A personal issue

chavelah · 2012-12-16T16:46:14+00:00

She often makes comments about the immaturity of boys, and how girls at that age are better students.

There are biological differences in the development rate of boys and girls. Boys develop more slowly, both physically and mentally. There is hard scientific data to support this claim. link1 link2

In school, there are two ages where the development gap is most evident. The first is in kindergarten and 1st grade, where boys are often struggle with reading and fine motor control needed for writing. This is not a reflection of lack of ability, just a slower growth process. The second age is middle school, where the development issue is "executive functions" - the ability to plan, coordinate, and organize one's own work and activities. Teachers start to expect these abilities in middle school, and most of the girls are ready for that, but many of the boys aren't there yet.

I have 3 sons and I've encountered issues with female middle school teachers with contemptuous attitudes towards boys, like your "wonderful" wife. Women like her are a major reason boys are having trouble in school.

There are a lot of books written on this issue. Search for "why boys fail", "boys adrift", "the trouble with boys", and "the minds of boys" on Amazon. The Boys Project has a lot of useful info and links on this topic.

2012-12-16T16:41:01+00:00

Of course they're fucking immature, they're twelve year olds, and the differences in maturation between twelve year old boys and girls are well known. The word mature is often used with children and adolescents in a loaded, manipulative way. Often, when a teacher says that a twelve year boy or girl is mature, they mean that that the child is docile.

The real question is the followup one about what action is taken as a result of that factual observation - and therefore. Is it: And therefore we're patient and try to get through to each kid on their own level, and ask ourselves if boys can be better served. Or is it: And therefore we humiliate and berate the boys, and crow about intrinsic female superiority.

yourotherusername · 2012-12-16T17:54:41+00:00

When I was having an issue with someone once, my mother in law told me "you find what you look for."

She hates that I now repeat that back to her when she is gender stereotyping her grandchildren.

fifi1234 · 2012-12-16T17:13:23+00:00

http://www.madsciencemuseum.com/msm/gallery/top_20_most_bizarre_experiments/1 (#19)

When men and women were given instructions to electrocute a puppy and eventually kill it all the women and only half the men complied. (Milligram, 1963)

This is related to the behavior your wife is noting in the classroom, girls will generally conform and comply with authority figures, while boys often will not. Ask your wife why females tend to be 'morally defective' and if she thinks it may correlate to the level of 'maturity' she observes in the girls in her class. Ask her if she seeks to teach compliance or morality.

Hint: she will not understand the question, for many/most women morality is the same as going along with group, being publicly well mannered and polite. That level of ethics which deals with empathy to others outside their immediate circle and with universal principles of right and wrong is somewhat lacking in your average women, they are too busy focusing on being neat, organized and polite.

Tell her that men know most women are sociopaths who would torture and kill little little puppies rather than take a defiant stand, but men love them anyway in the hope they will eventually develop morals as they get older and more mature. Emphasize the 'more mature' part.

Finally, ask her if she was wired up for torture instead of the puppy, who she would want with their finger on the electrical shock switch and ordered to shock her: men or women?

kencabbit · 2012-12-16T18:10:24+00:00

If she "sees what she see" and then sees that as a problem with education rather than a problem with boys, then she might actually be on the right track. (I suspect this isn't the case, though, based on your submission.)

Boys do perform worse than girls in school. The appropriate response is to find out how our system is failing those boys, not dismiss them as immature.

AnnArchist · 2012-12-16T17:57:23+00:00

sounds like your wife is a shitty teacher.

rightsbot · 2012-12-16T15:44:18+00:00

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double-happiness · 2012-12-16T18:02:10+00:00

She often makes comments about the immaturity of boys, and how girls at that age are better students.

Personally I think I would go for the line that any observable differences are nothing to do with innate characteristics, but rather due to a) teaching methods favouring girls' performance, preponderance of female teachers b) negative effects of peers, media, and family on boys (lower expectations, negative evaluations of book-learning as a 'sissy' activity unsuitable for rugged males, etc.) and c) negative effects of the experience of masculinity on boys performance. The last point is rather more subtle but I would generally characterise puberty and adolescence as an especially traumatic time for boys as they must 'slough off' many of the natural experiences and feelings of childhood in order to be recognised as manly. For example, closeness to mothers and crying when upset both become taboo in ways that are not applicable to females.

http://www.illinoisloop.org/gender.html [Highly recommended article, reams of data and source material]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1205106/The-REAL-gender-gap-scandal-Why-boys-true-victims-discrimination.html

http://www.education.com/magazine/article/the-gender-gap/

http://mclaren83.hubpages.com/hub/Education-and-Feminism

I'm not going to mince words here - your wife doesn't sound like a very good teacher. If she perceives a lower level of performance in boys she should be striving to develop her teaching skills and lesson plans to focus delivery in ways that are designed to facillitate their learning, instead of negatively evaluating them as 'immature'. Any teacher worth their salt knows that it is the classroom environment and teaching methods employed that make for learning experiences; giving up on half the students in your class because of perceived social, cultural or biological diffrences is just lazy, and quite contrary to the concepts of reflexive practice and equality of opportunity as they are employed in modern educational settings.

SarcastiCock · 2012-12-16T16:39:12+00:00

She often makes comments about the immaturity of boys, and how girls at that age are better students.

That's generally true for young boys, but the opposite is true for adult women who are so often immature.

Edit: Why the downvotes? Is it offensive that men =! women?

themountaingoat · 2012-12-16T18:46:33+00:00

I think it is generally harder to teach boys. Girls will do things just because they are told to to a greater extent than boys, while for boys you need to make the subject matter interesting, or make them care enough about your opinion of them to want to please you. If you aren't able to do either of these things girls will be better students.

Source: two parents who are elementary school teachers.

Title	A personal issue
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	26
Comments	45
Date	December 16, 2012 3:43 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/14xzjc/a_personal_issue/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/a-personal-issue.1006451 https://theredarchive.com/post/1006451

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