Valuing Gender Differences

Do Girls and Boys Learn Differently?

We had a very informative and stimulating discussion about gender in class this week.  I learned a great deal about how stereotypes (which we typically think affect primarily girls and women) impact men’s lives, and by extension, boys as well. I came away wondering if there is a bigger question that we need to look at, one that impacts what we do in classrooms and how we value gender.  Is there another question more central to learning? I came away wondering … Do Boys and Girls Learn Differently?

A quick Google-search yielded many books on the topic, most suggesting that there are fundamental differences in the ways girls and boys learn. If this is indeed, true, what are the implications for the classroom? How can we address both the needs of boys and the needs of girls in our lesson planning and in the way we set up our classrooms? I want to find out more about this.I think I will start with Boys and Girls Learn Differently by Michael Gurian because it is marketed as a practical guide for teachers and parents and so should (hopefully) offer solutions.  Also, it pledges to address things from a scientific perspective by discussing neuroscience.  This is part of a review from Publishers Weekly:

“Educator and author Gurian (The Wonder of Boys) and his co-writers argue that from preschool to high school, brain differences between the sexes call for different teaching strategies. While it's widely accepted that, in general, boys do better in math and girls in language, the authors claim that, until recently, society has taken the politically correct but scientifically inaccurate classroom view that children of both genders learn best in an "androgynous classroom." Presenting a detailed picture of boys' and girls' neurological, chemical and hormonal disparities, the authors explain how those differences affect learning.”

Unfortunately, many of the books I found were very political. Some claimed that boys had been dealt with unfairly in education, others argued that girls had. What I really want to know isn’t who we are to blame, but what to do.  How can we sort out the information that is being presented in the media and find the science? Once we know the facts, how can we best make use of them? How can we best teach both girls and boys?