Interesting Stuff

When I was little, I was really good at math and I loved it. I even asked my mom to buy these math workbooks, which I did for fun and that were always several grade levels ahead of where I actually was. Anyway, my math genius (I'm saying that tongue in cheek - I am by no means a math genius) continued through elementary school, but somewhere around middle school I started to falter a bit and decided that I didn't even like math. This continued through high school, and even though I did just fine in calculus without any real problem, I didn't think that I really wanted to be bothered with anything math related. Then, I got to college. I took some math courses along with some chemistry (that of course, relies on logic and mathematical type thinking), and I once again realized that I loved the stuff. So, what is my point in all of this and why the heck am I talking about it? I'm getting there.

A couple of years ago, I read that boys and girls don't really show differences in mathematical aptitude until the junior high years and the expected causes had something to do with society's expectations of boys and girls and the way that the sexes are taught differently. I thought it quite curious that the timing of my loss of interest in math exactly coincided with what these studies were saying, and I realized that in some ways, maybe my love of math was trampled by society and its expectations of me. However, I certainly couldn't make any conscious connection to something that happened to cause this, so I continued to wonder how and if society and my teachers could really dictate the way I feel about something.

On to Larry Summers, who in 2005 made a statement that there are innate differences between the genders and that men are naturally better at math and science, and that is why there are way more super-genius men than super-genius women. His remarks were completely overstated by the media and it caused him lots of trouble. I remember thinking to myself (even with all of the media hoopla) that Larry is probably right. Because there are innate differences between men and women (I think we can all agree to that), then it is very possible that science and mathematical ability is one of the ways that this difference manifests itself, and I was okay with that. However, I'm always open to new data and I stumbled across some at one of my new favorite websites, tnr.com. Basically, it says that, "gender bias and sexism could play a bigger role in academic achievement than we probably think," and it backs up this comment with some studies from other societies that show no gender gap in math test scores, and also that the gender gap in college-level math is much smaller when a female is taught by a female professor. Let me also mention that the gender gap problem with math and girls is also seen with reading and boys.

So, what can we learn from all of this? Well, I think that this information can teach us something about how to raise our children. Because this little-recognized problem is allowing both genders to slip through the cracks in areas that they might otherwise excel, we can consciously decide to start treating our boys and girls more equally. This is probably more difficult than just making sure you read to your boys and cheer on your girls when they get excited about math, but maybe those are two places to start. Hopefully, just by being aware that the problem exists, we can heighten our expectations of both our boys and our girls, thereby increasing the probability that they can learn to be successful in whatever field they choose.