My first reaction to the good news that girls are now doing as well as boys in mathematics, at least through high school, was to laugh at the headline, which was "Numbers don't lie: Girls equal to boys in math." Anyone who knows anything at all about numbers knows that they are frequently used to express untruths. Nonetheless, it's still good to hear that the distressing gap between male and female performance that once appeared between elementary school and high school has disappeared.
And yet, I wonder. I don't give any more credence to the idea that boys might be inherently better in math than girls, any more than I do to the idea that girls are naturally superior in reading. (I do leave room for the idea that certain ways of thinking, some approaches to problems, and even some narrow fields of mathematics, might show sex-specific correlations, because, after all, men and women are inherently, biologically different. I'm quite certain, however, that differences among individuals are great enough to make sex-related differences of little import.) What makes me less than elated about this new study is a nagging suspicion of anything that sees parity as the goal. From the school principal who told me that the ultimate purpose of kindergarten was to get all students on the same level, to the school board members who were much less concerned with student achievement than with making sure no school in the district looked any better or worse than another, I've found that a victory in mere equality often masks a decline in real accomplisment. Both kindergarten and school district "parity" are often achieved as much by holding some students back as by bringing others forward. I'm certainly glad girls are doing "as well" as boys in mathematics—but much more interested in how all our students are doing, not only in comparison with each other, with students of the past, and with students of other countries, but most importantly in consideration of actual achievement. "As good as" is a slippery measurement, and "better than" is little better. In the company of serial rapists, a "mere" adulterer might feel pretty good about himself.
(It is also worth mentioning that the reason given for poor female performance in the past, that people expected girls to be stupid when it came to math, was certainly not universal, even "50 years ago." My parents never expected that I would not do as well as my brothers, nor did any of my teachers offer me such a flimsy excuse as gender for poor performance!)I guess it is just my strange school again, but in most years, the majority of the top ten students were girls.
I think there were more guys in calculus than girls, if I remember correctly, there weren't any girls who weren't in the top ten or so, but there were definitely guys who were lower on the academic scale who were in calculus.
The girls tended to take anatomy & physiology rather than physics.
The problem here is the need to make everyone equal. I do agree that everyone ideally should have the same opportunities. The problem is that not everyone has the same capabilities. Those with exceptionally high capacities for learning are held back while the rest of the class is brought up to speed.
I know a fair amount of intelligent girls in my school just as I know intelligent boys. I would not bother trying to compare the two groups because it is hard to judge how smart an individual is. As far as math goes, the guys might do a little better, but I wouldn’t say significantly so.
Thanks for your comment, Hannah. You are absolutely right that equality of opportunity should not be confused with equality of outcome.
The valedictorian of Lake Brantley's Class of 1997 was (is) certainly female, if the approach of my most recent grandchild is any indication. :) There's a lot more than math that goes into a high school GPA, though.
Physics may, indeed, be a better marker than math. It's hard to remember, but I'm pretty sure there were more boys than girls in my regular high school physics course. The fact that I was the only girl in the subsequent AP Physics course means nothing, since I was the only person in the course. :) In college I was the only girl in many of my physics classes, so I'm guessing that when I switched to a math major, that left the physics graduating class all male.
I'm pretty sure there were other girls in Heather's calculus class, but by Janet's time there were more calculus options and I think the other girls were in the easier versions. Most of the boys in that class made it difficult for her, but it's hard to discern whether that was really because she was the only girl, or because she was two years younger than most of them -- though Heather was the youngest in her class, too, so I don't know. If you believe the calculus teacher, Janet's class comprised a particularly difficult and rowdy set of boys anyway.
I'll take the liberty to add they suddenly turned nice to me when they needed help with homework . . .
