Inequalities in Education

Inequalities in Education

It has been shown that for some time now boys have always been thought to be the problem when it comes to education. Girls start school at a much calmer stage in their life, ready to sit, listen and learn. Boys are still at a stage in their development where they want to play. Sitting still is very difficult for them to do and expecting them to sit and concentrate is too much to ask. By the age of 5, 53% of boys reach the expected level in writing compared to 72% in girls. This continues up to GCSE and then less continuing on to further education and university The difference can be seen even at the stage of starting preschool with girls happy to sit and play through drawing and painting but boys want to play actively with their arty side coming through with Lego and building. As they move into primary education the children are then asked to sit and listen. I believe boys are not ready for this. Because they find this difficult to do they are then told off and as Gaynor Sbuttoni, an educational psychologist has pointed out it tumbles in to a vicious circle Boy can’t sit still – Boy gets told off – Boy starts to feel like a bad boy – So boy gets told off some more – Boy gets angry – Teacher gets angry – and so his work suffers. Does this show a need to educate boys in a different way to girls? Does it show a need to go back to separating girls and boys into separate schools? It has become clear that they learn better in different ways. Boys are shown to thrive when the type of education is more hands on, rather than sitting at a desk and being expected to learn through listening.
There is a lack of male teachers in primary education. The government tried to deal with this along with the recognised problem of boy’s falling behind. This could also help as children in single parent families usually have the mother as the main carer and so have no male contact in their everyday life
As a mother of a girl and boy myself I can see that my children learn in different ways and although my son is doing well in education I feel this is because his teacher recognises the need for boys to be more active in their learning. Whereas my daughter is and has always been able to sit down with books, read them and learn from them. Sbuttoni has also said “We need to change the way we teach, we need to make it more attractive, more fun, take the pressure away so we are not just worrying about the amount of information we can stuff into children’s brains”