Musings from a Not-So-Master Teacher

Gender-based education, once relegated to parochial schools and stodgy prep academies, is now becoming a popular trend in education.  Parents swear by the need to separate adolescents to help ease concentration. (Some would argue in favor of sending all adolescents to another continent or another planet) Teachers in gender-based classes tell amazing stories of calmer boys and more active girls once the kids were placed homogeneously.  Even many of the students themselves prefer the classes that are tailored to their gender. 

While I think some of the claims are fluffed-up hype, I don't deny that gender-based education works for some students.  Yet, there is a sense that, when I read the research, it feels a little bit like hearing someone claim that horospcopes or phrenology or palm reading are all scientific. As I sit through the long explanations I get the sense that I am in a Pleasantville 1950's town where a woman in a pressed dress explains, "Oh, the negro kids are just naturally more active.  They don't need to learn Calculus.  They need to learn to fix trucks.  It would be a disservice to tell them otherwise." 

I cringe when a snake oil salesman tries to lay claims such as, "Men and women are different.  Women are more emotional and men are more logical."  It seems to be based more upon pop psychology and Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus than based upon true brain research.  "Boys need more kinesthetic learning," another teacher explains.  Actually, given the recent phenomenon of a gender gap in education, I have a hunch that boys need more reading and writing.  Last time I checked, more women than men were enrolling in college.

When I think of my own education, I hated classes that were all logic and no emotion.  I was never a linear, logical, cold-facts kind of guy.  I also hated classes that were hands-on.  Being more bookish and abstract, I preferred to read a poem than take apart a car.  It wasn't that I was not masculine.  I played sports and watched ESPN.  I simply didn't fit their stereotype of male gender roles.

This might seem crazy, but I have a different belief about gender education.  My thought on the achievement gap is that pop culture tells boys that they need to be soft and sensitive and wear a cardigan like Mr. Rogers.  So, we grow up in a post-feminist world hearing how women can do anything, but nothing affirms masculinity.  Then we here conflicting messages in music and pop culture, where the ideal man is not smart (that's too nerdy) but athletic and overly sexual (the rap music prototype).

What if the solution is to notice the gender differences and let men be gentlemen in the classroom?  Why not let them show some chivalry by opening doors and carrying books?  Why not also affirm that there is something tough and courageous and masculine in showing emotion and being sensitive to the needs of others? 

Someone once told me that every man needs to be a warrior-poet.  The warrior side is tough, courageous and strong; fighting for social justice and defending his family.  The poet is reflective, intelligent, emotional and sensitive to the needs of others.  We need to recover that.  We need to inspire young men to be both.  Simply placing them all in one group and giving them more logic-driven, hands-on instruction is a cosmetic solution that will not change the larger problem.