Hermenuetics

Comments

I home school my four children, two boys and two girls. Yes, they learn differently. One size does not fit all. I am so thankful that I can teach them at home and tailor the material to their learning styles.

Posted By: Leslie | February 25, 2010 11:25 AM

And just to throw this out there...I had two of each. Each one of them learned differently. And there were greater differences between my two sons' learning styles than between either of them and their sisters.

We are ALL different and gender is only a piece of the puzzle not the whole thing.

Posted By: Tami | February 25, 2010 12:04 PM

What this show me more than anything else is the need for tailored small group instruction. My wife is a third grade teacher that does 90 percent of her day in small group instruction. It is all tailored to where that particular child is at. Children move in and out of groups frequently based on skills and needs. Each child receives at least one math and at least one reading lesson a day with no more than 3 other students. Some may receive as many as three short reading lessons a day.

What it requires is a highly organized motivated teacher, a lot of skills assessment (computerized skill assessment is a must) and relatively small class sizes. Right now a significant portion of the education community is just not capable of doing small group instruction in this manner. But it is the way that children, especially low income children, will learn best.

Posted By: Adam Shields | February 25, 2010 12:26 PM

This is an old argument, and, of course, there's a whole other side to this story:

"A study to be released today looking at long-term trends in test scores and academic success argues that widespread reports of U.S. boys being in crisis are greatly overstated and that young males in school are in many ways doing better than ever.

Using data compiled from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federally funded accounting of student achievement since 1971, the Washington-based think tank Education Sector found that, over the past three decades, boys' test scores are mostly up, more boys are going to college and more are getting bachelor's degrees.

Although low-income boys, like low-income girls, are lagging behind middle-class students, boys are scoring significant gains in elementary and middle school and are much better prepared for college, the report says. It concludes that much of the pessimism about young males seems to derive from inadequate research, sloppy analysis and discomfort with the fact that although the average boy is doing better, the average girl has gotten ahead of him.

"The real story is not bad news about boys doing worse," the report says, "it's good news about girls doing better. ...

The "boy crisis," the report says, has been used by conservative authors who accuse "misguided feminists" of lavishing resources on female students at the expense of males and by liberal authors who say schools are "forcing all children into a teacher-led pedagogical box that is particularly ill-suited to boys' interests and learning styles."

"Yet there is not sufficient evidence -- or the right kind of evidence -- available to draw firm conclusions," the report says. "As a result, there is a sort of free market for theories about why boys are underperforming girls in school, with parents, educators, media, and the public choosing to give credence to the explanations that are the best marketed and that most appeal to their pre-existing preferences." "

Wash. Post 6/26/06 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/25/AR2006062501047.html

This Slate article is more comprehensive. http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:9HL0uwjt_BUJ:www.slate.com/id/2135243/+whitmire+%22national+assessment+of+educational+progress%22&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Posted By: Christian Lawyer | February 26, 2010 1:25 AM

I once served as an administrator in a small town high school in which several hundred students graduated each year. Of those, the school selected 12 valedictorians. One year in particular I remember of the 12 valedictorians, 11 were females. And this was pretty much the norm every year. Did it reflect a "boy" problem? I don't think so. We consistently had boys involved in many school activities where they performed excellently. I now work in an urban school district and I see the same pattern here: girls tend to excel academically while boys not so much. Now here we do have a "boy" problem: they drop out of school, they do drugs, and they fight and kill each other. And the girls? Not so much.

Posted By: Dan | February 26, 2010 11:39 AM

Christian Lawyer wrote: “This is an old argument, and, of course, there's a whole other side to this story.”

I’m glad Christian Lawyer has apparently come to the realization that there's a “whole other side” to any story.

The article she cites is an older, 2006 study which was generally inconclusive as to why school curricula appear to be less conducive to male learning vs female learning. The 2006 Slate article she referenced is the same study as viewed through the leftist prism of Slate magazine (in angrily slamming conservative sources she conveniently and hypocritically leaves out the leftist bias of sources, like Slate and the ACLU, that she so often cites).

I think it is factual to say that the state of male education is cause for concern, all the way through the college level. Of particular note is the high percentage of male high school dropouts, especially in minority communities, and the dwindling number of males who appear interested in going to college. We know there is a strong correlation between educational non-achievement and incarceration. Society pays a heavy price for not providing educational opportunities for at-risk males.

But this has not been and should not be an exclusive concern of ideologues. The data from Whitmire is heavily quantitative, more conclusive and more recent than the 2006 Education Sector analysis. Additionally, Whitmire’s prior ideological predispositions, if he had any, were more sympathetic to the left.

By childishly reducing these concerns to an ideological face-off we waste even more time in coming up with solutions. We ignore these educational red flags at our own peril.

Posted By: Truthmeister | February 27, 2010 5:12 PM

I think it is unfair to try to label little things like switching away from phonics(which I personally believe to be detrimental in all ways) as part of the problem.
Or to imply that education today favors girls and we must put a stop to that and bring it back on the boys side.
That is almost Victorian in thought, and a tad bit jealous. As a girl I kept up with and could easily pass the boys in all things including sports at a time when things were slanted the other way.
How?
Motivation, being inspired, knowing that if you could grasp the basics the rest was easy. Learn to read and there was nothing you couldn't teach yourself, learn what I wanted to learn. It starts in 1st grade, at the beginning.
So much for biased, eh?

The fact is today they don't really give the kids anything to motivate them to want to go to school and learn, other than having computers and free internet access. You've got to give computers credit for sparking greater interest in reading, typing, and programming than before.
What happened to vocational classes, music and sports? Things that even if they dropped out would still be useful in making a living. And wasn't that the whole point in getting an education, to be able to make a decent living?
Over the years too many budget cuts and school closings killed many of those programs. What are they going to school for? Kids go because they have to, because there is no way around it, it's forced on them, they don't have to like it or feel they need it. They get no matter what for at least the first 8-9 years.
Bored kids don't learn, pushing them to excel to go to college isn't much of a motivation either.
Give them something they can really sink their teeth into, something that gets them fired up, eager to stay in school, something that would be useful in life, making a living, starting their own business, something that serves a purpose.
I wish homeschooling had been available for my kids, I would have taught them so much more, things that they would have gotten credit for. I taught that having your own business was the way to go.
Had them run a soda business out of our kitchen. My kids learned more from that in a week than in a semester of economics, bookkeeping, marketing, management and math classes!
At 15 I met an occupational therapist, I was shown around her dept and I fell in love with this line of work. Why? because it would incorporate all the things I loved to do, art, crafts, hospitals and helping people get well.
I researched all the classes I would need to take to become an occupational therapist.
I had a goal that didn't focus on writing term papers or reading Shakespeare and Poe. I could relate to this, I could see myself doing this, and being happy in my career.
And that made Shakespeare and Poe bearable to finish.
In the movie "Peggy Sue Got Married" Peggy told her algebra teacher that she knew for certain that in her life she would never use algebra again.
Anybody see my point?
It's not a girl vs boy deal, girls find school a little more interesting than boys when there are no sports, drama, band or music classes available.
They all need exciting science and math classes, classes that teach them how to survive and flourish out in the world.
We lost schools with focus, with the idea that learning was the bridge to greater things, better things and jobs beyond working for somebody else for the rest of their lives.
When parent began to look down on vocational educational and allow those programs to be cut, they forgot that the world still needs plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and welders. We need trained people to repair and build thing, keep the equipment running. We need scientists to improve our machines and systems.
We have to give them some really good reasons for sticking it out 12 thru high school and another 4 for college.
If not all they will do is go the minimum time and drop out.
School will become a prison sentence with no time off for good behavior.

Posted By: Cherise | February 28, 2010 10:42 AM

"...And that made Shakespeare and Poe bearable to finish."
What? Shakespeare only bearable? Heretic! Poe only bearable? Philistine! May God have mercy on your utilitarian soul! ;-P

A Thing of Beauty (Endymion)

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

-Keats

Read this poem 10 times today and ask forgiveness from the Muse and your sin will be absolved.

Posted By: Dan | March 1, 2010 7:20 AM

It's one thing to point out that this article completely ignores serious, contradictory analysis. It's entirely another to falsely state, as TM did on another thread, that a judge, after a trial at which each side put on all the evidence they believed necessary to a full and complete analysis, "necessarily lacked" all the facts. One is encouragement of a search for truth, and the other is just a completely false statement of fact.

It would also be a lot more credible if those who are so worried now about the "crisis" for boys had expressed one whit of concern for the girls. Calling those who called for an end to discrimination against girls in college admissions "red-faced militants screaming" for equality lacks any sense of reasoned analysis.

Posted By: Christian Lawyer | March 2, 2010 7:04 AM

The "red-faced" feminists to which I referred, incorrectly interpreted by the self-styled "Christian Lawyer,” were those that had more of a bone to pick with the male gender than they had a desire to help the female gender.

Christian Lawyer posits that my argument "lacks any sense of reasoned analysis.” Well, now. I think Christian Lawyer may serve as the poster child for the notion that “reasoned analysis” is totally lost on those who apparently lack the capacity or will to appreciate it.

Christian Lawyer further surmised: "It would also be a lot more credible if those who are so worried now about the "crisis" for boys had expressed one whit of concern for the girls."

Actually, they did. Many of the same folks voicing concern now not only expressed more than a "whit" of concern about the girls, they were at the forefront of the movement for equitable treatment of girls. Some are now mothers of sons and it's that same concern for equitable treatment that’s motivating their actions now.

Before departing on her heroic “search for truth” Christian Lawyer, as is her custom, forgot to pack a couple of essentials: fairness and objectivity.

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