Do Boys and Girls Learn Differently?

In that last sentence I deliberately sounded unscientific. My reason? The science of teaching is increasingly being driven by scientific discoveries in other fields, when it should merely be informed by them. The science of education is the science of leading each child’s genius out in the world to function effectively in it. At its core is the concept that each child is unique and that good teaching teaches as if each child is unique.

So in the early years, there need to be centers around the room that are so carefully designed that children want to work in them and in this process, direct themselves into the complexities of language and mathematics, as well as art, physics, and biology. Group activities need to have many ways of different students to “strut their stuff,” and not always make some kids look like the good ones and the rest feel less.

The great teachers I have known have always maintained that “children teach themselves to read.” These are the words of my current first grade teacher—when she taught kindergarten, her students would almost always go on to first grade reading. She was very sophisticated in her teaching so that students taught themselves to read. All good teachers do that—they create the conditions in which children will, on their own time table and in their own way, learn all that needs to be learned. That is what we need, and it is gender-neutral.

The differences between girls and boys is widely known. Let’s not forget that it is so true that it has been cliché for at least a hundred years that schooling is not for boys—schooling done traditionally, that is. It was Mark Twain who said: “I never let schooling interfere with my education.

Related Story: What’s up with Boys?

From the Principal’s Office: Lessons on Learning, Life, and Parenting is published bi-monthly. Each column is written by Rick Ackerly, a distinguished educator with thirty years experience in middle and elementary school education, who is currently the Head of the Children’s Day School in San Francisco.

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