Friday, January 11, 2008

I really enjoyed the reading on "How Boys and Girls Learn Differently" because it was a great follow up to a discussion that my co-workers had at the end of last year. We had proposed to our school administration that we should be allowed to segregate the classes between boys and girls essentially giving us a class of all boys and a class of all girls for English and history. My coworker even wrote an annotated bibliography citing sources for reasons why it would be great for our students. However we were told that it was to radical of an idea and that the parents in the district would never accept it.

I appreciated the article because it supported the ideas that my coworkers and I had concerning our students academic needs. We all felt that it would be great to be able to teach to the needs of the students rather than allow the social interaction to have an influence on the learning environment. I agree that the social interaction of male and female will always have an influence, but if we could teach to one gender at a time then wouldn't we be better serving the needs of the students. This article seem to confirm a need to teach to the differences that exist in the way that males and females learn. It was a very enlightening read.

2 comments:

Roy F. Fox said...

It's hard to think of gender-segregated classes as "radical," as your administrators said. It's an ancient practice!

Kangmo said...

It reminds me of the book, "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men Conversation" by Deborah Tannen. Women and Men think really differently! Yes.