Saturday, September 26, 2009

Gender Differences: Book I Have Not Read of the Week

Salon has an interesting interview with a woman who has written how small differences in gender for kids lead to very different adult gender identities/behavior.

After starting school, girls quickly surpass boys when it comes to reading and writing skills. Why do these academic differences so quickly reveal themselves?

Girls, there's no question, talk more to each other even in preschool and toddler years. There are more words exchanged than between two boys. Magnify that over a couple years and you have more girls going to school with more verbal skills. With boys, you see the same thing with spatial skills, throwing things, building things and playing video games. Being aware of these different cognitive domains can help us as parents and teachers provide each child with more of a rounded experience early in life. It's important to not give preschool children too much choice about what activity they do, because then you have kids separating by gender and only reinforcing their strengths.

Good thing ultimate is coed, I guess.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So, we're going to create uberchildren by taking away the Barbie's and replacing them with Tonkas. Unlikely. There is a reason girls talk to one another and boys play with Legos. Altering the environent in some godlike way is not going to change the outcome, at least not in the way this theorist wants. People always think that we are at the mountaintop of progress while we are really swinging blindly. Thomas Jefferson thought he was pretty smart and he owned (well, more than owned) slaves.