Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Gifted girls

Gender and education research has begun to show a mismatch between boys’ and girls’ learning brains and how education is being delivered. Educators and education researchers have spent many years researching and working on correcting negative gender biases toward girls. Finding ways to have gender equity for girls in our schools has been an important focus. However, statistics indicate that approximated 70 percent of Ds and Fs and half of As are earned by boys, 66 percent of learning disability diagnoses are dispensed to boys, boys represent 90 percent of discipline referrals, 80 percent of high school dropouts are male, and males make up fewer than 40 percent of college students (Gurian, 2004). This information gives indication that it is important to give more attention to what the boys in schools need as well.

The education profession as a whole needs more male teachers. Approximately 76 percent of teachers in the United States are female. This means that roughly 76 percent of classrooms have classroom routines, instruction, assignments, projects, assessments, classroom management, and behavior expectations, that are created, planned, and implemented through the female learning brain lens. This is good news for female students but not necessarily good news for male students as their learning needs may not always be met. Recognizing the differences in brain development can help educators find solutions to some of the challenges we face in classrooms.

The function and development of the lobes in the cerebral cortex are different for boys and girls. Girls have statistically significant differences in cortical development and use of the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes of the brain. For girls, the frontal lobe develops more quickly than the frontal lobe of boys which means that girls make fewer impulsive decisions and girls more readily and efficiently use the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes of the brain. Boys show a significant difference in the use of the cortex of the cerebellum, the part of the brain that receives information from the sensory systems, the spinal cord, and other parts of the brain that regulate motor movement. It coordinates voluntary movement. This gives reason to the difference in movement by boys in the classroom.

Neuroprocessing maps of the brain show lateralization of the boy brain activity with a pronounced difference from girls in the amount of cross hemisphere activity. A girl’s corpus callosum is up to 25 percent larger than a boy’s by adolescence. This allows more crosstalk in the brain which translates in to girls being better at multitasking, transitioning, and paying attention. Girls have stronger neural connectors than boys in their temporal lobes. These stronger neural connectors in the female brain allow for more sensually detailed memory storage, better listening skills, better discrimination among tones of voice, and greater use of detail in writing assignments. A girl’s hippocampus is larger increasing the girls’ learning advantage, especially in language arts. On the whole, the complexities of reading and writing come easier to the female brain and the female brain tends to drive toward stimulants that involve complex texture, tonality and mental activity.

Where the female brain uses the cortical areas of the brain for verbal and emotive functioning, the male brain uses these areas for spatial and mechanical functioning. This makes boys want to move objects through space – balls, model airplanes, their arms, their legs…. Boys have less serotonin and oxytocin, the primary human bonding chemical, than girls. This makes them more likely to be physically impulsive and less likely to combat their natural impulsiveness which makes it hard for boys to sit still and easy for them to turn and chat with a friend. The boy brain needs to enter a rest state in order to recharge, renew, and reorient itself. This rest state may look like falling asleep, tapping pencils or fidgeting in order to stay attentive. The male brain is better suited for diagrams, pictures, symbols, abstractions and objects moving through space than for the monotony of words. The more words a teacher uses during the lesson, the more likely a boy is to “zone out” or go into a rest state.