Sex Makes a Difference

While M.I.T.'s Zacharias and other curriculum reformers tackle today's new knowledge in imaginative ways, most grade school teachers still innocently overlook one of the ageless and most fundamental complications in teaching--the fact that boys are different from girls. One might suppose that the nation's predominantly women teachers would have noticed the difference; yet they continue to handicap boys by expecting them to learn and behave like girls.

The current issue of The National Elementary Principal, a trade journal published by the National Education Association, devotes 47 pages to comparing the sexes. Its articles, written by educators, psychiatrists and researchers, point out that boys mature more slowly than girls -- physically they are a year behind at the age of six, 18 months behind at nine. Boys are more susceptible to stress and trauma, as shown by higher death and illness rates in infancy; yet they are encouraged to be more aggressive, independent, outspoken and unemotional.

Girls, meanwhile, are quietly nudged toward conformity and passiveness. They are permitted to cry and seek comfort, become more sensitive to human relationships. While male aggressiveness fosters analytical thinking, problem solving and scientific pursuits, female sensitivity, on the other hand, spurs artistic expression and an edge in music and literature.

Nice Writing. All such differences complicate teaching. Yet the schools are "sex-neutral institutions" -- and "unequals are treated as equals." Teachers expect first-grade boys to write as well as their girl classmates, even though their hand muscles are less developed. "I don't see any reason to insist that boys write just as nicely as little girls," says Edward Feeney, supervisor of elementary schools in Prince Georges County, Md. Teachers also expect boys to progress at the same pace. "Why shouldn't boys take longer to go through the elementary school?" asks Elizabeth Wilson, a Montgomery County, Md., curriculum director. "Why should it be a disgrace?"

In their preference for conformity, women teachers tend to scold disorderly boys much more often and much more harshly than they do girls, but this often only leads to greater aggressiveness by the boys. Partly because of this, at least twice as many boys are reported to principals for learning and behavior disorders, nearly two-thirds of all grade repeaters are boys. Three times as many boys as girls develop stuttering problems.

Women teachers also tend to ask test questions that favor feminine ways of thinking. A girl, for example, is more likely to recall the details of how an organization like NATO works, while a boy could more likely generalize about the purpose of such defense treaties as NATO. Even when boys score as well as girls on standardized achievement tests, say two Stanford researchers, boys nevertheless tend to get lower grades on report cards.

The sex neutrality also hurts girls who hesitate to express independent ideas and, because boys get most of the teacher's attention, bright girls do not develop the same self-esteem as bright boys do.

Getting Even. A basic problem, insist Education Professors Jean Grambs and Walter Waetjen of the University of Maryland, is that "women literally do not know that they use words differently, structure space differently, perceive persons and reality differently from men." They may not be aware that they "value neatness and cleanliness above intellectual initiative," and tend to be "not only more prejudiced" than men but "more dogmatic about their prejudices."

Their "overinsistence" on getting boys to conform to their teaching may have "an unconscious getting even quality," because they resent the prejudice men show toward women in the professions. The professors suggest that teachers should become aware of these things and to realize that young boys need "the nurturing warmth of a woman," not harsh words.

One of Principal's experts, Thomas B. Lyles, principal of Virginia's Wakefield Forest Elementary School, contends that his teachers have seen their students progress faster and enjoy school more when boys and girls were placed in separate classes. Most others hold that early acquaintance with the opposite sex in class is of more value than the solution of problems involved in the sex differences. Nearly everyone agrees that there is a great need for more men in elementary school teaching, but they see little hope of attracting more. The obstacle is a matter of confusion over the roles of the sexes. "We drive men out of elementary school teaching because we try to make them fit into a female mold," protests Supervisor Feeney. "We want them to have nice potted plants in their classrooms and murals on the wall--why is it so important to get men to behave like women?"

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