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Comment by nxc18 | Hacker News Reader

If you read the article the suggestion is that grading for classes includes things like not misbehaving, following the rules, and paying attention to the parameters of the rules.

This all sounds like a cultural issue of how we socialize boys. Why is it just expected that boys can’t pay attention or not break out into fist fights constantly?

Reading that article it sounds like boys are graded fairly when you consider that it’s not just doing the work that counts, but doing the right work, the right way, at the right time, while not being an asshole. I don’t know why society bakes in the idea that boys should be jerks by default, but that’s probably a separate conversation.

Ability to get along with a team is crucial in modern workplaces just as it is in the classroom.

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> Why is it just expected that boys can’t pay attention

According to this [0] boys have a 4x higher chance of being diagnosed with ADHD than girls. I think you would have a very difficult time arguing that that's because of how we socialise boys.

[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3101894/#:~:tex....

So you're saying our society is unable to work with boys correctly?

What would "correctly" even mean in this context? The whole point seems to be that no, society is utterly incapable of handling their behaviour and tries hard to just somehow get the to behave like girls instead, attributing all differences to social factors instead of acknowledging biological (mostly hormonal) differences and addressing them.

However a "correct" way would look like, statistics certainly indicate that the current system is far from it.

This article doesn't suggest anything about the socialization of boys:

"When it comes to teachers' marking, the study says there is a consistent pattern of girls' work being "marked up".

It suggests that "teachers hold stereotypical ideas about boys' and girls' academic strengths and weaknesses".

Teachers are said to reward "organisational skills, good behaviour and compliance" rather than objectively marking pupils' work.

The findings suggested that teachers needed to be aware of "gender bias"."

We shouldn't be saying, "boys will be boys" and we shouldn't accept boys receiving poorer grades for the same work because teachers have biases against boys. We should try to discover what is going on, and work to best educate boys and girls the best way for them. Maybe that means teaching them separately. Maybe teachers just need better training as the article suggests. Obviously there is something widespread here, happening across 60 countries.

You seem to want to blame individual male children for the failures of the system. As a person who wants all genders to be treated fairly and equally, that is pretty appalling.

It's debatable whether the work turned it was exactly the same. Even if teachers were rewarding other skills (eg: good behaviour), the teachers are setting the bar.

It's not like grades are that relevant to someone's life anyway. To be honest, the only thing I want for my kids out of school is socialisation with kids their age and being exposed to basic scientific knowledge. Most of the stuff I learned in school went out of my brain the second I didn't need it, anyway. What I retained is only what I still need or found interesting, and I probably remember it only because I did some personal study on it, because I liked the subject matter.

Instead of finding a gender appropriate way or fair way of grading kids, I think we should get rid of grading and the school system entirely. It can be replaced entirely with project based learning. You can still have some form of curriculum, a selection of different projects that require different skills. If you want to prove to a company you know classical mechanics physics, point them out to your "rocket project" in which you proved your knowledge of physics. Algebra? I developed a 2d game.

You may have a few teachers around to help but no frontal lessons. Everyone work on their projects and is surrounded by their peers and a few teachers you can turn to in case you need help.

I have observed the same but I don't get why we treat kids as slave labourers in school where they need permission to drink water, go to washroom or speak up and have mandatory work they can't refuse.

It is fascinating, because I remember conservative objections to feminization of schools being that women are too soft and wont be able to demand enough discipline. Which turned into women are too strict in demanding discipline.

I am inclined to agree with proposals to give kids more space for running around and generally using their energy. But then again, the test obseesed system which sees free time for kids as "wasting time" and "being just childcare" is enforced by politicians rather then something that school teachers themselves wanted.

The conservative claim was probably that women can't enforce discipline, rather than that they can't demand it.

If we're saying that boys are being marked down for not being disciplined enough, that doesn't do much to contradict the conservative line :)

It was actualy that women will tolerate too much and allow everything.

> Which turned into ...

It's almost as if different people have different opinions.

Should children also get marked down for having bad personal hygiene?

If you want to score children for their behavior, you can do that separately from assessments about their reading/writing/math ability. These tests exist to measure students abilities, not whether or not you like them.

Exactly, conflating the two invites unmeasurable implicit bias into the process.

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