Do the Elementary Schools serve Boys less than Girls??
NEWS AND COMMENT. Chicago, August 2, 1911. To the Editor of The Psychological Clinic: My Dear Sir:?While making a study of retardation in the Stock Yards district this past year, I wrote the enclosed comment. … I only wanted to speak a word in protest against the idea that boys are the greatest sufferers under the present educational methods, and to add one to the number of those who wish something more vital and intimately connected with the child’s life than is given under the all too prevalent passive, bookish methods of education.
Very truly yours, Caro Bugbey MacArtiiur. It seems to be taken for granted, since statistics show more overage boys than girls in the schools, that the schools are serving boys less than girls. It is conceivable, however, that the elementary school girls, instead of being better off, are left worse off than the boys. The aim of education is theoretically conceded to be the training of mental powers, even more than the acquisition of facts. Yet many recitation and study periods represent an effort to “cast bread upon the waters,” and the examinations, to “receive it again after many days.” If the worth of elementary education lies in facts acquired, the school does seem to be better fitted to the girl than the boy. If its worth lies in resulting ability to think, to approach and solve new problems in eagerness and concentration, the boy by his rebellion saves his soul.
Discipline is presumably to teach self-control; but the attitude of mind expressed by a teacher in a foreign district the other day is by no means solitary: “I like to teach here. When you tell a child to do a thing, you can make him do it, and the parents won’t interfere.” To this scheme of things the girl adapts herself better than the boy. All her social influences tend to cultivate docility, tractability, the receptive and passive attitude of conduct and of mind. The boy is allowed more liberty, and breaks through many restrictions, which the girl seems unable to break. He is 011 the streets, among men, broadening his interests. lie early learns to defend himself and repel encroachments 011 his liberties. Consequently, he has decided ideas about bis likes and dislikes, and refuses to be coaxed or bullied into any more uncongenial tasks than necessary. He will work indefatigably and with mental initiative and originality on something to his liking. The more tractable girl does better each assigned task. By rebellion, the boy saves his soul.
It seems odd to suppose that elementary school work should be very different for boys than for girls; yet curricula and methods are thought to be better fitted to the “needs and natures of the girl than of the boy pupils.” Except for the small amount of vocational work given in the grades, why should there be any difference in the training of boys’ minds and of girls’ minds? Why should girls know less or more of reading, writing, grammar, arithmetic, geography, history, or physiology than boys? Boys will make longer use of vocational training than girls in most cases; but among the poorer classes, at least, not sex but age determines the need for work; and it is quite as necessary that the girl be fitted to earn as the boy. Certainly her “needs” then are much like those of the boy. And that the school should be one more social agency for decreasing her powers of initiative and cultivating in her a passive attitude is scarcely of advantage to her “nature.” Because the boy rebels against the restraints of public school discipline with its frequent over-emphasis 011 the petty, he preserves his individuality, his keen interest in and enthusiasm for the things which are a part of his own life, and not mere accessories, and does not diminish his self-initiative in the following out of those interests.
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