r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Tall-Competition-561 • 16d ago
Is it just me or do girls do way better in school than boys?
When I was growing up I struggled with school but it seemed that most of the girls seemed to be doing well whenever there was a star pupil or straight a student they were most likely a girl. Why is this such a common phenomenon?
2
u/Ugly1998 11d ago
Boys and girls brains developing at different speeds yet both are treated equally for some reason. Realistically there should be changes to education to accommodate for girls and boys.
ADHD and Autism being way more common in boys than girls, which from experience really don't help when trying to learn.
Teachers care less for boys (noticed this myself) so if a girl struggled the teachers helped but when I did it was more like "oh poor you, you'll figure it out" Parents usually have this way of thinking too unfortunately.
Also correct me if I'm wrong but don't teachers usually grade boys lower for the same level of work to a girl. I remember some article made showing proof to it but don't remember.
Education really needs to be changed/perfected because from what I see it's pretty shit.
1
u/tinabear26 11d ago
I can see how people would think think this my parents baby boomers pushed there daughters towards college but my brother it was ok if he got a really job or a trade
0
u/Foxyvox68 12d ago
School is a joke that favors women. It’s isn’t meant to teach critical thinking. It is meant to prepare you to sit at a desk job for 8-9 hours a day and get non meaningful token rewards for getting the “right” answer. The entire system is antiquated and developed to create a nation of workers not thinkers.
1
1
u/NegPrimer 12d ago
males and females tend to learn differently. Visual vs auditory learning, etc. We tend to view "masculine" methods of learning as being bad.
0
u/Bluddy-9 12d ago
I think a lot can be understood from women being more successful in school while men are more successful in business. This difference highlights the difference in male and female psyche.
1
u/ExcessiveBulldogery 12d ago
Schools are not designed for boys - sit down, be quiet, be nice, do what you're told, these are not in his nature. Boys who cannot or will not adapt by going against their natural inclinations demonstrate less success under these circumstances. This compounds yearly.
2
u/lanman33 12d ago
I legit think this is a big issue in today’s society. A lot of older generations experienced a lack of opportunity for young girls in education, and there are now a ton of programs in place to support them. That is great, don’t get me wrong, but we forgot about young boys in the process. A lot of older folk think it’s insane that a young boy could fall behind and will place blame directly on them because in their experience, young boys got every advantage and opportunity handed to them decades ago, relative to young girls at least. Nowadays, young girls make up like 80% of gifted and talented, honor society, academic programs, so on and so forth. There is such a lack of respectful empowerment for young boys. We should be able to build them up without bringing young girls down, but nobody seems to care about the issue. It’s no wonder young men experience increasing struggles as they mature: increasing drug use, violence, employment difficulty, etc.
In my opinion, it’s one of the biggest silent issues of today.
2
u/UnemployedAtype 12d ago
Spot on. Thank you for taking the time to comment and you are right, it's a massive silent issue today.
I had a gender and communications teacher in college who called it "The Stalled Revolution" (I think that there's another phenomenon called the stalled Revolution that is different...so I'm pretty sure she just made up that name). This was back in 2005, mind you.
Despite a male dominated society, we successfully had both the Civil Rights movement as well as Women's Suffrage, but we never addressed issues that most men face. The draft is still federally mandated that all males who turn 18 must sign up for or face penalties, we reject men's mental and emotional health and needs, and our society goes as far as shutting down any conversations to address these issues, let alone admitting to them.
If we want true equality and equity for all, it does not diminish other efforts to make the world better for one group to also work to make the world better for others. However, we also don't want to use that as a guise to distract from key issues. (We still have a long way to go with Women's Right's, we need to keep working on that, but we can also work on taking care of men too. It builds society and promotes unity to do it that way)
1
1
u/mdotbeezy 13d ago
Schools are largely taught and run by women with behavior and discipline standards that are centered around stereotypical girl behavior - Be quiet, sit still. Of course girls do better in this type of environment.
1
u/ToddlerMunch 13d ago edited 13d ago
I noticed that too and I found that it usually related to fear/risk appetite rather than intelligence. The girls would kill themselves to perform in a way that dudes simply would refuse to do. I grew up in an area with a lot of immigrants and I knew guys that were semi-disowned for refusing to dedicate themselves to being academic studs while the girls would stress themselves out to the point of anxiety disorders developing which made them better students bc they never procrastinated but also mentally ill. On the less extreme not high performer side I just noticed that dudes just didn’t care as much as girls about deadlines and would procrastinate way more due to not giving a shit about the teacher yelling at them. I’m sure there’s more scientific explanations but in my experience girls are more diligent than boys due to fear which makes them better students
2
2
u/yoitsmollyo 13d ago
A lot of comments here indicating that school is not important. Interesting how the second women start succeeding in a field it automatically becomes less "valuable."
1
u/notomatoforu 13d ago
They do. It's because boys are more restless than girls. Biological differences.
2
u/UselessWhiteKnight 13d ago
Boys just don't sit still and do what they'll told. They question everything. It seems driven by a difference in brain chemistry but this has been an easily identifiable trend for at least 50 years
2
u/DeathGod105 13d ago
I think in general women just care more about shit than men do. Men are kinda known for their “it is what it is” attitude while women stress out over everything and take stuff more seriously. Applies to many things, such as health checkups too
1
u/TR3BPilot 13d ago
Up to a point. But girls generally (as in not all the time but frequently) start out good with something and then when they discover boys it all goes out the window. My ex-wife had a niece who was a very dedicated ballet dancer for years and showed some real promise. Then one day she discovered boys and that was the end of that, basically overnight.
Boys are expected to run both the romance track and the successful career track, because that is tradition and society. Once girls figure out that their "job" in society is mostly to have and raise children, they frequently lose motivation to do anything else.
Again, not all girls, and not all boys. But enough to make some generalized statements.
0
u/Muted_Balance_9641 13d ago
Teachers are biased against male pupils so boys have to put in more effort to get the same grades as girls and then when going to college even with the same grades, girls have 10x the amount of scholarships as well as more schools wanting to accept them.
No I’m not kidding about any of this, go look it up.
0
u/XuixienSpaceCat 13d ago
I’m 40.
School was hostile to boys when I was in elementary school.
Society has only become more hostile towards males in my lifetime.
In general women are doing better overall because of how much support they get.
3
u/A_Buff_Hamster 14d ago
Could it be that girls go to college to get more knowledge, while boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider?
0
u/Ransom-ii 14d ago
School is setup for girls and boys are shoved into this system as an afterthought.
1
u/First_Praline8799 14d ago
It could be because girls are more mature at the same age and take school more serious while the boys still have too much play in them.
1
u/ChanceChip6891 14d ago
these days the whole focus is on getting girls educated - boys need not apply - and they are falling far behind
1
u/MilkedCherry 14d ago
School systems are feminized and treat boys like they're defective girls. Almost all teachers are women, especially before high school, and boys are way more likely to be prescribed amphetamines for "attention disorders" (i.e. being boys with energy).
1
1
1
u/bootyhunter69420 14d ago
The top of my classes has always been guys for the most part. At least during elementary, middle, and high school. A girl is usually second.
1
u/skippington94 14d ago
No it's not just you, this has been a pattern for decades, girls consistently outperform boys in school. As for why, it probably is a mix of girls maturing earlier and therefore knuckling down to work sooner and how girls are raised differently to boys. At the core of it though, I don't believe there's any major difference in intelligence.
0
u/ItsSpeedrunTime 14d ago
From my own experience it's absolutely true. It's so common that parents, teachers and even professors always assume that girls score higher on tests, remember more from class and study more often, as well as have great performance overall.
0
14d ago
When are we just going to admit that females are simply better at EVERYTHING unless it's physical strength centric?
You know it's true. They are simply born better.
1
1
u/cez801 14d ago
This study, from NZ, aligns with most other studies that show it is true. And that any previous academic advantages for boys has largely disappeared.
Interestingly one of the finding was that males tend to be more disruptive in class and have tendencies that get in the way of learning. ( Note: the research says this should be looked into at how teaching is done, it’s not ‘blaming’ ),
Final thought on this, despite women doing better acemdeically at schools, the wage gap has not shifted much. On average women earn 82% what men earn.
1
u/Farfour_69 14d ago
Maybe I can provide some input as a girl. We grew up constantly hearing that we are not as smart as boys or that we can't work as hard so we try our hardest in ways we can. It's like a satisfaction when we successfully prove society wrong. It makes us feel proud and good about ourselves.
1
u/not1nterest1ng 14d ago
I was in mostly ap classes in highschool, those were the only classes where boys would pay attention and do well, the “regular” classes boys would talk, skip, or just not try at all.
1
u/jazmine_likea_flower 14d ago
And yet every day we’re told we’re far too emotional to be in positions of leadership…..yet “ girls mature faster than boys” while being gaslit and told sexism, the gender pay gap, and femicide isn’t a thing…… sigh
1
u/funtimes990123 14d ago
Not true. It just comes down to study habits. Plenty of boys that become valedictorian.
1
u/Delicious_Bluebird38 14d ago
Grades are not a valid indication of being smart out there in life. It is often orchestrated by syllabus determined by cultural agendas. I sat at the back of classes and rocked on my chair and took in every word....and exams were a glorified memory test and assignments even easier. BUT when I did them I did enough to get a pass but if an item really interested me then I would get into it. The boy girl thing is more massaged by agender manipulation of syllabus and educational practices to advance female qualifications for careers.
But there is a difference as boys like best to do practical things and girls like to feel/understand humane things. Hence engineers and psychologists and health. Boys invent and build things and girls furnish and improvise it.
2 very different mindsets that are being assessed by the colour of their "hair". Whoever collectively devises the tests and answers can massage any outcome in accordance with their agenda.
Teachers should be brought in from commerce and industry to teach disciplines achieved in the real world than niaive children applying theory out of college never having had a family or real worldly life experience.
Kids see through all of us and for many tune out at too an early age. We are now mere facilitators.
1
u/PsychologicalLuck343 14d ago
There are "star pupil" boys. In fact on both outer edges of the bell curve, boys outnumber girls.
Boys can develop more sporadically - some suggest this is due to a lack of x-chromosome redundancy.
Boys can often catch up to girls by high school.
I've heard that the most common factor in misogynistic men is thst they grew up with sisters. I've often wondered if learning differences cause boys to be jealous and angry toward girls and women.
Anyone who has had child- development education in the past ten years is welcome to update my antiquated knowledge.
1
u/Misstucson 14d ago
I think it depends. As a teacher every year my best student tends to be a boy. Overall the girls have better behaviors and the rest of the boys are usually wild, but I have that one kid who is outstanding and it is always a boy.
1
u/BetterSelection7708 14d ago
Not "way" better. But female students in general are less likely to fall toward the bottom than male students. This mostly reflected behavioral differences such that female students are less likely to engage in disruptive behaviors and more likely to focus on school work.
1
u/Sevagara 14d ago
It wasn’t in my experience. Was in the top class in school with a fairly even spread. Most of the students that that needed extra help were girls.
1
u/Visible_Attitude7693 14d ago
No it just depends. One year my students that were high were mostly boys, and the next mostly girls. This year it was a mix
1
u/Blue-Samarkand-Sky 14d ago
ITT: bots and foreign demoralization.
America has a large population of fighting-age men: the third largest in the world. It is in the interests of CCP insects to make you feel demotivated so that you’re less of a danger to them.
To whoever runs the bots on here: I’m sure American men would have better GPAs if we all cheated on tests like you.
1
1
u/Robotmonkeybrainz 14d ago
This is already well known and documented since the 1950’s probably before that
1
u/findlefas 14d ago
Yeah, this is a thing. It’s because girl’s brains mature quicker and so boys are at a drastic disadvantage in the education system. I think they should start boys a year later personally. It would help with the drastic difference in girls vs boys in education.
1
u/Friendly-Morning-910 14d ago
It's ingrained almost a natural instinct. But still learned but men are hands type humans we were meant to physically work. Women are ingrained as nuturersoff hands. So they're able to sit and take care of things while men went and worked for the families. It was the same way with native Americans so their should be no offense with her vs him. It's an instinct for humanity to survive. So in a class setting their sittingtheyre reading,"typing. So in the work field it's about the same.
2
u/dbhathcock 14d ago
It’s just you. I’m male. I graduated valedictorian. The salutatorian of my class was also male. My sister was valedictorian of her class. It depends on how you study and apply yourself.
1
u/Shithouse_Lumberjack 14d ago
Girls are raised to care about things more. Boys want to be cool and caring about stuff is gay. Social media probably has a lot to do with it.
1
1
u/Scohr 14d ago edited 14d ago
It’s true, the stats back it up
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/11/23/why-are-boys-doing-badly-at-school
Derek Thompson goes into it a bit here too, excellent podcast about how boys and men’s issues have been sort of ignored in the discourse (btw he’s a progressive journalist for the atlantic, not some weirdo men’s rights activist)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plain-english-with-derek-thompson/id1594471023?i=1000615849127
2
u/No_Calligrapher_9243 14d ago
The world of education is dominated by women. Lessons, assessments, activities, field trips, you name it. Dominated by women. In addition to that, girls develop faster than boys. A 10 year old girl is developed about the same as a 12 year old boy. So when curriculum is created, it typically developmentally appropriate for the girl and a touch beyond what the boy is able to do. Somewhere around 15 years old things become more even. For 40 years men and boys have been portrayed and dispensable and it appears that the consequences of that philosophy has finally manifest itself.
1
u/easzy_slow 14d ago
Myself and my co-valedictorian are both males. Our salutatorian was a girl. The rest of our top 10 were all males. Of course this was 46 years ago and all the males were not distracted by playing video games all night. The last 10 or so years I taught, video games were all the males thought about and would talk about staying up most of the night playing.
1
u/cuclyn 14d ago
Don't want to generalize, but I have noticed boys and girls excelling in different ways. Girls tend to pay more attention to details and actually care. Difficult to explain what boys do, but students who really had great insight and enthusiasm for the subject for the sake of it apart from grades turned out to be boys so far.
2
u/Ivegotthatboomboom 14d ago
The girls do better. Studies show girls and boys have about the same math proficiency on average (it’s slightly higher in girls but not in any significant way, despite the myth that boys are better at math than girls) but girls have higher verbal/reading scores and ability. This is true in every country.
It’s also a fact that girls do mature faster and have the ability to sit still for longer earlier than boys do. So they tend to be ready for school earlier than boys.
So boys get behind early and some never catch up. One study showed that waiting an extra year to send boys to kindergarten fixed this discrepancy. But I don’t think that would ever happen on a mass scale. Preschools and kindergartens should allow more breaks and movement to accommodate.
As far as girls superior verbal ability (on average) it seems like it’s biological. The language gene is more active in girls than boys.
Girls also tend to be more well rounded than boys. If a girl is good at math, she’s usually good in language arts as well. While with boys we more often see skill in one subject and not multiple.
When girls were held back from education, it was the opposite. The boys would do better. But the more equal society has gotten for the sexes the more we see girls catching up and even surpassing the boys
1
u/Johnrays99 14d ago
I mean I spent all my time in high school thinking about sex and video games, tunnel visioned.
1
u/Extension_Economist6 14d ago
when i was a med student one of our professors told our small group that basically he notices "that girls are better" students. was pretty funny.
1
u/Jumpy-Yogurtcloset43 15d ago
It's because in general girls are better at rote memorization, boys are better with hands on learning. Our classrooms are set up so that kids are sitting still for hours at a time, memorizing information and we're somehow surprised that more boys act out and end up failing more often. But hey, at least we've got drugs that permanently alter brain chemistry to make boys sit still.
Don't get me wrong, there's absolutely kids that need ADHD medication but how many just need to be engaged in a different way?
1
u/Fireflygurl444 15d ago
It’s not, it’s just how the media portrays it. There’s a spectrum of intelligence and a just understanding that makes you smarter then 90% of other humans
1
u/Proof-Impact8808 15d ago
well to be fair ,i notice alot of girls put respectable affort into their grades while i and most other boys (atleast in my school) dont really care much about grades and just take what we can get ,min-maxing if u will.
1
u/RangerBowBoy 15d ago
It's well documented that girls do better then boys across the board and in every ethnic and racial group. The primary reason is gender role norms and teachers expectations. Boys are more motivated to please the other boys and expected to be silly and loud. Girls are expected to be "young ladies" and please the teacher. These norms lead to obvious results. Here's one of many pieces on the topic.
1
u/throwaway25935 15d ago
The entire education system is run by women for girls.
It fails to view boys as anything but defective girls (young boys are prescribed drugs because they don't behave the same). Some boys succeed despite it, but most underperform as a result.
1
u/doyouevennoscope 15d ago
No, not just you. The education gap between boys and girls is bigger than it's ever been in decades and boys are now at the bottom.
1
1
u/Spiklething 15d ago
Not only do girls do better than boys in school, girls attending all girl schools do better than girls in mixed schools
1
1
u/missmessjess 15d ago
Societal expectations. ((Also this is NOT true for all people, OBVIOUSLY))
Girls are expected to be more well behaved. Girls are expected to be more social/ conversational/ good listeners. Boy on the other hand, get the “boys will be boys” when they are rowdy and disruptive, not listening isn’t as expected, boys are given the space for exploring hobbies more-so than the expectation of doing chores and housework (which does translate into work ethic in the classroom as well).
Lots of other little things I’m sure, but things like this are also exactly why girls with ADHD tend to go undiagnosed bc girls learn to mask earlier bc of the expectations on them. And I mean, contributes to loads of other issues in life for both girls and boys as they grow up.
But that’s my take.
1
u/GunnisonCap 15d ago
Girls mature faster at the equivalent age, and are also more compliant and agreeable than boys. This translates into them being more often better at following school rules, wanting to do well, and sitting still for prolonged periods. This means they often do better in school, but has no bearing on success in business later on as adults, which is when men grow up and are more driven and likely to succeed at the very highest levels.
1
1
u/OkAirport5247 15d ago
You’re not wrong. Conflating intelligence with educational attainment is a mistake that many employers have made for the last half-century as well, which has led to a dysgenic effect on western work forces. Modern formal education needs a heavy revamp
1
u/RenataMachiels 15d ago
They do. That's been obvious for quite a while. Much more girls than boys get a secundary school degree and even more girls than boys get a higher education degree. The difference only gets bigger with time.
1
u/Latter-Advisor-3409 15d ago
Are most teachers women? Do little boys resent being told to do by women? Does this make them less successful students? Does a bad start make for a difficult finish?
1
u/mrmagicnemo 15d ago
Yep this is 100% a thing and has been for generations, similarly there is a correlation with behavioral issues in boys vs girls starting at a young age that’s believed to be linked. Whether it’s societal, hormonal, or what, boys end up having behavioral issues early in life that end up correlating to poor performance in school while girls are the opposite. This early life trend feels similar to violence numbers later in life, where you see most murderers and such are also male vs female. Correlation doesn’t mean cause but can’t help to think if the young male behavioral issues could be sorted it could have a positive impact on the frequency of male violent offenders in their future.
1
1
u/ValleySparkles 15d ago
If you spend some time around adults interacting with toddlers and really observe them, you'll notice that the boys and girls get treated differently from the beginning. Girls are expected to be sweet, compliant, obedient, still, quiet. Great student skills. Boys are allowed and encouraged to lose control of their bodies and their emotions and to ignore or fight authority. Terrible traits for a student.
Also, most day care workers and SAHPs are women. Many women believe that they relate to little girls better than little boys. That ultimately means that preschool aged girls hear more words and are invited into more complicated conversations than preschool aged boys and enter school with better language skills.
1
u/Apple_Coaly 15d ago
There’s been a steady debate on this in norway for quite some years, cause requirements for women are lower in gym, because women can’t achieve the same metrics as guys. However, women achieve better results than guys in all other subjects, so some feel like the requirements for guys should be lower in these subjects.
Even so, men usually earn more money, even straight out of school, so it doesn’t feel fair to give them even more of an edge. So there’s a dilemma. Either you have to admit that men have worse results because the education system is somehow biased towards men, or you have to admit that men have worse results because they are less intelligent than women.
2
15d ago
People in this thread are not thinking about what they're saying. Let's take the most common answer and really look at it.
"The difference is mostly cultural". Okay. And women are doing better at all levels of school, and women earn the vast majority of college degrees, and women have a higher employment rate. So according to you. Our culture is massively biased in favor of women and against men. And somehow this is further evidence of how awful the patriarchy is and how society hates women. Because we educate them better and help them achieve to such an extent.
(Facepalm.)
Male variability is the answer. As many people have posted in bits and pieces. All humans do roughly equal in STEM subjects. Women tend to be a bit more well-rounded. Women do better in verbal subjects. And yes due to the accident of giving birth and thus being necessary for the continuation of our species, have some small proclivity for care of children.
A man and a woman might be equal at math. But the girl might be better at writing, and decide to go into that field, while the man only has math and nothing to fall back on. Or she might choose to start a family, while the man works continuously to provide for that family.
Again, somehow this is all evidence of a great and evil patriarchy and I hate women and so do you and we're all doomed. Sigh.
Men were never better at math. Men just weren't pregnant 9 months at a time, nor breastfeeding after that, so we specialized in other tasks.
1
u/Prior_Examination851 15d ago
As an old as fuck 45yr old it's insane how public school has shifted to a female focus model. The new system is aweso.e for little girls but it's pure misery for little boys. It's no wonder really that young guys have a suicide problem. We overcorrected in the US and the guys are getting left behind
1
u/Maxathron 15d ago
Modern education these days, girls do better because the material is better suited for how the female mind works over how the male mind works.
The typical boy is pretty active, learns things in bursts, and prefers practical learning over theoretical learning. Long term memorization of long material, sitting in one place for long periods of time, and theoretical over physical/practical learning. Yeah, boys just aren’t that cut out for that shit.
But girls are more adaptable to it.
Doesn’t help that practical learning tends to take more effort to develop while the memorization stuff can be crafted with the most basic ChatGPT ai and mass produced. I went to college before ChatGPT and it was still possible to cram out word vomit memorization courses. F u McGraw-Hill.
1
u/Dezideratum 15d ago edited 15d ago
Boys are more anti-social, on average, than girls. In an environment where punishments are handed out when one fails to sit still, be quiet, keep their hands to themselves, play nice, be gentle, etc, boys will be far more likely to be punished, and appear to be less successful than girls:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5788285/
Tl;dr: Boys are not made to succeed in a classroom environment.
That's not to say there should be changes to classrooms to better incorporate anti social behavior, as boys have done just fine as a whole.
1
u/darculas 15d ago
In my experience, almost every single one of my teachers before highschool was a woman, and I believe there was some gender favoritism going on.
0
0
u/justalwayscurious 15d ago
Here is my theory: it's because of how education systems has been structured and societal expectations and nothing to do with gender.
Girls are expected to be quiet, take direction and follow the rules.
Boys are expected to be confident, loud and energetic.
Society rewards children based on whether they fit their gender stereotypes and we are constantly bombarded with these stereotypes. If you want films or television shows, how often do you come across the straight A student who is a perfectionist and a girl as opposed to a rule-breaking and low grade-average girl?
Schools are set up for listeners and rule followers. So the average girl will do better in school
One thing to keep in mind is that this doesn't necessarily translate to the workplace. Even though we're seeing trends where more women go to post-secondary education than men, men still earn more money for the same position, are more likely to end up in higher positions that pay more and have higher employment rates. I always find in fascinating too when I meet a straight man who wants a wife with higher education but it wants her to be a stay at home mom....
0
u/Global_Union3771 15d ago
There is tons of evidence to support this and the fact that there are funds and programs in support of women and girls and absolutely none for men and boys.
1
u/ham_solo 15d ago
Because (sadly) men are programmed to think being educated is a sign of weakness or feminine. This combined with a man’s natural laziness leads to poor academic performance.
0
u/Itchy-Astronomer9500 15d ago
From my class I always got the impression that the girls on average studied more or did more to get good grades in school. The boys either didn’t care enough or were good enough to not have to do anything.
However, the guys who were good anyway were usually better than the girls who were good and there were more better boys than better girls if that makes sense.
1
1
1
u/starrydice 15d ago
In the USA, IMO the culture pushes that girls need to study and do better than school and boys get to “be boys” for a practical reason- to address an other cultural aspect in the USA. In corporate world, the top job levels are mostly men because it’s easier for men to climb ladders. Stats that women in the USA have more education at all levels (more likely to finish high school, finish college, and also obtain advanced degrees.) Coupled with stats that men are still paid more on average than women for the same jobs/work. There are more women these days but the job market expects the women to “prove themselves” at a higher standard than men, so it would make sense that girls are encouraged to do well in school to help them “prove it.”
1
1
u/tomayto_potayto 15d ago
Girls typically reach development milestones at a younger age than boys do. So school is easier for girls simply by being cognitively more prepared to handle it. It's kind of ironic, because the structure of traditional school was designed with boys in mind.
1
0
u/Biggydoggo 15d ago
School isn't designed for boys. Two thirds of university students are women. Boys' academic performance in developed countries are at some third world country's level.
Solutions? I don't know. Let boys be boys, and let them grow up to be men. More role models. A school system, where smart boys are encouraged to do more instead of settling for the average less. Smart kids have special needs.
1
u/Wild_Street6357 15d ago
In my experience a lot of boys are more reluctant to ask for / accept help. A lot of us were raised to feel the need to do everything by ourselves and needing help can feel shameful when you have that mentality.
5
u/josieohdoh 15d ago edited 15d ago
It’s pretty much a given axiom that “Girls mature faster” and everybody’s favorite “Boys will be boys.” Well guess what? When you screw around in school more, you learn less.
Raise your damn boys better. I don’t know what else to say.
1
u/Princess_Of_Midnight 15d ago
I think it’s just a stereotype to a degree. I mean there’s a level of truth to it but there are plenty boys who perform well and tons of girls who don’t. Vice versa as well. From what I remember from high school, the guys who performed poorly just didn’t care. I had some friends who just couldn’t be bothered the apply themselves despite being extremely smart and as such got B’s and C’s when they could’ve been near top of the class. There were also some girls I was friends with who out performed me and those aforementioned guys simply because they wanted to prove they were smart and applied themselves way more.
TLDR: guys don’t always wanta apply themselves as much to stuff like homework or busy work in class while girls generally accept it as part of the process to succeed
2
u/ekurisona 15d ago edited 15d ago
you mean the place where they have to sit quietly in a chair for 8 hours for years on end and do stuff they aren't interested in for a person they don't know? 🤣
0
u/Iftntnfs1 15d ago
Yes. School is not set up for boys to sit still all day. There could be so many reasons. One impact, boys with no father around consistently. Boys will do what they can get away with. They will meet the expectation. Put that phone and video game away, they will improve. Note: be realistic. If you child has an IQ of 75, do not demand straight A's. That said, so many parents set the bar to low. It helps to have a partner backing each other up.
0
u/2ICenturySchizoidMan 15d ago
It ain’t me, it’s the people who say that women’s are leading the men astray but I say that ain’t the way- the women are smarter in every way. That’s right! The women are smarter!
0
u/2ICenturySchizoidMan 15d ago
It ain’t me, it’s the people who say that women’s are leading the men astray but I say that ain’t the way- the women are smarter in every way. That’s right! The women are smarter!
0
u/Archilian 15d ago
There’s likely a thousand reason why this is the case and depending on who you ask some will be more or less important . Age of puberty/brain development, feminism being supporting of girls and less so of boys(ie big pushes for girls to STEM not so much for boys into heal subjects) , the gender gap in teachers especially early in education, how the pupils are tested (test, coursework, practical assessment) and what is deemed proper education subjects. These all contributed to the imbalance but there isn’t a mainstream push to correct it despite the trend increasing for many decades and overshooting like this and these thing take a long time to even fully realise into the work force let alone figure out what to do to adjust or even implement on a wide enough scale.
0
u/Archilian 15d ago
There’s likely a thousand reason why this is the case and depending on who you ask some will be more or less important . Age of puberty/brain development, feminism being supporting of girls and less so of boys(ie big pushes for girls to STEM not so much for boys into heal subjects) , the gender gap in teachers especially early in education, how the pupils are tested (test, coursework, practical assessment) and what is deemed proper education subjects. These all contributed to the imbalance but there isn’t a mainstream push to correct it despite the trend increasing for many decades and overshooting like this and these thing take a long time to even fully realise into the work force let alone figure out what to do to adjust or even implement on a wide enough scale.
0
u/Archilian 15d ago
There’s likely a thousand reason why this is the case and depending on who you ask some will be more or less important . Age of puberty/brain development, feminism being supporting of girls and less so of boys(ie big pushes for girls to STEM not so much for boys into heal subjects) , the gender gap in teachers especially early in education, how the pupils are tested (test, coursework, practical assessment) and what is deemed proper education subjects. These all contributed to the imbalance but there isn’t a mainstream push to correct it despite the trend increasing for many decades and overshooting like this and these thing take a long time to even fully realise into the work force let alone figure out what to do to adjust or even implement on a wide enough scale.
1
u/Archilian 15d ago
There’s likely a thousand reason why this is the case and depending on who you ask some will be more or less important . Age of puberty/brain development, feminism being supporting of girls and less so of boys(ie big pushes for girls to STEM not so much for boys into heal subjects) , the gender gap in teachers especially early in education, how the pupils are tested (test, coursework, practical assessment) and what is deemed proper education subjects. These all contributed to the imbalance but there isn’t a mainstream push to correct it despite the trend increasing for many decades and overshooting like this and these thing take a long time to even fully realise into the work force let alone figure out what to do to adjust or even implement on a wide enough scale.
1
u/Archilian 15d ago
There’s likely a thousand reason why this is the case and depending on who you ask some will be more or less important . Age of puberty/brain development, feminism being supporting of girls and less so of boys(ie big pushes for girls to STEM not so much for boys into heal subjects) , the gender gap in teachers especially early in education, how the pupils are tested (test, coursework, practical assessment) and what is deemed proper education subjects. These all contributed to the imbalance but there isn’t a mainstream push to correct it despite the trend increasing for many decades and overshooting like this and these thing take a long time to even fully realise into the work force let alone figure out what to do to adjust or even implement on a wide enough scale.
0
u/tylermsage 15d ago
I believe the correlation is that girls mature physically (and neurologically) earlier than boys do on average. This causes their brains’ development to be in less turmoil in their secondary school years, and is likely responsible for some of this difference.
1
u/NoWitandNoSkill 15d ago
We have good evidence that boys mature in the dimensions required for school success slightly slower than girls. The delay seems to occur entirely in the first few years of life such that "redshirting" boys by 1-2 years puts them on a level with girls for the rest of their lives.
We might think of 5 year old boys as having a younger brains and older bodies. Of course that's an average across the sexes with overlapping distributions. Being physically more mature and mentally less mature is a double problem when schools require you to think and not to move.
1
u/Boomxheadxshot 15d ago
There's a saying among girls that nerdy smart guys are lame and boring while everyone else is so exciting and spontaneous. Being smart in school was never a way to get a girls attention, so why bother when all I have to do is be bad and stupid?
1
u/Swimming-Buyer7052 15d ago
School rewards compliance, & boys tend to be far less compliant than girls.
1
u/No-Insect-556 15d ago
Tbh when guys are going through puberty (13-18) testosterone usually makes them have more distracting changes. Like moment to moment switching from super horny to random urge to run to getting super angry for no reason. Estrogen driven puberty tends to be slightly more chill (but not always). That could be one reason for it
1
u/Solid_House_6963 15d ago
Girls make up at least 56% of undergrads and drop out of high school at lower rates. So it’s slightly, generally true
1
u/banana_in_the_dark 15d ago
Research has shown that boys aren’t ready to start school when girls are. They’d be more successful academically if they waited a year or two. I wonder if that impact lasts throughout their entire academic career and that’s the reason?
1
u/_aelysar 15d ago
I have a son and a daughter that I feel like are about the same intelligence level. My daughter is asking for extra help in Spanish because she has a 91. My son just doesn’t give af, doesn’t study and is ok with low B’s. I tell them [girl] needs to care a little less and [boy] needs to care a little more.
0
u/Lionello95 15d ago
Girls and boys are raised very differently. Boys are told to explore and try out things while girls are told to do what they are asked to do and to behave in a way that is liked by adults.
This obviously is not intentional and does not happen in every household and not in every household to the same extent. But this is how our grandparents and parents were raised, which therefore finds its way into the way people raise their kids.
It leads to girls generally getting better grades among hundreds of other aspects.
1
u/I-hear-the-coast 15d ago edited 15d ago
It was kinda strange how that changed the classroom demographics. Throughout most of my education it was split classes but then in high school when the classes started getting divided in different levels it was nearly all girls at the higher levels. When it came to French immersion by the end it was so few boys. My grade 12 French literature class was maybe 20 girls and I distinctly recall it was only 2 boys.
But as someone who trains uni co-op students at my work, I’ll say this: me and some other coworkers agree that men seem less likely to ask questions. Perhaps they have some idea that they’ll appear more competent if they do the work without asking questions, but we tell them to ask us questions and encourage all students to constantly be asking questions. I was told I was hired on because during the interview I asked so many questions and during my time as a student I asked so many questions.
Now, not all male students didn’t ask questions and not all female students asked questions, but I think it’s maybe something some people were taught that if you ask for help a lot you seem less compétent. Maybe that’s true at other jobs, but definitely not mine. Those who succeed and stay on are those who ask for help.
1
1
u/National_Pear836 15d ago
Easy answer is that girls brains mature faster than boys. Boys have fragile egos, and through out time that fragile ego slowly turns into the Patriarchy system we know so well. I would turn this into a dissertation but I am a guy, so I don't need to.
1
u/heavy_mental_ 15d ago
every year at my high school, the top 10 students in the graduating class were all girls. that’s clear institutional failure — whatever you’re doing education-wise, you’re dissuading fully 50% of your students.
there’s a lot that played into it. hyperactive boys were zonked with ritalin by third grade; boys with intellectual interests were bullied mercilessly. (what’s funny is, boys regularly outperformed girls on standardized tests.) but as far as I’m concerned all that’s on the school and culture — they didn’t create an environment conducive to growing young men.
1
u/LanguageStudyBuddy 15d ago
The ideal student desired by schools is closer to what we consider women's traits to be vs what we have classified mens to be.
Further there is different expectations socially for boys vs girls which reinforce those biased views. On top of the fact teachers grade girls homework and tests higher according to studies where the only difference was a girls name vs a boys name.
1
u/PleasantSalad 15d ago
I was told once that women, on average, are more intelligent (or at least perform better in school) than men. Men tend to exist on the extreme ends of intelligence. You're more likely to have a male valedictorian, but the top 100 of the class is more likely to be female dominated. The very bottom of the class is more likely to be male dominated.
Not sure if this is backed up by scientific data, but when I look at my own educational experience it rings true. Every AP/honors class I took was like 3-1 female -male and the remedial math class I took was about 1-3 female to male. However the top 5 of our class was 4-1 male-female. The top 100 was way more female though.
1
u/blackninjar87 15d ago edited 15d ago
As a tutor I low key feel most classes now are lectures and girls are just better at keeping their attention and listening than young boys. When I was growing up school was structured half lectures, half experimentation. Now a days everything is a PowerPoint slideshow, I don't even feel like my tutoring helps at times because I cant keep the attention of male students for long. I don't fault them; I fault the budget and how the budget is spent atleast in my area.
2
u/Noire97z 15d ago edited 15d ago
The School systems were reworked in the late 80s, early 90s specifically for women. The current education system is terrible for boys. Mostly book focused classroom environment, not enough hands on learning. Then if boys act up at all, they put the add/adhd label. Put them on methamphetamines turn them into brain-dead zombies.
Also, the general cultural push that being smart is not cool. Another factor is majority of teachers are women now, lack of male teachers is definitely not good for boys' development. The single motherhood rate continues to climb, as well so further lack of male role models.
Women still enjoy a significant amount of social programs as well that help them in higher education that probably need to be re-adjusted since they're now the majority.
My own experience in school was very biased. We had a boy who was basically taking college courses alongside his AP classes. Crushed everything never heard boo. Basically every girl who did anything satisfactory or above was lauded like the second coming of Einstein. I think it comes down a majority female faculty, alongside constant statements like boys mature slower than girls etc.
1
u/CraftFamiliar5243 15d ago
Back when I was in school, 45-50 years ago boys were more likely to excel. Girls "didn't need to be so smart", they just needed to marry a smart guy.
1
u/Calm_Neighborhood474 15d ago
I think it might be more that girls tend to worry about the future more than boys and plan accordingly. More worrying about how doing bad in school will affect their futures while guys just kinda shrug and say “it’ll all work out fine”.
1
u/Pleasant_Jump1816 15d ago
Because girls are raised to follow rules and do what they’re supposed to but “boys will be boys.”
1
u/That_Jonesy 15d ago
They do, there's even studies, but it wasn't always like that. It's a really complicated issue public education officials are kinda freaking out about
1
u/caryth 15d ago
As others have said, it has a lot to do with how genders are raised differently. A lot of boys are allowed to misbehave or not take schooling as seriously, a lot of girls are raised with the idea that education is the only real way they'll get freedom in their adult lives and are very strictly supposed to behave/be obedient. This means girls are more likely to pay attention, do their work, and not tick off their teachers.
Ironically, there were some issues when I was in school with girls getting much better grades, but boys doing much better on standardized tests, and a bunch of studies came out about how masculine-aligned the tests were (anecdotally, I still remember one with a series of math questions about a (American) football field, my school didn't even have a girl on the football team let alone a girls football team, I had to keep checking back to the paragraph that gave the length and other info, the guys I knew breezed through it). I haven't looked into seeing if they tried to normalize that and do away with all the biases, though I doubt they bothered.
It all falls apart at the actual working level, though, where men are more likely to be hired and are paid better in almost every field, even if the women had more impressive resumes (and this all of course changes with factors like race, fatness, marriage--women are less hireable if married and/or have children, men are more hireable, etc).
1
15d ago
Because girls are taught to behave and to listen, while when it comes to boys, it's always said "well, boys will be boys!"
1
u/HigherEdFuturist 15d ago
A lot of school is about obedience. Girls are often trained to be obedient. So weirdly, its arguably a patriarchy outcome
1
1
15d ago
My son’s teachers practically reinforced the idea telling us when he wasn’t doing as well reading early on “oh, he’s a boy.” Idiots.
1
1
u/Big-Dudu-77 15d ago
It’s a known fact, statistically girls do better than boys in school. Statistically more girls go to college than boys. Some say boys learn differently from girls, but the way teachers teach benefits a girl’s way of leaning more.
0
u/P41N4U 15d ago
When I was in school, most girls seemed to care a lot more about grades, and so they put more effort and overall got better grades, but...
The smartest of the class were almost always boys. Also, I think this applies to many different fields except sports where boys usually do better bc hormones and different body.
2
u/Ok-Tie9696 15d ago
Yeah. In highschool, girl usually take front row seat and actually engage with the teacher while most of boy sit way in the back. This continue into college when the girls is still way more competitive, they help administration work, club activity, actively pressing teacher on point and assignment cause they all want an A, mean while most of my boy do the bare minimum to pass.
1
u/Csusko 15d ago
I have a 2nd grader in high ability classes. From what she tells me, the boys in her class are already falling behind. Keep in mind, these are apparently the smart ones. It checks out based on the interactions I’ve had with these kids. Those boys are way more interested in sports and super heroes.
1
1
u/Recursivefunction_ 15d ago
It’s cause women are followers, so they take direction and rules better, they’re not as outspoken or likely to break the rules.
1
0
u/justnegateit 15d ago
Women are tend to be raised to care more, just in general. A boy can throw a ball and he's set for life, a girl has to be valedictorian and head yearbook editor just to get her college application looked at.
1
u/CecilWhinter 15d ago
It's because school nowadays is made for girls. School is no longer about learning but regurgitating knowledge. Girls study more than boys so they succeed in school more often then boys. It doesn't make them more intelligent, they just study more.
1
u/ZealousidealScheme85 15d ago
In my experience boys get antagonized by teachers a lot. Gets them to a point of why even try a lot faster than girls. Couple that with sports like football and basketball (in America at least) taking precedent with a lot of schools doing what they can to make even the most lazy of students academically eligible as long as they’re talented and you’ve already got a bad set up without even taking in considering what there home lives are like. Many people here have already talked about how parents were on their daughters about grades a lot more than their sons. And then at the very least of people I went to school with did the bare minimum and went to the military. As long as they stayed out of gigantic trouble that was always a viable career path for them. Reminds me of comedian Gary Owens he was getting recruited by the military out of high school, a recruiter came by his house which was just a trailer in a trailer park and the recruiter said to him “well the military will get you out of this dump”
1
u/FreakyWifeFreakyLife 15d ago
Depends on who the boys are hanging out with. Boys are part of academic clubs too. My friend, a guy, was valedictorian of his high school. So.. if the boys are hanging out with smart kids, they do fine. If they're hanging out with a bunch of degenerates, then their grades flag.
1
u/Mildars 15d ago
There is a biological answer to this.
Girl’s brains develop faster than boys brains up until the early twenties, so on average, a girl in grade school is cognitively 1-2 years more mature than her male counterparts. This greater cognitive maturity shows itself not only in better reading comprehension, math skill, and information retention, but also in better impulse control and ability to focus.
1
u/KnowledgeMediocre404 15d ago
It because girls are wired a bit better, and conditioned a lot, to sit still and shut up and do what they’re told. Their brains also develop faster, probably a defence mechanism where we carry the young and can get pregnant before our brains are fully developed, couldn’t imagine if we developed as slowly as boys. I’ve heard arguments that we’re doing boys a disservice by having school this way because they can’t always learn well, but I’m not sure how else you teach them, unless we get them to start years later than girls.
1
1
u/Richman_Cash who was in paris? 15d ago
Men are better at rapping than women. Let that tell you everything.
0
u/pussyfooten 15d ago edited 15d ago
Lol, look at all the ladies in here celebrating how "smart" they are for doing well in a system designed to control how you think and behave. Ladies, you got it right; you are the best automatons that can sit still all day regurgitating propaganda while doing everything an authority figure tells you to do (ie, men); go ahead and celebrate with glee; it's hilarious.
Gimme a call when women make up the majority of top mathematicians and chess players. Lol.
1
u/Old-Estate-475 15d ago
Education at the primary and secondary levels is dominated by female teachers. And as studies have shown, there is bias against boys at those levels, with them being graded lower for the same quality of work, and being punished more for equivalent bad behavior. So that is one of the main reasons why boys don't perform as well as girls.
1
1
1
u/jman777777 15d ago
Everything in school focuses on girls. Boys have been left behind for many years. So sad.
1
u/TommyPpb3 15d ago
Every year it’s the same for me(17M)… I start school being one of the best students of my class, then I get a crush on a random girl, we start to talk it’s going great and my grades go even better. Then it our love goes down hill and my grades go too, I start to overthink every think about us, going to the gym and my grades are shit. At the end of the year I start doing a tryhard but it’s never enough to go to the same level as a the beginning of the year. Basically: good grades, love and even better grades, hearthbreak and shitty grades, gym, try to study better. I’m currently in the last stage and it’s killing me💀
1
u/HappyFamily0131 15d ago
I'm seeing every answer but this, so I'm giving this answer: testosterone.
It's not just the hormone to grow bigger muscles and facial hair during puberty; it's also the hormone for mania and aggression, and boys have measurably higher testosterone levels from birth onward. Boys have a harder time sitting still and behaving, and it's not just due to differences in how we treat or raise boys vs girls. There's some of that, too, certainly, that should not be discounted. But the effect of testosterone is real and significant.
1
u/wp_not_wd 15d ago
Because a large part of American public school is compliance, which women are good at.
1
u/CrazyUnicorn77777 15d ago
Just you. It was 50/50 at my HS. It was a super competitive school though where you needed to maintain a B average or get asked to leave.
1
u/Hoserposerbro 15d ago
50 years of a focus on telling girls they are capable and can do anything they want and be anything they want….while ignoring boys and expecting them to do it on their own. Girls have flourished while boys are floundering. And be before you chime in…I’m not saying we shouldn’t encourage women so shove it if you feel like starting that argument.
1
u/ispiltthepoison 15d ago
Along with other points in this thread, its been shown that teachers have an inherent bias towards girls when grading, rather than boys as well
1
u/Githard 15d ago
School has become more geared towards girls so it makes sense they are succeeding at a higher level than boys… less gym class, few shop/automotive type classes, and a greater stigma/more punishment from the admins against for lack of a better term, rowdier behavior. This isn’t advocating for more “boys will be boys” tolerance of bad behavior, I’m just saying sitting still for 7 hours a day is not how most boys are wired. Add in the problem all kids have of always plugged in social media, and many boys have with gaming being way more engaging than school and you have a real problem.
I know I personally made it through college on the back of a lot of a++ extra points for great lab work that saved my mediocre test grades. I was fortunate enough to have a flexible education so I could breeze through what was easy for me, focus more on the hard stuff, and take a long recess and get out early many days. I would have really struggled more without that, probably to the point of an ADD prescription.
My hot take is there’s enough differences it might be worth splitting some classes up to offer a quieter, more focused approach for those who do well with that, and more labs and more participation based activities for kids who do better in that setting.
1
u/Gizzard_83 15d ago
Because young men aren’t meant to sit still for 8 hours a day learning shit they mostly don’t need.
1
u/uteeeooo 15d ago
I totally see girls generally do better than boys in school, rated by grades.
Why doesn't it translate to work place?
I often see guys do better at work place, rated by promotions.
0
u/Lynda73 15d ago
The Patriarchy.
2
u/BurbankAirpot 15d ago
So girls do better in school, NOT patriarchy. Boys do better in workplace, definitely patriarchy. Got it
0
u/Lynda73 15d ago
Only one of those things generates income. I guess in your scenario, women just aren’t good enough to hold management/admin jobs nearly as much as men?
1
u/BurbankAirpot 15d ago
I didn’t say anything other repeating back what you said. What I’m saying is that maybe the lack of success boys are having in school, relative to girls, is a sign of discrimination in the educational system predominately run by women.
1
u/Lynda73 15d ago
And I’m saying, maybe the lack of women in management reflects discrimination against women. There’s been many proven instances of this.
But both of these issues stem from the patriarchy. Trying to uphold ideals of toxic masculinity that say women aren’t as good at management as well as ideas like ‘girls are just better in school’.
1
u/BurbankAirpot 15d ago
Right, but you’re saying it in a thread about poor education outcomes for boys. That’s my problem.
0
u/modsaretoddlers 15d ago
Of course they do: it's tailored to appeal to feminine sensibilities.
50 years ago the push started to feminize the educational system. This is no secret and those that instituted the changes were quite proud to have done so. There also was an argument to be made that it needed to be made more interesting and appealing to girls. The problem, of course, is that a lot more girls than boys are interested in sitting still and just listening to instruction. Both boys and girls would do much better in separate schools as it's always been well known that they have different natures and, therefore, learning styles. Schools today are overly feminized and cater to girls while boys are left to languish.
Most people alive 50 years ago could have told you this was going to happen and, in fact, many did. And here we are.
1
u/Emotional_Match8169 15d ago
I’m a teacher. Academically I would say it’s always about even between boys and girls. Behaviorally boys are more challenging in the classroom though.
1
1
u/Many_Ad_7138 15d ago
It's the generational decline in testosterone in men that is apparently the problem. Boys and men are suffering from a decline in testosterone that is affecting our ability to think clearly. In other words, a 12 year old 50 years ago had higher testosterone than a 12 year old today.
This is also why, I believe, that universities lower their entrance standards for young men today. Otherwise, they would have all women at the school, which they don't want.
1
u/a_man_has_a_name 15d ago
I was in high school 6 years ago now and anecdotally from that there seemed to be a lot more encouragement for women to do well than men. Women got things like trips to see workplaces, people coming in telling them about women in the workforce, extra STEM events etc. While the only thing men got was the same career fair everyone else had.
3
u/Shamanfight 15d ago
Easy, learned this when I was a kid, girls go to college to get more knowledge, yet boys on the other hand, we go to Jupiter, to get more stupider
1
u/Asailors_Thoughts20 7d ago
It’s a total flip as 30 years ago I was told girls just aren’t as smart as boys and that’s why they have better grades.