Analysis Of Connie Matthiessen's Article 'Girls And Boys' Brains

Connie Matthiessen in her article, Girls' and boys' brains: How different are they?, “There are no real differences between girls’ and boys’ brains that affect how they learn, but rather stereotypes that we want to exist, so we enforce them”. To alter these stereotypes we just need to not teach them. The real problem is not whether the student is male or female, but rather their race and class. The discrepancies in research for having the education of different sexs differ so much that many people just state their opinions and backup their beliefs with confirmation bias, rather then actual research into whether or not the education is effective for the majority of students and not the minority. There are not large enough differences in the
In the article The Truth about Boys and Girls Mead states, “The problem is most likely not that high schools need to be fixed to meet the needs of boys, but rather that they need to be fixed to meet the needs of all students, male and female. The need to accurately parse the influence of gender and other student categories is also acutely apparent when we examine the issues of race and income… the gaps between students of different races and classes are much larger than those for students of different genders—anywhere from two to five times as big”(Mead 9). The real problem that education is facing is that people who are impoverished, or even just not white, face a giant gap between them and white students. Students are not receiving a fair education based on their appearance and wealth, and they should. Every person deserves a fair opportunity to demonstrate that they know something, and if they do not then have an equal opportunity to learn it.The argument is not that females and male students differ so drastically that they need different educations, but rather that males and females that are not white and are in a lower class always trend to be drastically worse then their white counterparts. There should be no argument against having everyone treated fairly and getting equal opportunity,
In Gender Matters in Elementary Education Research-based Strategies to Meet the Distinctive Learning Needs of Boys and Girls by Virginia Bonomo she states that, “Researchers have found that no single area of development influences gender differences”(Bonomo 1). Research has indicated that there is no need to teach boys and girls differently, because the small differences in their brains do not affect how they learn in the classroom. There are differences in the male and female brains, however the differences are so minor that the do not have an effect on how children learn. Just because there are minor differences in the order in which male and females brains develop, does not mean that that is the reason few students learn differently because correlation does not equate to causation. There is no single area of development that influences gender differences, therefore there should be no differences in the way that boys and girls