Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School

#101

Post by aroch » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 6:56 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #76

sarchertech wrote: post #23

School is half education and half babysitting. The problem is that schools aren't aware of that, and they try to cram too much learning/work into a day at school. Kids just don't have the attention span. College isn't taught this way. Colleges realize that even young adults can't handle 40 hours a week of continual instruction, why do we do this kids can? I think the reason, is that we're always behind other countrie…

Yours is an interesting comment, but none of it is responsive to the submitted article's concern about differences between boys and girls in school. I have actually lived in another country, and I am aware by direct observation that that country has BOTH higher academic achievement by school pupils than the United States and pervasive recess periods during the school day when young children get outdoors and exercise.…

I'm so glad my elementary school here in the US gave us 2, 45min (~10:30 and 2pm) and an hour long lunch/recess period each day. It really made things much more bearable; except Spanish, it was right before the afternoon recess

Re: Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School

#102

Post by selimthegrim » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:00 PM UTC

cafard wrote: post #75

sarchertech wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, historically mass education of the type we now employ is only about a century old, and designed to produce factory workers not to promote creativity. Learning to handle monotonous boredom and obey orders was of primary importance to a factory worker. Second, much of this is unprecedented. When my parents were children, they didn't attend Kindergarten, and first grade was a half day. When my parents younger sib…

"First, historically mass education of the type we now employ is only about a century old, and designed to produce factory workers..." Or else until about 100 years ago there was no economic benefit to educating the great mass of humanity, and industrialization created a type of work for which literacy and numeracy helped. "Learning to handle monotonous boredom and obey orders was of primary importance to a factory w…

You may want to have a look at Ernest Gellner's "Nations and Nationalism" for more on your first point.

http://books.google.com/books/about/Nations_And_Nationalism....

http://www.amazon.com/Nations-Nationalism-Second-Perspective...

http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/nation...

Re: Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School

#103

Post by easy_rider » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:00 PM UTC

I got this problem in elementary, still got almost the highest possible mark on our CITO test (which is an indication of your education level here in the Netherlands), went to one of the best Gymnasiums, and essentially got kicked out of 80% of all my classes because of my ADD disorder, and refusal of treatment (i.e. not wanting to take Ritalin). It also ended up me being easier to calm the class by making an example out of me. I had to drop out of this school to a lower grade, which I passed without pretty much doing fuck all, cause it was too easy.

People should learn that distracted kids crave stimulation, and the stuff you teach them is probably not stimulating (i.e. boring, easy)

Re: Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School

#104

Post by kawsper » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:03 PM UTC

joonix wrote: post #40

Are there any private all-boys[1] schools that embrace this side of childhood? Look at tiger cubs and what not: they play, they bounce around, they fight, they figure out the world around them through investigation and exploration. I spent so much of my time outside as a kid, but I also spent a lot of time inside on the computer. Both were amazing worlds where your imagination could run wild; especially in the early…

I don't know about schools, but the kindergarten that I went to was a "nature"-kindergarten, where we were out in the forest 80% of the day, no matter if it rained or snowed.

I must have catched a whole forest of insects, and investigated them.

It is very popular in Denmark, and I love the forest and the outdoor because of it, especially the different seasons and their impact on nature.

Re: Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School

#105

Post by T-hawk » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:05 PM UTC

joonix wrote: post #40

Are there any private all-boys[1] schools that embrace this side of childhood? Look at tiger cubs and what not: they play, they bounce around, they fight, they figure out the world around them through investigation and exploration. I spent so much of my time outside as a kid, but I also spent a lot of time inside on the computer. Both were amazing worlds where your imagination could run wild; especially in the early…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education

The Montessori approach has some similarities to what you propose, and is probably about as close as you can get in current American education. Not outdoors or all-boys, but otherwise it's structured largely as you propose, with time divided between direct instruction in academic subjects and free-form exploration. Kids are free to roam the classroom and pick up whatever educational materials catch their curiosity: maps, books, geometric and mathematical materials, puzzles, and lots of other good stuff.

I attended a Montessori preschool and kindergarten, in the early 1980s. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it. (There's no formal definition or central authority, so schools and approaches will vary, but mine was excellent.) The open environment of creativity really helped my early intellectual development. I was reading everything, had most of the countries on the globe memorized, and knew squares and cubes up to 10 all by about age five, all thanks to the ready accessibility of all that stuff according to my own interests rather than being forced and tested all the time.

Re: Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School

#106

Post by rdouble » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:08 PM UTC

joonix wrote: post #40

Are there any private all-boys[1] schools that embrace this side of childhood? Look at tiger cubs and what not: they play, they bounce around, they fight, they figure out the world around them through investigation and exploration. I spent so much of my time outside as a kid, but I also spent a lot of time inside on the computer. Both were amazing worlds where your imagination could run wild; especially in the early…

I went to elementary and high school in rural Minnesota and I only remember having to sit down about 2-3 hours a day. We did a lot of outdoor science-y stuff like your classify the wildflowers example, sports, PE, art class, orchestra and band, two recesses per day, etc. In high school, we had electives like small engine repair, CAD and in one course could even build an entire house. That said, the actual "academic" courses like math and history were heinously boring and poorly taught and felt like they lasted 8 hours each.

Re: Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School

#107

Post by PavlovsCat » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:12 PM UTC

cafard wrote: post #56

During the baby boom there appeared to be an odd dynamic at work: in the primary grades, the neater, more docile girls were the teachers' favorites and got the better grades. Somewhere around or after puberty, they started to fall back behind the boys. Some of this was certainly socially motivated; a cousin said that boys didn't like to date girls they thought smarter. Some of it may have come from the teachers. Just…

One of the most impressive girls I went to school with was kinda intimidating in her ferocious intelligence and confidence, but if I didn't dare to approach her, it was simply because it was painfully obvious she was out of my league, not because I didn't like her. She never sucked up, not to teachers and not to peers, she never failed to say what she thought, she played the piano and the violin and aced every single test anyone handed to her. And one time she passed some sweets on to me during class, and then laughed her ass off, because she had them in the mouth before wrapping them up again. If I utterly adored one girl in that time, it was her; so much I never dared to even fall in love with her.

In contrast, I never considered "neat and docile" pupils smart, just lame.

That wasn't even my two cents, just shamelessly indulging in nostalgia haha.

Re: Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School

#108

Post by Puer » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:16 PM UTC

jahewson wrote: post #81

Puer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come they don't seem to have this problem in China, India or Germany? It isn't that kids can't handle the workload, the problem is the boring curriculum.

In China the kids take on an extraordinary workload, because long hours show dedication - but they're not learning effectively - instead they all cheat, bribe the teacher, etc. The appearance of working hard and actually working hard/effectively are two different things. Don't be fooled by cultures with endemic corruption. Germany obviously excluded.

How are they not learning effectively? And do you have any sources or evidence to back up your claims of cheating or bribing teachers? Workload isn't an issue. It isn't like kids aren't capable of sitting for hours upon hours, they do these things in front of computers and TVs, the problem is that the public school curriculum is flawed.

Re: Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School

#109

Post by rayiner » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:18 PM UTC

I don't see why we still have co-ed education in the early grades. It does boys no good to be told they're behaving badly for not being able to sit still in class, and it does girls no good to have boys disrupting class while they're trying to learn.

Re: Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School

#110

Post by john_b » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:31 PM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #4

As a youth, I was only able to sit still by focusing on sitting still. If I was paying attention to the teacher, I was fidgeting, and would be told to pay attention...

Even as an adult, when I'm really focused on something my right leg gets a mind of its own and just starts bouncing up and down rapidly. Maybe there's an evolutionary purpose to it (increasing blood circulation perhaps), but I've always found that when I force myself to be perfectly still I just don't focus as well.