And Kathleen Wynne makes six -- six female Canadian premiers, that is.
It used to be that the arrival of a female premier was big news, but it's getting to the point that pretty soon the arrival of a male premier is going to make headlines. What's going on here?
The fact is Canadian women are doing better across the board. A while back, girls started doing better than boys in elementary school, then the wave moved to high school, then post-secondary education, and now women are starting to do better than men on the job.
So the question becomes: what happened 30 or 40 years ago to start boys' downward spiral?
It goes without saying that we've experienced social and cultural changes that have made it possible for women to excel -- both in higher education and in their professional life. But until recently, boys did better than girls. What's changed?
There are lots of theories out there about why boys suddenly started doing worse than girls in school -- things like boys' active natures, television, lack of male role models, and so forth -- but none of them fully explains the gender gap, since these theories most precede boys' troubles.
However, there was one major change that took place at the exact same time that boys' problems started.
During the 70s, most Canadian public schools began using a new type of approach called child-centred learning. Unfortunately for the boys, child-centred learning works a lot better for girls than it does for boys.
In schools that use child-centred learning, the boys tend to struggle with learning -- especially when it comes to reading. For example, girls do 10-15 percentage points better than boys on Ontario's provincial reading and writing tests (girls also do a few percentage points better in math).
In the good old days, and to this day in jurisdictions that have managed to escape the worst excesses of child-centred learning, there were and are virtually no gender differences in school achievement. In these places, both girls and boys become better readers -- although the boys improve more than the girls.
And when good old-fashioned phonics programs are introduced, there is always significant improvement in reading. A typical experiment in Bristol, England tracked about 700 primary-age children who were taught to read using an excellent phonics program. Although the study included children with every sort of special need, including some in the severe and complex category, the results were overwhelmingly positive:
• The average reading and spelling age for these 700 children was 15 months ahead of grade level after the first year.
• The boys did just as well as the girls.
• The younger children in the age group did as well as the older children.
• Socially-disadvantaged children did just as well as advantaged children.
• Children whose first language was not English did as well as native English speakers.
• No child developed dyslexia, even though many came from families where the older siblings had struggled to learn to read, and had been diagnosed with dyslexia.
Experiments like these prove that boys can become good readers if they receive proper instruction.
The question is not really whether we CAN make it possible for boys to do well in school. The question is whether we WANT to make it possible for boys to do well in school.
It certainly is within Kathleen Wynne's power to help boys. The burning question is whether she will.
Women are not changing the system at all, they're just becoming skillful at navigating them.
My daughter is working toward becoming a chef, since she loves to cook. Myself, I don't see much difference than when I was growing up: boys still do what boys do, as do girls, but there are far more options available to both genders than when I was their age. I see girls in stereotypically male fields and I certainly see more men in stereotypically female fields. I think it's good to see, myself. Would have appreciated more of the cultural acceptance when I was growing up.
One answer for both questions,
THE SKIRTS GOT SHORTER AND SHORTER!!!
My stepson is expected to use a computer for his schoolwork but was never taught how to type. I think this is typical of our school system today. They teach lots of facts but don't teach the basic life skills to learn and work.
Sure phonics starts out with plenty of drill, but this can be out of the way in a few months, and phonics can also be combined with teaching handwriting. as for "Merely sounding out words", yes, it is common for children with autism spectrum disorders to decode with poor comprehension, but I find it hard to believe it is common for childrens to read aloud and have no idea what they are going on about! (as long as most of the words are part of their current vocabulary)
Curious how many other excesses of Child-Centered learning are not child-centered at all
bottom line is kids need a variety of different learning environments and methods to fully experience education. it can't be just drill, or explicit teaching, or only inquiry, or only student-centered.
let's remember that until relatively recently (within the last couple hundred years at the outset) education was the domain of the male. in many cases it still is, in spite of what marbou says. i've never seen a high school yet that had 75% female instructors! history, mathematics, science, physical education, music, art - these have been controlled by male voices and yes, over the last few decades things have changed somewhat, but overall women are still on the periphery in most of the big subject areas.
let's not forget the other unmentioned cause here: parents and the social value placed on men vs. women. men are still valued more by nearly every culture i can think of and most of the world's population live in countries where the male is the supreme figurehead.
Having 2 kids who went through the education system (one of each sex) also provided me with a good understanding of what the elementary system had become. For female teachers in the lower grades, the discipline system in their class was now enforced with ritalin (for those unfamiliar with the drug culture of the 60's, it was called "speed" back then). Of course, boys were the major recipients of these goodies and parents were usually given an ultimatum "ritalin or special ed".
The emphasis on equal oppurtunity was somehow derailed along the way. When I started teaching, the high school I was in was 75% male teachers, but in the 90's and 2000's we were told by successive princpals that more women would be hired to make it an even 50-50. The hiring practice was continued as principals discovered that female teachers are more malleable, easier to intimidate and more conformist (and also sexier) than male teachers. The result is that today the same high school has 75% female teachers.
All this has contributed heavily to discourage boys from excelling and although there is a lot more talk about looking after the boys more, little has been done, and with the new generation of female principals, I have little hope for improvement as they have developped a preference for girls in their years of teaching.
I think males have seen the transformation of society and more and more of the younger population becoming more jaded with regards to the future. And rightfully so, it's a disater out there, so why bother with education if it's no longer a help.
In my case, my education is actually a HINDERANCE. I graduated from engineering three years ago and can't even get a part time job in fast food.
So, education? What's the point except to rack up huge student loan debt to pad a Baby Boomer's pension fund?
I retired from teaching 7 years ago after 32 years as a Biology/Chemistry teacher. During that time, I witnessed societal and educational changes that often made me wonder if I wasn't in fact witnessing an orchestrated plot to destroy males. Starting in the 70's and growing in the 80's was television's image of the male as a dumb animal who was next to useless except to pay the bills. The image of the female as the superwoman was emphasized everywhere. Teacher's in school were told that they had to encourage girls steadily and help them develop a positive image of themselves. Meanwhile, nothing for boys. I was offered to lead a special project in science and technology in our school(on my department head's recommendation) in the early 90's, but as the school principal interviewed me, he let out the fact that he wanted this project to be a project that would assist female students develop a scientific and technological advancement. When I suggested that in my classes, male and female students were treated equally, and that favouring girls would only discourage the boys, I was promptly taken off the project.