Reply to Upcounty MLK JR Humanities magnet pgm

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

So that is a great list, although I do agree with you about some middle school choices, there. [b]But I’ll betcha that when they discuss the books, the teachers are more likely to reward what I can only call a certain kind of more empathetic and introspective thinking.[/b] I have a girl, too, and I’m not trying to make this against girls. Just that ELA, at least so far in ES, isn’t super “boy friendly.” Do you think boys are just less interested in ELA innately? Because I do not. My boy absolutely loves language and has a passion for a well turned phrase. But he would probably not want to attend MLK with those numbers, and that makes me really sad. 8 boys and 67 girls tells you that there is SOMETHING going on. [/quote]

Oh good grief.

Do I think that boys are less interested in English and language arts innately? No. Do I think that there is a strong cultural pressure against boys being interested in reading and writing, talking about reading and writing. and being introspective and having feelings? You betcha. Which is why fewer boys apply to ELA, and fewer boys who are accepted to ELA actually go.

On the other hand, from what I can tell from my own observations and my daughter's reports, the boys who do go to the Humanities program and do well are boys who can get along and work with girls. That's a useful skill to have.[/quote]

Ok, enjoy your girl-heavy humanities magnet. I’m not sure where your eye$rolling impatience with me is coming from. If I were you, I’d be really concerned about that kind of gender balance in a public magnet in our modern age. I don’t want my girl with only girls and I don’t want my boy with only boys. I want them to have friends and schoolmates of all types. When there are these numbers in STEM classes, people don’t ask what the girls are doing wrong or tell them they have to change to get along better with boys. They ask what society and schools could be doing to encourage girls to achieve and participate in those areas. You are right, asking boys to get along with girls, to be introspective and emotive is fine - critical, in fact - but the heavy emphasis on emotions and relationships over plot and language in ES is driving them away from ELA. Third grade boys and girls are simply not the same. There’s of course a spectrum of behavior, but in general, you can easily see the recurring differences in the way they interact with the world. It is partly how they are trained and largely and indisputably how they are born.

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