Boys just aren’t interested in school at an early age because it isn’t really geared to them. Then they fall back, and can’t catch up.
Boys are marketed things like cars, guns, and motorcycles from a very early age. If the boy doesn’t have a teacher that has any knowledge of these things, they just aren’t that interested.
I doubt that many female grade 6 teachers could tell a young boy the different between a V4, I4, and flat 4 engine. Or even fain an interested in discussing things like how a jet ski works vs. a regular propeller driven motor boat.
I think that the solution is that schools should have a specialist math/physics teacher starting in grade 6. Just like a regular classroom teacher can’t really teach music, a regular classroom teacher can’t really teach things like math/physics properly. These are specialty disciplines.
It doesn’t even need to be the “manly man” stuff you listed. Many boys would enjoy catching and counting frogs or bugs for a school project. And a lot of them prefer a more hands on environment when learning. Instead of drawing chemical structures in science they may prefer building them with 3d modeling toys.
Also just having more opportunities to burn off some energy can help them stay focused. Even in college if i started getting too fidgety and losing focus a couple laps walking around the building would help me regain my focus.
Every child is different. There may be some girls who have similar interests or struggles just as there may be some boys who would prefer to spend recesses nose deep in a book instead of on the sports field.
I don’t think that there is much of a biological difference between girls not being fidgety and boys being fidgety. That line of argument tends to degenerate quickly into pseudo-science eugenics. I believe by grade 6, the heavy amount of gender marketing just means boys and girls have different interests.
I really don’t think that many female grade 6 teachers have any knowledge or interest in guns/cars/planes/programming and can’t even answer the most basic questions that a young male child might have.
I think that the solution is starting from grade 6, schools should have a specialized math/physics teacher. This would help both girls and boys. To teach physics properly you really need to be very well versed in it, that same with mathematics if not more. So many students fail to gain an interest in math because of a bad teacher, a teacher that was typically just winging it in math lessons.
Without shop classes schools have really suffered. They were a good way to get kids to learn to measure properly, and do applied mathematics. From that you had a natural way of teaching classical Greek geometry, then into sine tables.
I think that is the key issue.
Boys just aren’t interested in school at an early age because it isn’t really geared to them. Then they fall back, and can’t catch up.
Boys are marketed things like cars, guns, and motorcycles from a very early age. If the boy doesn’t have a teacher that has any knowledge of these things, they just aren’t that interested. I doubt that many female grade 6 teachers could tell a young boy the different between a V4, I4, and flat 4 engine. Or even fain an interested in discussing things like how a jet ski works vs. a regular propeller driven motor boat.
I think that the solution is that schools should have a specialist math/physics teacher starting in grade 6. Just like a regular classroom teacher can’t really teach music, a regular classroom teacher can’t really teach things like math/physics properly. These are specialty disciplines.
It doesn’t even need to be the “manly man” stuff you listed. Many boys would enjoy catching and counting frogs or bugs for a school project. And a lot of them prefer a more hands on environment when learning. Instead of drawing chemical structures in science they may prefer building them with 3d modeling toys.
Also just having more opportunities to burn off some energy can help them stay focused. Even in college if i started getting too fidgety and losing focus a couple laps walking around the building would help me regain my focus.
Every child is different. There may be some girls who have similar interests or struggles just as there may be some boys who would prefer to spend recesses nose deep in a book instead of on the sports field.
I don’t think that there is much of a biological difference between girls not being fidgety and boys being fidgety. That line of argument tends to degenerate quickly into pseudo-science eugenics. I believe by grade 6, the heavy amount of gender marketing just means boys and girls have different interests.
I really don’t think that many female grade 6 teachers have any knowledge or interest in guns/cars/planes/programming and can’t even answer the most basic questions that a young male child might have.
I think that the solution is starting from grade 6, schools should have a specialized math/physics teacher. This would help both girls and boys. To teach physics properly you really need to be very well versed in it, that same with mathematics if not more. So many students fail to gain an interest in math because of a bad teacher, a teacher that was typically just winging it in math lessons.
Without shop classes schools have really suffered. They were a good way to get kids to learn to measure properly, and do applied mathematics. From that you had a natural way of teaching classical Greek geometry, then into sine tables.