but I pale to think what they'd do to him.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Shub on Friday May 02 2014, @01:03PM
Schools in most countries are generally focused around memory skills rather than innovation skills or problem solving.
Most school curriculum's are structured in a way that _all_ students(regardless of ability) will be able to learn the material and regurgitate that learned material onto an exam paper. It is essentially nothing more than a test of who has the best memory rather than anything else.
Even subjects like maths that require critical thinking & analysis in real life fields such as physics, are structured in a way in which all that is required of a student is to learn formulas, and never stray from them.
Logically enough it follows that the segment of our species that does best in school is the same segment that generally speaking has the best memory: the females.
I'd imagine that if the curriculum of the schools were less focused on rote learning then the female advantage would disappear.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by starcraftsicko on Friday May 02 2014, @05:57PM
we stand on the shoulders of giants... [wikipedia.org]
Because of this memorization you speak of, we instil the the life's work of Newton and Leibniz into emerging mathematicians and physicists in one or two semesters. We teach the algebraic math of the Babylonians and the Greeks and the Arabs, thousands of years of development, to nearly every teenager over just a couple of years. We teach the life's work of Pythagoras and Euclid, often in less than a year, to virtually all of our students.
Memorization represents a raised common ground from which new work can be developed.
Innovation at the expense of memorization means the only a select few know 'advanced math', but only after they invent all of the basic maths - the geometry and the algebra. Innovation alone means that the knowledge of how make a thing dies with the first maker. Innovation over memorization means written language is just art - appreciated by many perhaps - but understood only by the creator.
Invention is 1 part innovation and 99 parts memorization.
This post was created with recycled electrons.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday May 02 2014, @11:46PM
Bullshit. *Discovery* of these concepts takes a long time, sure, but actually teaching them once they've been discovered doesn't really need to take any longer than memorizing the formula.
For example, look at EM propagation. A shitty physics teacher will say: "Power decreases with the inverse square of distance. Memorize this formula." A good physics teacher will explain that the wave is propagating out as a sphere, the surface area of that sphere is based on the square of the radius, therefore the power at any point on that sphere decreases with the inverse square of that same radius.
Teaching should be about connecting concepts. That's what separates an education from an encyclopedia. Because if you know radio waves propagate as a sphere, you don't need to memorize the inverse square law, you can easily derive it from the formula for the area of a sphere. And you can derive that too if you don't know it. There's very little that you actually need to memorize.
This is why my grades in math classes started plummeting once I got to college -- they stopped actually explaining things and started just throwing everyone a stack of formulas to memorize. If your memory sucked, your exam scores sucked, because the exams were all purely about pulling numbers out of the questions and plugging them into the formula that the question told you to use, nothing more.
(Score: 1) by ButchDeLoria on Saturday May 03 2014, @12:58AM
I had my engineering and math classes provide formula sheets for exams.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Saturday May 03 2014, @01:40AM
Yeah, a lot of science and engineering classes that I took did that. Some would provide formula sheets, some would let you bring anything you could fit on a single sheet of paper, some would even let you use the textbook. Math classes tended not to do that. And I think I learned more calculus from my one physics class than from my three calc classes...
I always thought that was a great idea though. My father (an attorney) once told me that it's not about what you know, it's about what you can find. Or it's about how you use it. You can try (and probably fail!) to memorize every single mathematical formula ever derived; or every single feature of every Java library; or every single law in your jurisdiction...or you can just learn to use Google or the library or the index of your textbook! Better to use your brain power learning what to do with that information once you find it. The only things you should ever memorize are the things that you yourself create. The things that exist nowhere but your own mind. If a teacher or professor told you some fact, that fact will be well known and well recorded and will be easy enough for you to find later.
Yeah, you're gonna want to memorize some things that you use every day simply because looking them up every time is too slow...but you'll automatically memorize those from using them. If it takes effort to memorize something, that probably means it's useless to you.
(Score: 3, Funny) by velex on Friday May 02 2014, @01:04PM
Federal scientists conclusively prove that boys are poor students. If a boy shows any kind of skill, it's only because of his male privilege. Boys are not individuals. Would you like to know more?
Controversy! In a related study, critics of Sky Marshal Anoki's initiative to recruit boys into Fleet have shown that boys do not give good H.E.D. Sky Marshal Anoki resigns. Would you like to know more?
The recess bell rang. After a thoroughly boring exercise in basic grammar, it was finally time for afternoon recess. Vel was hopeful to spend some time hanging out with her friends.
"It's time for recess, children, but all boys must stay here," announced the teacher. Vel watched her friends and the rest of the girls leave the room for the playground. The room was quickly cleared of girls, the only [cis] female remaining being the teacher. The teacher continued, "You boys have been very disruptive today. You are all to put your heads on your desk and think about how privileged you are and how little you deserve it."
Vel didn't quite understand what the teacher was getting at. It was true that after lunch a few of the boys in the back had heckled the teacher during math period, but she didn't understand what that had to do with her. She put her hand up, hoping to get the teacher's attention.
"Yes, Vel, what is it?"
"Mrs. Sommerset, I don't understand," protested Vel. "I haven't done anything wrong. It was those boys back there who caused the problem. May I go out for recess."
The teacher considered the eight year old's words briefly, then concluded, "Vel, I know you're just as well behaved as a girl, but it wouldn't be fair to the other boys if I let you go out for recess."
So, Vel, put her head on her desk with the rest of the boys and contemplated her male privilege. One thought dominated the others in her head. "God, please turn me into a girl. Please, god, please."
Upon hearing that, God concluded that She would get around to it as soon as She started existing.
End of line.
(Score: 0, Troll) by ButchDeLoria on Saturday May 03 2014, @01:01AM
Cool story sis, top kek, nice quads, needed more NPH, just like the movie.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Bartman12345 on Friday May 02 2014, @01:32PM
I'm just waiting for another study that proves that boys are better students than girls. Oh wait, that won't happen because it would be SEXIST to even suggest that such a thing could be true.
Standards. Double 'em.
(Score: 2) by nightsky30 on Friday May 02 2014, @02:28PM
Boys might not have been attending college as much in pure enrollment numbers, but STEM related degrees are still lacking high female enrollment. Most of those girls are sadly seeking artsy degrees. I hope this changes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sir Garlon on Friday May 02 2014, @06:11PM
From what I read of TFA the "study" did not examine or attempt to control for the gender of the teacher. As someone else pointed out, the critical grades are the primary grades and there, the teachers are overwhelmingly female.
Quick hypothesis: when a human is doing the subjective grading, that human is prone to favor members of his or her own gender to a certain extent. I do not you can seriously make a conclusion about girls or boys being "better" at anything until you take into account the gender of the judges. Many studies try to remove the subjective element of evaluation for this reason, but this study explicitly rejected that premise by throwing out standardized tests and looking only at teacher-assigned, subjective grades.
People, including me, commonly complain about the scarcity of women in tech but no one bats an eye at women being the overwhelming majority of elementary teachers. In my humble opinion this is largely because teaching is easy to associate with child care, and that fits nicely with the traditional female role. Also, it is generally low-paid and unappreciated work (for the same reason) and so it's hard to make people care that males are excluded from it (similarly to how few people complain about the lack of women garbage collectors). Our society is very resistant to the idea of male elementary teachers. If you press people as to why, pretty soon you will get to some vague FUD about pedophiles. Reflect for a moment on how deeply offensive and unfair *that* stereotype is.
If we are honest with ourselves, it seems pretty freakishly weird that we have an objective for gender equity in society and yet the minute young kids leave the home we enroll them in an institution that is overwhelmingly female dominated. Might it not be worthwhile to consider that if you want kids to grow up thinking men and women working together is normal, you might want to sprinkle some more men into the first workplace many of them ever see?
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 1) by ButchDeLoria on Saturday May 03 2014, @01:04AM
Not to insult women as a whole, but it seems that it's overwhelmingly females who are dumb enough to take the shitty pay of being in education, though men are capable of making the same mistake. Usually when men go into academia though, they go into the sector of it that offers things like tenure and grant money.