Smart Boys, Bad Grades
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Smart Boys, Bad Grades Gender Inequality and STEM in Education By Julie Coates and William A. Draves © 2015 by Julie Coates and William A. Draves. All rights reserved. No por- tion of this book, with the exception of “Chapter 11 For Parents of Boys”, may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written per- mission from the authors, except in the case of brief quotations in reviews and articles. “Chapter 11 For Parents of Boys” may be reproduced as long as the following information is included, “From Smart Boys, Bad Grades: Gender Inequality and Stem in Education, by Julie Coates and William A. Draves.” Published by LERN Books, a division of the Learning Resources Network (LERN), P.O. Box 9, River Falls, Wisconsin 54022, U.S.A. Phone: 800-678-5376; email [email protected]; URL: www.lern.org Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Coates, Julie, 1946- Smart Boys ISBN 978-1-57722-045-9 Manufactured in the United States of America 5 4 3 2 Dedication To our smart boys, to your smart boys, to smart boys everywhere. Thank you for creating the 21st century Cover Four smart boys. From left to right – Landon, Graham, Will and Ray. Photo taken in 2013 when they were around age 27. They are smart, successful at work, motivated and hard working. Yet our edu- cational institutions at the time of this writing graduated only 1 of the 4 with a four year college degree. Acknowledgments We wish to thank firstly, the Board of Directors of the Learning Resources Network (LERN) for their support of gender equality in education. In particular, we are grateful to the Board members who in 2008, under Chair Paula Hogard, passed a motion supporting grading based solely on learning and knowledge, not on behavior. We are also grateful to the Board members who in 2014, under Chair Cathy Noon- an, restated their support with a motion expressly supporting gender equality in education. We are indebted to other educators for their pioneering work over the past several decades, including Michael Gurian, Susan Pinker, Christina Hoff Somers, Simon Baron Cohen, and Doreen Kimura. We are grateful to the work of second wave feminists; the foremost being Betty Friedan and to several of our own female ancestors for their work on behalf of gender equality. We are especially thankful to the mothers of boys who have en- couraged us in our work and for their optimism, faith in themselves, and never giving up, we thank the boys. Production was carried out professionally by Gale Hughes. Smart Boys, Bad Grades Gender Inequality and STEM in Education Table of Contents Chapter 1 - America’s #1 Problem 1 The problem has no name; society at a tipping point; the college debate; the intangible economy; generational turnover; economic prosperity for the future of our country. Chapter 2 - Title IX Gone Wrong: Gender Inequality in education 11 We have the numbers; drop outs; a problem for over 30 years now; males get worse grades than females; fewer boys expect to graduate from college; ruling out other theories. Chapter 3 - The Boys Are Fine 25 Yes, we have to have a chapter on this; why boys are widely regarded as bad; when boys will be regarded as good; how boys are smarter today; boys have to create the 21st century. Chapter 4 - The Solution: Grade Learning, Not Behavior 31 Grades don’t measure what students know; homework is a problem; business measures outcomes: welcome to the 21st century; the solution is easy, costs nothing; the solution is working. Chapter 5 - Teacher Objections: “But, We’re Teaching Responsibility Here” 43 The evidence that there is no evidence to support teacher objections; teachers spend too much time on student behavior; why teachers teach ‘responsibility’. Chapter 6 - This Happened Once Before: The Historical Parallel 53 This happened 100 years ago; when change happens, boys and a few men are the first to adapt to the new environment; why we got trouble right here in River City; history repeats itself. Chapter 7 - Why Women Don’t Go into STEM 63 Every girl who wants to go into STEM should, and so should every boy; why women tend not to choose to enter STEM; why females have lower spatial ability; STEM camps make no difference. Chapter 8 - Where Feminism Went Wrong 73 The bias against women in the workplace; boys should not be raised like girls; Betty Friedan was right; there are differences between females and males that affect learning. Chapter 9 - Inside the Female and Male Brain: Teachers Really Need Sex Ed 79 The impact of neurological differences; some practical implications of gender differences; where females are superior; the 20% gender crossover; the fundamental difference. Chapter 10 - Boys in the Classroom: Why Boys Do Less Work 93 Why males do less coursework; males hate easy work and like hard challenges; boys are not lazy nor unmotivated; boys show up to work on time; boys choose punishment to doing stupid stuff. Chapter 11 - For Parents of Boys: Never Give Up 105 Notes to mothers, fathers; the 3 keys for parents; working with the school; responding to teachers; 9 talking tips for parents. Chapter 12 - Helping Female Students Learn More 121 The bias against boys also hurts girls; why girls study more, but don’t learn more; the 5 bad learning habits for women; 8 ways to teach girls differently. Chapter 13 - For Educators 133 Change the grading in your own courses; teach your male and female students differently; 40 tips for teaching boys and male students. Chapter 14 - Conclusion: End the Gender War, Celebrate Our Boys Too 145 Achieving change; end the gender war; celebrate our boys too. References: 151 Chapter 1 America’s #1 Problem “The new jobs require a good deal of formal education.” Peter Drucker We have a big problem. In fact it is our nation’s biggest problem. What’s worse, in the United States the problem has no name. The problem determines your financial prosperity. This is so for each one of you reading this, regardless of whether you are retired, working for a Fortune 500 company, are an executive, or a govern- ment worker with lifetime employment. You can walk around your neighborhood and see the extent of the problem in your local community. For verification, you can do a two minute search online and get the exact numbers and thus confirm the issue for your local area. America’s #1 problem is also every other post-industrial nation’s number one problem. It exists in New Zealand, Japan, Russia, Singa- pore, Canada and all of Europe. The difference is that other nations, at least those in Europe, are both aware of the problem and have a name for it. America is neither aware of it, nor do we have a name for it. It’s not a short term problem, like the national debt, taxes, social security, war or peace. It is an issue that will be with us for decades, but also one that has to be addressed by 2020. It might not be solved by 2020, but every month of inaction after 2020 means we fall fur- 1 Smart Boys, Bad Grades ther behind as a nation in the global competition for prosperity in this century. Every month of resolving the problem before 2020 moves us ahead in the global arena. It’s not abstract, like our export to import ratio. It’s not our infrastructure, pollution, drugs, or climate change. The closest issue we talk about is education. But even there the problem is not mentioned often. It’s rarely talked about, and not men- tioned enough in the media. America’s #1 problem today is a skilled worker shortage. By “skilled,” we mean college educated knowledge workers. The Problem Has No Name We don’t even have a commonly accepted or used name for the knowledge economy. Different American economists use a variety of terms, some have different meanings, but none are accepted or written about to any extent. Some use the misleading phrase “service sec- tor”. Others call it the “information sector” or “technology sector”. One best selling author calls it the “innovation sector.” Some give up on specificity or historical placement and just say “new economy.” Our government has no measurement for it at all. A critical aspect of the knowledge economy sounds immoral: the “private service sector.” But other countries, at least in Europe, have a name for it. If you go to the BBC web site, you will see a regular section of articles on the “Knowledge Society.” When we were attending a conference a few years ago, we sat at a table with people from Germany. We asked them what the word in German was for “knowledge society,” and they said they used the English term, in English. Germans apparently say “knowledge society”, but we don’t. What’s more ironic is that the term “knowledge worker” was in- vented by an American, business and management guru Peter Druck- er, in 1959. (1) We are now in a knowledge economy, a post-industrial society where intangible goods such as information, data, software and ser- vices are now the most important economic sector in society. Ev- ery other economic sector now depends on the jobs that people in the knowledge sector create in our country. Our economic prosperity is now determined by the percentage of our workers engaged in high earning, high job creating knowledge 2 Enrico Moretti’s book, named the top book of the year by Forbes, shows the data that a community’s economic pros- perity is directly related to the percent of college graduates in that community.