Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2008 > April > 25 > Entry
Fireworks over gender and education
Leonard Sax and Lise Eliot
Leonard Sax is an evangelist for single gender schools. Citing a slew of scientific studies he references in two books he has written on the subject of gender and learning, he began an association to push for more all-boys and all-girls schools and travels the country promoting the cause.
He’s even been to Dayton to provide technicial assistance and teacher training in the development of the school district’s two gender-specific schools.
But lately, he’s been under fire. And he’s gotten a little hot under the collar.
Last month, the New York Times wrote a long magazine piece challenging the science Sax cites in his books to justify instructional changes based on gender differences. Sax, to put it mildly, did not like the article. His rebuttal can be found here.
On Friday, the Education Writers Association paired Sax with neuroscientist Lise Eliot to debate the science of gender differences. From the start both were testy. The exchanges between the two got heated. And more than once I thought one or the other might storm out of the room.
But the discussion was very interesting.
Sax argues that there are many developmental differences between boys and girls that lead to wide gaps in skill proficiency at young ages. The differences almost completely disappear by early adulthood, he says, but teachers should be trained to recognize the differences and adapt their instruction to account for them.
For a good example of Sax’s argument, read this story I wrote when he visited Dayton in 2005.
But Eliot argued the differences that Sax describes are very small. So small, she said, that it is doubtful that changes to instruction will have much impact on learning. Eliot said she fears that the single gender movement could reinforce old stereotypes about truck-loving boys vs. doll-playing girls.
Some examples of her argument:
—It is well known that girls tend to learn to speak earlier than boys. But Eliot said studies show that, on average, a girl will begin speaking only a month before a boy and once they begin speaking both grow vocabulary at a very fast rate with only minor differences between them.
—The biggest difference between males and females is physical size. Men on average are six inches taller then women. Much has been made of the fact that men had larger brains than women, she said. But, in fact, men also have bigger hearts and other organs. The differences overall are explained by the overall size difference between men and women.
—There are differences between boys and girls in many areas, she said. Some popularly cited ones include the types of toys they prefer, aggression, verbal fluency, math proficiency, social cognition and moral reasoning. But again, Eliot said the cumulative studies show a huge overlap in skill proficiency in those areas. The statistical difference between boys and girls on those fronts, she said, are very small.
—Consider math. Another popularly cited statistic comes from a 1981 study that showed seventh grade boys scored above 700 when given the SAT outpaced seventh grade girls with the same high scores by 14 to 1. But Eliot said the study continued over time and today the ratio is only 2.8 to 1 in favor of boys.
Eliot’s bottom line argument is that men are not from Mars and women are not from Venus, as the popular book title claims. A better analogy, she said, was “Men are from North Dakota, women are from South Dakota.” In other words, they are more alike than different.
But then she went on to argue, among other things, that single sex education can at best be a band-aid solution, that education impacts really cannot be scientifically studied and that test score gains in single gender schools are likely the result of a “placebo” effect resulting from excitement around a new educational program.
Sax said Eliot apparently has not read studies on the impact of single gender education and didn’t know what she was talking about. He also blasted the Times article, saying it was inaccurate and unfairly tried to portray the debate over gender-based instruction as a political fight between liberals and conservatives.
I’d love to hear from readers that either work at Dayton’s two single-gender schools or have kids attending those schools. If that’s you, give us your reaction in the comments.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: Teaching and Learning
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Comments
By Dave
April 28, 2008 3:41 PM | Link to this
Mary is absolutely right! Students are individuals, with individual learning styles and speeds. The average teacher teaches the curriculum. The great teacher teaches the student.By Rick
April 27, 2008 2:13 PM | Link to this
JT, Caroline, you are both spot on. Our boys are being effemitized and drugged. Schools need to recognize and work with gender differences. Caroline, you address a situation that I believe was last reported about (at least in a significant fashion) in the DDN in 1994, the lack of discipline in the schools. No matter how good a program, it will fail if the school does not have an effective discipline policy and practice.By Barb
April 27, 2008 10:50 AM | Link to this
It also seems as if the gender based schools get a much more select student. It seems as if the students who have the likelihood of success are the ones enrolled for the most part. The parents who support this are also the parents who support their students everywhere. It does not give a very fair view on the success of these schools.By Oldprof
April 27, 2008 10:29 AM | Link to this
Somewhere lost in all these discussions is that we are doing mass education through government programs. True, there are multiple ways of learning, and they don’t all come naturally. But I’ve come to think that education means learning HOW to learn, particularly in ways that don’t come naturally to you. While we might adjust education to make certain that all learning styles are addressed, I think it’s preferable to require young girls who don’t do it naturally to learn how to think “like boys” and vice versa. Visual learners need to figure out how they can process auditory information; people whose multiple intelligences don’t automatically include math need to get some of it. And so long as this is government work (and it will be; private schools are struggling), then it needs more standardization, not more fragmentation.By Mary
April 26, 2008 11:07 PM | Link to this
When people overfocus on the “generalized” differences between the genders, they will be overlooking the diffences among individual students. Some girls might learn “like boys”, and some boys might learn “like girls”. So are these approaches really progress?By Caroline
April 26, 2008 8:54 PM | Link to this
I agree that single-gender classrooms is a Band-aid for a more serious problem. By adopting single-gender classrooms, DPS looks like they are doing something—when actually everything is still the same. It doesn’t change the fact that DPS is unwilling to stand up to students and their parents. Students are still bullying other students and getting into constant fights. The classrooms are still filled with disruptive students who make it difficult for the students who want to learn. Principals are still unwilling to support the teachers’ discipline efforts. The students still come unprepared for school.By JT
April 26, 2008 4:57 PM | Link to this
The most important thing that Dr. Sax says in his books is that there are gender differences and we that need to recognize that rather than try to educate everybody in an homogeneous, one size fits all way. A huge disservice has been done to boys and men by the feminization of education over the last 30 years, and we see starting to see these issues rise to the surface. A generation ago girls were typically forced to the background and not educated in a way that best served them and now the pendulum has swung to the other extreme causing boys to be undersserved. Dr. Sax is arguing for a middle ground that all students are served, focusing on strengths rather than forcing one boys to be more like girls. Boys need different things girls to succeed educationally and single sex classroom and schools are an attempt to address these issues.By Oldprof
April 26, 2008 8:14 AM | Link to this
Scott, over 90% of all parents are happy with the schools their kids attend and the teacher their kid has, even if the school is at the bottom of the rankings. And you’ll find few teachers in new school programs who speak ill of them. You’re soliciting a bunch of support for one side of the argument (and a side I am not entirely opposed to) but not the other.