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Girls Get Better Grades Than Boys

theatlantic.com

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Re: Girls Get Better Grades Than Boys

#31

Post by donatj »

So much of school is based on blindly doing what you're told and I think young boys have trouble doing what they're told. I know I personally wanted to know the reasoning behind things. In the army they have to break young men down before they blindly follow orders.

Even as a nearly 30 something I don't like being told what to do. Ask, don't tell.

I know I could see this was pointless charade and would rather do something of actual value, whereas most of what you do in school is pointless busy work with no real educational value at all.

Re: Girls Get Better Grades Than Boys

#32

Post by tptacek »

donatj wrote: post #31

So much of school is based on blindly doing what you're told and I think young boys have trouble doing what they're told. I know I personally wanted to know the reasoning behind things. In the army they have to break young men down before they blindly follow orders. Even as a nearly 30 something I don't like being told what to do. Ask, don't tell. I know I could see this was pointless charade and would rather do some…

Let me take a wild guess here:

You're male.

It seems like according to your premise, if we could just get over our prejudices, we could drastically streamline military training by simply selecting docile, compliant females instead of petulant, inquisitive males.

Re: Girls Get Better Grades Than Boys

#33

Post by johngalt »

The general trend in education is less competition and less physical activity. Meanwhile there is more focus on educational minimums rather than maximums. If education was about the 'highest score' rather than the 'best average' you would see males doing better.

Re: Girls Get Better Grades Than Boys

#34

Post by idexicon »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #17
alukima wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To try to be fair, life is often more about obeying arbitrary rules than mastering certain subjects. Many of the things named in the article are important life skills that should be taught and encouraged.

Becoming an acceptably rewarded cubicle drone requires obeying a lot of arbitrary rules for many years. I wouldn't say life is about that. School sucks and boys feel that more acutely, is the long and short of it in my view. Girls tend to tolerate or even like it because subservience is more in their nature. Women also tend to like moderate status corporate drone jobs that make a lot of men want to blow their brains…

Dude,

Subservience is forced, has been forced, due to biology, until the very recent past. Women could not even control having children until birth control. No one likes "corporate drone" jobs. No one likes being a servant or a slave either. Sometimes you take what you can get at the time just to survive.

Re: Girls Get Better Grades Than Boys

#35

Post by donatj »

tptacek wrote: post #32
donatj wrote: post #31

So much of school is based on blindly doing what you're told and I think young boys have trouble doing what they're told. I know I personally wanted to know the reasoning behind things. In the army they have to break young men down before they blindly follow orders. Even as a nearly 30 something I don't like being told what to do. Ask, don't tell. I know I could see this was pointless charade and would rather do some…

Let me take a wild guess here: You're male. It seems like according to your premise, if we could just get over our prejudices, we could drastically streamline military training by simply selecting docile, compliant females instead of petulant, inquisitive males.

I just know these to be the reasons I and my friends didn't do well in school.

Re: Girls Get Better Grades Than Boys

#36

Post by kevingadd »

donatj wrote: post #35
tptacek wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me take a wild guess here: You're male. It seems like according to your premise, if we could just get over our prejudices, we could drastically streamline military training by simply selecting docile, compliant females instead of petulant, inquisitive males.

I just know these to be the reasons I and my friends didn't do well in school.

Whether or not it's meant in 'sexist terms' doesn't make a sexist statement not sexist. Assigning such fundamental traits to an entire gender without a factual basis is pretty ridiculous.

Re: Girls Get Better Grades Than Boys

#37

Post by dragonwriter »

donatj wrote: post #31

So much of school is based on blindly doing what you're told and I think young boys have trouble doing what they're told. I know I personally wanted to know the reasoning behind things. In the army they have to break young men down before they blindly follow orders. Even as a nearly 30 something I don't like being told what to do. Ask, don't tell. I know I could see this was pointless charade and would rather do some…

> I know I personally wanted to know the reasoning behind things. In the army they have to break young men down before they blindly follow orders.

And young women, too.

> I think boys can largely see this is a pointless charade and would rather do something of actual value

I don't think there's a lot of evidence in the behavior of school age boys vs. girls, either in school or in any other context, to support this.

OTOH, I do think your explanation may reflect (though in a distorted way) something that may be a real issue that may explain part of the difference: I suspect that boys have a lower tolerance for activities with a delayed payoff, where conventional school curriculum mostly has a very delayed payoff.

Re: Girls Get Better Grades Than Boys

#38

Post by penprog »

gph wrote: post #26

This article brings up an important point about our education system. How much is it about teaching a subject versus teaching you how to work. I always did well on tests and in any class I didn't totally hate I felt like I gained the knowledge I needed to. However, I never did all the homework. Hated it. Most of it felt like busy work, or just plain unimportant. Not that I think self-discipline is worthless. It is a…

I always got Bs in highschool. These were 89s and 87s. My homework average, which usually accounted for 20 to 30% of my grade was usually 80 or lower.

Thankfully I left loving learning and am always learning new things from different subjects I am interested in but I feel for those not as privileged/lucky as me.

Education needs a rework, one size fits all doesn't work. Splitting grades I think is just a bandaid on the problem.

I think instead of forcing younger students to memorize multiplication tables and which shoe belongs to which profession (my first F. I remember getting it in kindergarten) we should try to figure out what style of learning suits them.

Re: Girls Get Better Grades Than Boys

#39

Post by vezzy-fnord »

tptacek wrote: post #32
donatj wrote: post #31

So much of school is based on blindly doing what you're told and I think young boys have trouble doing what they're told. I know I personally wanted to know the reasoning behind things. In the army they have to break young men down before they blindly follow orders. Even as a nearly 30 something I don't like being told what to do. Ask, don't tell. I know I could see this was pointless charade and would rather do some…

Let me take a wild guess here: You're male. It seems like according to your premise, if we could just get over our prejudices, we could drastically streamline military training by simply selecting docile, compliant females instead of petulant, inquisitive males.

Public school and military training are (or were) intimately related, actually. The former, as we know it today, has its origins in 19th century Prussian militarism.

That said, one cannot fairly compare the two. The military has an express purpose of national security, and is well suited to obedience and susceptibility. Public schools, on the other hand, are little more than industrialized daycare at best, and harmful propaganda centers at worst. That and joining the military comes with benefits that extend beyond the artificial void inside a public school... it's supposed to, anyway.

Re: Girls Get Better Grades Than Boys

#40

Post by jff »

scott_karana wrote: post #24
maratd wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect much of the answer could be cultural. I suspect much of the answer could be genetic. Males in primate species tend to be more aggressive and have less "self-restraint".

Fair point. Food for thought. :)

So when the parent here says males genetically have less self-restraint, that's a fair point, but when https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8338135 says women are genetically subservient, your response is "Wow, you're off the rails"

I'm not saying I agree that women have a ~subservient nature~, just that the way comments ended up being laid out really struck me.

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