Well Done the Girls?

Note: This is an old piece with some later sections added to it. But the points made in the piece are just as applicable now as they were ten years ago. Basically, the piece outlines the extreme biases against boys in the educational systems of western countries and, just as predicted, the result has been that boys are now doing very poorly right throughout their educational years compared to girls.

The A'level results out last week showed that, statistically speaking, our girls have beaten our boys academically by achieving higher grades. The difference is not large, but it follows the trend of the past three decades. 

Girls are edging ahead of boys in terms of their academic performance at school, and if nothing is done about this state of affairs it can only be expected that our girls will significantly outstrip our boys in the near future.

One can hardly be surprised by this given that, as Janet Daley from the Telegraph recently put it, educationalists over the past thirty years have done their best to arrange matters so that girls are supported academically while, at the same time, they have stripped away anything that assisted the achievement of boys under the claim that it was sex-discriminatory not to do so.

the educational environment has been arranged to advantage girls specifically.

Thus, apart from the fact that our national exams have become much easier, the educational environment has been arranged to advantage girls specifically.

1. The element of competition has been removed - and competition is a great motivator for the male gender. One only has to observe the male infatuation with sports, games, gambling, money, status etc. to see that the thirst for competition among males continues even well into adulthood. 

2. The assessment of many subjects is now heavily based on coursework. This requires that children put in a more consistent performance throughout their schooling. Boys, however, are simply less motivated to work hard week by week and they are simply less able to maintain the docile consistency required of them. It does not suit their nature nor society's general expectations of them. 

3. Strong classroom discipline and clear organisation have been abandoned by educationalists in favour of more informal settings. This has been a disaster for boys who need much firmer discipline both because of their nature and because of their relative immaturity when compared to girls, particularly in the younger age groups. 

Interpretation, empathy and creative writing are now believed to have more to do with 'real' education than the development of memory, logical thinking and focused argument.

4. Interpretation, empathy and creative writing are now believed to have more to do with 'real' education than the development of memory, logical thinking and focused argument. But it is in these latter skills that boys tend to excel. The devaluation of their status within the curriculum has directly undermined the chances of boys doing well in comparison to girls. (It is a bit like saying that being good at the male sport of football does not count anymore educationally, but being good at the female sport of netball does.) Boys prefer to tackle hard facts, logic and rules, which need to be mastered, rather than to emote over what, perhaps, they would describe as wishy-washy speculative gobbledy-gook. 

5. The course materials that have been selected by schools are more 'female friendly' and of less interest to boys. This has had the effect of inspiring girls with a greater enthusiasm for schoolwork while at the same time putting many boys off it.

[boys] are 'moaned at' by women during the daytime when at school, and then they are moaned at again by women when they get back home.

6. There is a horrendous lack of male teachers in the primary school sector and the lack of good educationally-oriented male role models is known to have very damaging effects on boys' attitudes toward schooling and education. Further, female teachers are often not able to gain the respect of boys who often resent the fact that they are 'moaned at' by women during the daytime when at school, and then they are moaned at again by women when they get back home. Boys also know that they are not going to grow up into women, and, in the educational arena, they feel somewhat isolated and alienated from the adult gender (men) into which they are going to develop.

7. Many female teachers are openly hostile toward boys. As with the rest of society they have been indoctrinated with the view that males, their values and their attitudes, are worthless. Feminist teachers, in particular, see it as their job to advantage girls over boys, educationally, and they dismiss any recommendations that might help the boys to perform better. For feminist teachers, boys are the enemy, and they need to be disempowered.

8. School reports to parents of children in the state sector now say virtually nothing of interest and they do not help parents at all in assessing how well their children are doing academically. These days, school reports seem to do little but give a feeble idea of what the children 'have achieved'. Given that parents have little idea about what should be being achieved, these reports mean very little to them. Nearly all parents are told that their children are doing well, and negative statements have virtually been proscribed. Given that boys are far more in need of regular monitoring than girls in order to ensure that they are keeping up to standard - particularly given their poorer current attitudes to education, their greater propensity to be distracted and disruptive, and the fact that our educational system does so little to inspire them - the failure to provide parents with accurate school reports that show when a boy is underachieving means that by the time they realise what is going on, it is too late to do anything about it. 

The funding for children with special needs (and 80% of these are boys) is truly abysmal.

9. The funding for children with special needs (and 80% of these are boys) is truly abysmal. The result has been an extremely high failure rate for thousands of boys for whom the system does not cater at all. These then seek solace, status and satisfaction in areas far removed from education. These boys often turn their energies toward activities which are hardly conducive to educational achievement, and, further, given that the most important influences on a boy's social life and aspirations are 'other boys', it is hardly surprising that any negative attitudes that they possess spread out to affect many other thousands of boys who do not have special needs. A clear example of this, observable in almost every state school, is the attitude of many boys toward boys who actually work hard. They are mocked, teased and bullied.

10. Whether it be Boy George saying that he didn't bother at school and 'look at where he is now', or Paul Merton boasting about his single GCE, or even Joe Brand making jokes about shoplifting, media personalities have not helped to encourage children to take education, or their teachers, seriously. And, as pointed out very recently by the academic Tony Sewell, the 'youth culture', particularly as promoted by the media and the marketeers, has enticed the interests of boys away from education and toward fashion, music, clubs, alcohol, videogames, drugs and girls.

 'Language' and 'academics' are almost synonymous in the educational sphere.

11. 'Language' and 'academics' are almost synonymous in the educational sphere. It is clear that the best cognitive predictor of a child's future academic performance is the child's ability to deal with language. Girls have a definite inherent advantage in the language sphere compared to boys, and this is already significant by the age of two. Despite this, not much additional help is given to boys. Were this inherent advantage the other way round - and girls were the disadvantaged group in language terms - there is no question that the government would have poured in huge amounts of extra resources to counter such a disadvantage.

For thirty years our educational establishments have used one of the poorest methods of teaching reading one could possibly devise

12. For thirty years our educational establishments have used one of the poorest methods of teaching reading one could possibly devise e.g. see Lerning to Reed. Despite all the evidence showing that this was not a good way to teach children to read, the feminist-indoctrinated educationalists - believing that girls were stronger than boys in right-brain functions - determined to advantage girls by forcing children to use right-brain, 'holistic' methods when learning to read. (They are currently doing the same sort of thing in the area of Maths.)

The result has been that the reading abilities of all children have been retarded by some two years. But the aim of such educationalists was to advantage girls relative to boys, not to maintain high standards of reading achievement.

Furthermore, those children with special learning difficulties (mostly boys, by far) have had imposed upon them teaching methods that will simply exacerbate their problems.

Given all the above, it is hardly surprising that boys are doing less well than girls and that they are also less enthusiastic about achieving high educational standards. The most important factors known to influence educational performance are nearly all stacked against them.

Indeed, what is surprising is that many bother with education at all.

Amelia Hill's recent report in The Observer perhaps highlights the realities of our educational system and its failings much more succinctly ... 

GENDER differences in exam results DISAPPEAR among home-taught children.

... Children taught at home significantly outperform their contemporaries who go to school, the first comparative study has found. It discovered that home-educated children of working-class parents achieved considerably higher marks in tests than the children of professional, middle-class parents [this alone is astonishing] and that GENDER differences in exam results DISAPPEAR among home-taught children.

Dec 2007

Boys To Be Taught Netball And Dancing Schools have been told to encourage boys to play netball and take dance lessons in the name of equality.

Thousands of schools are being forced to ensure that pupils are more "gender balanced" as part of discrimination legislation introduced this year.

They must also ensure more girls study traditionally masculine subjects such as science, while increasing numbers of boys take options such as drama or dance.

Also see,

Stop Helping The Boys

... which provides fairly strong proof to buttress my claim that there has been a concerted political effort to undermine the education of boys and that some very senior public officials are actually trying to block any extra help for boys.

(This is happening all over the western world, not just in the UK.)

Also see,

Lerning to Reed 

Education: Discouraging Our Boys