The Missing Link

This stort does not seem to accuratley portray whats going on in my life. I guess my view is probably pretty tainted seeing as I go to Chadwick where nearly everyone works their butts off. But at the same time, when I went to public school before Chadwick and seeing what I know of people from nearby public schools, I would say that for the most part, girls are more succesful than boys in their high school work. At private schools, such as Chadwick, I have noticed a different trend. The guys in my grade occupy the extremes, whereas the girls are mostly in the middle, with a few to either extreme.

I do not think that it's a school actually favoring a particular sex. We all know that girls and guys learn differently from each other, and it might just be that teachers are only teaching in a particular style beneficial to women. Also, I think that there are a lot of girls who do not make it through highschool and college. Maybe there's just a growing population of females?

As one of the high school students that you're addressing, I'll bite.

I'll buy the idea that girls tend to succeed more often than boys do in high schools. Granted, this is a gross generalization, but I certainly have no evidence to disprove it: *every* Cum Laude student (top 10% of the class) in my class is a girl. It's important to take this fact in the context of a small, competitive, private school in a wealthy suburban neighborhood. Yes, there are a few more girls in the class, but this very fact that more girls were admitted into the selective class says something by itself. Of course, with only 80 students in my graduating class, these 8 girls are not a large enough sample to declare that girls do better in high school. But for the sake of argument, let's say that they do.

I certainly don't think that the difference should be attributed to a different genetic wiring. Asian Americans statistically do better in school that we do because of differences in cultural values. Namely, they tend to value education more than the rest of us do. Saying that they are simply smarter than everyone else doesn't do the issue justice. Similarly, girls succeed because they're generally more competitive than boys, which is because education matters more to them. This could be for a number of reasons. One explanation that quickly comes to mind is the idea that women are generally at a disadvantage in the rest of society (whether or not this idea is still true is irrelevant). In other words, this competitive spirit could be an attempt to survive, or "catch-up," in a world in which they are disadvantaged.

I also think that women are generally better team players (read: less bigoted) than men. The New Repulbic story to which you linked credited today's verbal-focused curriculum, which plays to girls' fortes. I don't think this is relevant or even true. If we're going to point to the curriculum, I would point to the popular focus on group dynamics and teamwork in the classroom.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Do any of my classmates have any ideas? Girls?

I think that it all depends on the particular academic environment. Certain schools stress the importance of different things and they all have their own levels of competetive spirit. Thus I do not think that it is reasonable to generalize like this. People learn at all different rates and accumulate knowledge their own individual ways.

I don’t think this type of generalization can or should be made. Like others have said, whether or not this is true depends on the particular environment or school one is referring too. In my experience I would have reason to believe this as true, for it seems as if girls tend to generally try harder than boys in the academic arena. Whether this is because of our growing competitive nature or not I don’t know. Things like this feed the above the idea as potentially true. However, once again unless I’m shown some kind of statistic, my opinion on this subject will remain neutral.

I don't think that the journalists are completely wrong, but they aren't completely right either. There are a lot of factors that play into the a person's academic success or lack there of. In our Race, Class, and Gender class, we talked about this growth of more females going to colleges and universities than men. I think the culture here in America is changing. Because women have been so bound to the "system" such as being household wives in the past, they might now be starting to realize their full potential in the world and feel the need to achieve greater success, but I don't think it's because they are smarter or better. Maybe it's because they actually care about what they want to accomplish in life and work hard.