differentia specifica

"Specific differences"

I'm now my eighth year of teaching and going relatively strong... that is, relative to the time of year - ask me around the "peak trade seasons" of teaching and I might recant that last statement.

Last year was sometimes a struggle- although I have five years experience as a Middle School Year Level Coordinator, 2015 was my first time working with Year 7 students - in their first year of Secondary school.

They were a small cohort made up of mainly boys. Approximately two thirds of the group were of the male persuasion.

After being blessed with two sons followed by a gap of seven years and then two daughters,  my personal parenting experience leads me to believe that boys are easygoing and less demanding.

With this group, in the classroom context,  this hypothesis was, to quote Mythbusters, BUSTED!

During the last eight years, I have learned a little about helping Year 8 students navigate (and/or survive) their first year of Secondary school. As a result, I foolishly thought that the Year Sevens would be the same, with the  exception of a slight variance in age.

Again, another theory -BUSTED-

I was bewildered each day at the stark developmental difference that a twelve month period actually made. It became quite clear, quite quickly, that this group of boys had difficulty in exercising self control. They called out incessantly, played the clown for attention, constantly tried to out do one another, made jokes at each other's expense and also scrap with each other outside of the four walls!

My normal casual demeanor and fun loving style of teaching had to be put away for a more rigid, structured act. And that, my friends, nearly did my head in!

The girls, small in number, grew increasingly frustrated at the boys' antics. I would often catch them looking at one another, shaking their heads, rolling their eyes and sighing. 

I have heard of the theory that girls mature faster than their male counterparts of the same age. After doing some rather superficial research, I managed to find some supporting evidence for this hypothesis to say it might very well be PLAUSIBLE. 

In an earlier post I mentioned that I had read about scientific studies show that adolescents undergo significant change in their physical, cognitive, social and emotional development. This phase of growth is apparently more intense than what they endure during their infancy!

More specifically, during puberty, neural pathways are "pruned". Some may allege this is could explain why teenagers all of a sudden turn into monosyllabic, awkward and sometimes prickly, little vegemites.  

Back to the evidence- other studies have now proposed that girl brains undergo this neural pruning and reorganization even earlier than boy brains. They also noted that girls have more connections across the cerebral hemispheres. The Newcastle University study, published in Cerebral Cortex Journal (2013) found that this enables the brain to work more efficiently, and therefore reach a more mature state for processing the environment. 

I stop momentarily and have a little giggle thinking about the once popular notion of the nineteenth century that women were intellectually inferior because their brains were smaller. In 1887, George Romanes actually claimed that because women had smaller heads, their brain would thus be smaller, making them less intelligent. His claims were never questioned or tested scientifically because it suited the male dominated society to adopt this nonsense as fact. Thankfully, the Suffragettes were gaining momentum to advocate for women's rights, making their mark on history.

Fast forward again to just last year, in my school... The group of only 15 girls in Year 7 had to exercise their maturity to adapt and overcome this challenging situation. I often hear myself saying that school is a training ground for the real world - ideally with a safety net of love and support to catch them if/when they fall while learning.

If they can master strategies to work respectfully with people in positions of authority, difficult peers and handle the stress of looming deadlines, I believe that they will cope with life's challenges a little better when they are blazing their trail in world. The majority of these girls have demonstrated patience, perseverance and self-direction to carry on and engage with their learning. This allowed their teachers to attend to the different set of learning needs of their male peers.

From this experience, I can see the merits of gender streaming. We have started on this path with baby steps in the last few years and it certainly has had its advantages. We run our school camps with separate gender programs, only sharing mealtimes together. It allows them to engage in activities and focus on their strengths without having to be self conscious of what the opposite sex thinks. It also removes the audience and the need for them to show off! 

The next step we are taking in gender steaming is implementing a specifically gender based personal development program. It's a rite of passage journey and I am really excited to see how it pans out.

I  must clarify that I am not pushing a "down with boys" anti-male agenda here. Remember, I said earlier that I have found it easier to raise boys! 

This year's cohort of Year 7 is not quite the opposite. There are more girls this time around, but only 5 more. What observations can I offer? This time, my theory that boys are easier to manage has actually been substantiated! 

The amount of drama and angst between the new group of girls this year has been, let's say, significantly more than I have seen before. Pleasantly, the new group of boys is more laid back. 

No two cohorts are ever the same, this much is true. Makes life interesting and prevents staleness and boredom!

Til next time, 

TGBTG

MD