It's summer, but...

There's never a bad time for a good old rant on the state of education!

Apparently boys need better schools. Okay, fine, but what about girls?

The article basically says, "Schools want kids to sit still, and boys aren't wired to sit still, and so they get the short end of the stick and end up not learning much."

Which I would say is pretty true, especially in Lower and Middle school. Boys were crazy then. Like, completely mad.

The one issue I have with this whole thing, though, is that I don't think girls are wired to sit still either. We're better at it, but by no means do we enjoy it. According to the article girls are more interested in gaining the teacher's approval, but feminist-clara is prone to thinking that's a product of society, and not always a good thing. Being a girl myself, I know that we're pretty frequently seeking approval from others- it's even evident in the way we speak.

Real Conversation-

Dad: Okay you get out. I'm going to go park the car.

Me: Okay well there's a spot over there, right?

Dad: Yeah. Oh! That's it!

Me: What?

Dad: When your mom and I were talking about wedding plans with Stephanie, she would say things like that. Like, "This cake is good, right?" or "That's a nice color, right?" I was trying to remember how she would phrase it. That's it!

So I'm not sure the approval-seeking thing is always a good thing. Girls and our fragile little self-esteems, we're dangerous.

Anyways.

Basically, it annoyed me that this author was fine with girls being put through the generally un-engaging educational system, because we were capable of dealing with it, but she had this completely awesome hypothetical plan for boys.

What would a perfect school for boys be like? Classes would be small and held outside half the time. Boys of all abilities and temperaments would build, paint, draw, take things apart, play computer games and listen to music while reading if they felt like it. If they wanted to write about volcanoes instead of the weather, or study the Civil War in January instead of September, why not let them choose? And, if they wanted to do math standing up or run a few laps between exams, why not?

Um, that sounds sweet.

Sign me up.

I'm a hypocrite though. I'm taking three of my classes online next year. Talk about flexibility. My god.

Love always,
Clara