Atlantic: "Why Girls Get Better Grades Than Boys Do" | What do you think?

Lethn · 2020-05-24T00:44:45+00:00

They're lying.

The BBC reported on this several years ago, and nearly all of girls' current performance advantage over boys results from teacher gender grading bias. As soon as all the grading is blind, boys' scores improve dramatically and in some areas outperform girls'. Now I wonder why that would be, eh?

StripedFalafel · 2020-05-24T01:23:44+00:00

Wow! Don't get me started!

As NotherThrowaway284 said, we know most of it is because of gender bias by teachers in grading. But I believe there is also gender bias during teaching & in curriculum selection. My elder son had a teacher who would ignore the boys. For example, when she asked a question of the class, she would always only take answers from the girls. She admitted it freely but the headteacher wouldn't accept it was a problem.

And the math curriculum was a joke with lots of colouring in & essays!

Back when I went to school results were based on external, objective exams - your teachers' prejudices weren't a factor. And boys scored equally with girls. Makes me wonder why the system was changed to be more subjective...

LegendaryEmu1 · 2020-05-24T05:12:46+00:00

This begs a sensitive question: Are schools set up to favor the way girls learn and trip up boys?

Yes. But the bigger reason is the overwhelmingly female teachers marking boys down and girls up...just because.

The whole enterprise of severely downgrading kids for such transgressions as occasionally being late to class, blurting out answers, doodling instead of taking notes, having a messy backpack, poking the kid in front, or forgetting to have parents sign a permission slip for a class trip, was revamped.

Wait, you gen penalized for not putting up your hand, doodling or having messy bags, what? Thats ridiculous. The first is rude, the rest...don't matter.

Sadly though, it appears that the overwhelming trend among teachers is to assign zero points for late work. In one survey by Conni Campbell, associate dean of the School of Education at Point Loma Nazarene University, 84 percent of teachers did just that.

Thats ridiculous, my university merely deducted 1 point for each day it was late, so two days, you were likely fine, but a week plus would be significant, especially if you struggled.

Theres some good here, but they did ignore some things, but at least they brought up the frankly terrible learning environment, especially some of those penalties, absolutely ridiculous. But i'm fully aware of these tropes, all through my school, i did really well on all my tests(usually at the or near the top of the class), but my teachers consistently marked me quite low because of other shit. In extra comments there was always, for at least the 8 years of school reports i found while cleaning up 'He is so smart if only he would apply himself'.

Never mind the fact i was literally discouraged from answering in class a lot, so i didn't. The environment and how you're treated mean a lot, if you're treated like shit, you won't work very hard.

killcat · 2020-05-24T06:54:42+00:00

Easy, girls "failing" was a problem, it had to be fixed, the system was changed to do so, boy failing is not a problem, there is nothing to fix, with that attitude you can see why boys are falling behind further.

Rockmapper_ · 2020-05-23T21:32:01+00:00

Well, there is a biological aspect: girls mature faster than boys. That can be one explanation or a part of one.

There is also another: societal change. For example, Sue Sharpe found that girls attitudes have changed since the 1980s (or around there, not got my sociology notes on me). They used to focus more on a family instead of perusing a career. This has shifted to the other way round more. This aspiration for achievement, which is good, could explain this.

One other point: the introduction of coursework. In the UK, the policy that first introduced coursework is a clear example of where achievement started to shift from "underachieving girls" to our "failing boys"

ThePigmanAgain · 2020-05-24T10:24:44+00:00

Studies have been done showing that if teachers don't KNOW the sex of the kids, the girls no longer get higher marks. That's all there is to it.

Title	Atlantic: "Why Girls Get Better Grades Than Boys Do" \| What do you think?
Author	Strikester101
Upvotes	58
Comments	24
Date	May 23, 2020 9:11 PM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/gpcqmm/atlantic_why_girls_get_better_grades_than_boys_do/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/atlantic-why-girls-get-better-grades-than-boys-do.851784 https://theredarchive.com/post/851784

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