Talking Points #7

Quote #1-  " This apparent difference, which Sax argues is hard-wired, causes teachers to praise girls’ artwork and make boys feel that they’re drawing incorrectly. Under Sax’s leadership, teachers learn to say things like, “Damien, take your green crayon and draw some sparks and take your black crayon and draw some black lines coming out from the back of the vehicle, to make it look like it’s going faster.” “Now Damien feels encouraged,” Sax explained to me when I first met him last spring in San Francisco. “To say: ‘Why don’t you use more colors? Why don’t you put someone in the vehicle?’ is as discouraging as if you say to Emily, ‘Well, this is nice, but why don’t you have one of them kick the other one — give us some action."

Comment #1: I don't believe that this is true and that teachers praise girls over boys, that just doesn't make sense. Usually the teachers praise the children who get their work done and try harder than the other children. I don't understand how this words could be discouraging to children about using more colors they are just trying to get the children to be more creative and think, I am sure they say it to both sexes and don't just single out boys vs. girls.




Quote #2:  "The girls’ crisis was cited in the 1990s, when the American Association of University Women published “Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America,” which described how girls’ self-esteem plummets during puberty and how girls are subtly discouraged from careers in math and science. More recently, in what Sara Mead, an education expert at the New America Foundation, calls a “man bites dog” sensation, public and parental concerns have shifted to boys. Boys are currently behind their sisters in high-school and college graduation rates. School, the boy-crisis argument goes, is shaped by females to match the abilities of girls (or, as Sax puts it, is taught “by soft-spoken women who bore” boys)."


Comment #2: I do agree that when girls are going through puberty they do have a very low self esteem. I don't believe in the world today that girls are discouraged from careers in math in science, actually there are many girls in math and science today. I do believe that boys are discouraged from teaching, and nursing and other such careers that have somewhat of a girly sense. I don't understand how boys are behind their sisters in high school and graduate rates I believe that  boys and girls have the same opprutunity its just that girls choose to do more with school then boys.




Quote #3: "A deluge of data has emerged in recent years detailing how boys and girls have different developmental trajectories and different brains. Sax has made a role for himself popularizing this work, though it’s not yet clear what the research means or whether there are implications for single-sex education. For instance, among neuroscientists, motor skills are often used as proxies for assessing cognitive skills and social and emotional control in younger children."




Comment #3: 
Girls and boys i think have different developmental trajectories, I think that boys just tend to careless than girls in some cases. However there are some boys who are smarter and try harder then most girls. Its hard to determine but in my eyes while i'm sitting in class I notice more girls than boys in most of all my classes.