Education: Gender disparity and intellectual expectations

The university I attend has a 55% quota of females, and 45% male. I told my mum this and immediately she joked, "that's because girls are smarter than boys!"

Though a joke, this is what we're often told. Girls mature faster than guys and their brains consequently develop faster meaning our intelligence is more procurable at a younger age. Guys soon catch up though!
But what this puts in my mind is a disparity between the sexes at lower level education. At university it's not so bad, you're thrown into a pool of fish and you all swim around and find your way eventually, but in secondary school, you're stuck with people you may not get on with for the best part of five years. This mindset therefore of thinking that girls are more intelligent than boys immediately has negative repercussions for the attitude of both genders when learning. Girls assume they're better than boys and may becomes complacent in study, and boys thinking they're damned anyway stop trying to get poorer grades. Some might argue that the boys learning at a slower rate in comparison to girls propel and motivate the boys to catch up, but although this is a possibility I think the more likely outcome is that the self esteem of males will plummet and as such, the disparity will expand even further.

Another thing which is always evident in secondary schools is that science is the male domain, arts the female. Men like facts, they like scientific experiments, and they like seeing the glowing magnesium and then proceeding to understanding why it melts at 650 degrees Celsius or why Pi is a never-ending number. Girls, on the whole don't seem to be quite so inquiring. Or at least, not in that field area. Generally the fairer sex prefers to analyse texts and question world views and investigate more abstract aspects of life. I'd imagine there's a fair few more girls wanting to trawl through War and Peace than to dissect a pig's heart! You only have to look at popular TV series, The Big Bang Theory to see that four guys are presented at scientific geniuses whereas the blonde is presented as an utter idiot, working at a cafe, and she has many jokes made at her expense. Though the stereotypes and gender disparities are there, this does not mean we must adhere to them. Girls can be damn good at science - just look at the work of Marie Curie. Guys can be great at the Arts too. Tolstoy wrote some pretty damn good novels. It's not enough to be told figures and statistics, we must be willing to do something about gender disparity to improve the learning experience of the generations to come.

I'm a typical example. I would have loved to have been a doctor and lived out a vocation in curing people, helping them, and I think I would have been particularly good at it. Unfortunately, I am just not gifted in scientific subjects, and if I can't understand the theory behind the care then I don't want to be entrusted with a profession which is primarily and imperatively responsible for human life. That and the fact that I can barely look after myself, let alone other people! I enjoyed science at school but I had to put in quite a bit of work in to get remotely anywhere; but it just didn't come as naturally nor as easily to me as English or Religious Education did. In life, I'm a big believer in sticking to your strengths - and in order to do this, you have to realise what it is you're good at, and admit what your weaknesses are, otherwise you're never going to get anywhere. During my A Levels, as I studied conscientiously for two years, enjoying the books I was reading and the things I was studying, I watched some people waste the time of their teachers, and I knew they didn't really want to be there, and to a large extent, perhaps they didn't have the academic potential to be there either. But what I pitied them more for was that they were wasting their own time - they could be out in the world of world, earning a living for themselves, or they could learning an apprenticeship in a vocational college and improving themselves, rather than sitting around in an educational institution which wasn't benefitting them.
Our society focuses a lot upon academic merit and intelligence and cognitive ability, and as such, there is often a great focus and aspiration on achieving the highest possible academic achievements out there, and this naturally causes competition. Students try and get top of the class, they apply for top universities, and there's a lot of people who get very disappointed. Although I am one of the people who do think that academia and intelligence is important, I also think it's necessary not to undermine to importance of vocational jobs too. We need plumbers and electricians...you could have an IQ that's through the roof, but if that roof is broken, you're going to need to get someone in to fix it for you!

What needs to be done at secondary school level therefore is a focus on teaching the genders equally and giving the same opportunities, without letting presuppositions affect the situation too much. There also needs to be more emphasis that practical jobs and vocational studies are okay, in fact, necessary, so secondary school children don't feel embarrassed or demeaned if they choose to follow that path. And finally, there needs to be a focus on reassuring children who don't do too well the first time round, that resits are okay. They're not ideal perhaps, but sometimes they're necessary. When I had to resit one of my English AS level exams, I thought I was an utter failure and I blamed myself, even though I'd put hours of work in, when the truth seemed to be that it was just a bad exam marking year. There needs to be a better attitude towards expected grades. Students have enough on their plates without being pushed to the limit with such ridiculously high expectations. Set the lower bars first, conquer them and increase the sights on your horizon. This avoids too much disappointment. Encourage hard work by all means, but let students get those results with their own comfortable methods and you'll soon see high fliers cropping up all over the place.