Scrutable

It's rare to see such blatant sexism loose in the wild these days. Proceed with caution. Readers with high blood pressure are advised to have their meds to hand.

https://www.horrishill.com/about/why-bo ... U15IGetaWU

Boys here are not under pressure to "impress the girls" and instead enjoy kicking balls, playing "it", hunting for "treasure", den building, getting muddy – all things that boys love doing.

lmao

I'm pretty sure I did all those things with girls when I was that age, with the exception of kicking balls (double lmao) which has never much interested me.

Mind you I was never really worried about impressing girls either, probably because I'm just so effortlessly impressive, handsome and charming (plus world-class modesty as a bonus).

Single-sex schools can't have long left as a concept. I saw recently that Winchester College is about to let girls in (starting with sixth form only) having been single-sex since the fourteenth century. I'm pretty sure if whatever unique educational qualities they have can survive 600 years of history it'll be robust to a bunch of teenage girls.

JQH wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 05, 2021 9:59 pm

It's rare to see such blatant sexism loose in the wild these days. Proceed with caution. Readers with high blood pressure are advised to have their meds to hand.

https://www.horrishill.com/about/why-bo ... U15IGetaWU

What the actual f.ck?

A less academic boy will have become a diligent pupil by Year 8

I'm pretty sure my experience of teaching Year 7 and 8 boys in a co-ed environment were that most of them were barely aware girls even existed.



Ahh the Whoosh! bottle, has bugger all relevance to any of the curriculum content, only ever to be used at prospective students evenings in an attempt to fool the kids into thinking every Chemistry lesson will involve this, the Biologists will have a random pig's head for no reason and the Physicists will have a Rubens' Tube, if the school has one, otherwise they will be left weeping alone in the corner next to a sad-looking pendulum.

I went to a primary school that was mixed and was barely aware that girls - or indeed anyone much outside my circle of friends - existed.

The argument, that boys benefit from separate education as they don't get distracted by wanting to show off to girls, does not strike me as having been written by any of their staff with the claimed expertise in boys.

I could imagine that it might have been written by one of their boys, except that it doesn't add "and girls smell too and can't be in our gang".

I seem to have in mind that boys do better in co-ed but girls do better in girls-only schools, but if this is true then I would have learned it from someone on here, so whoever that was can post the evidence for it.

shpalman wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 2:17 pm

I seem to have in mind that boys do better in co-ed but girls do better in girls-only schools, but if this is true then I would have learned it from someone on here, so whoever that was can post the evidence for it.

That's certainly what I remember hearing, though whether there's any evidence of that I'm not sure - so many confounding factors at play (with a lot of overlap with the debate over private vs state education). My anecdote is that when I went to school in Bristol in the 90s, there were 9 independent/private schools that I can remember, of which 6 were girl-only, 1 was co-ed and 2 were boys-only though they allowed girls in 6th form. Which would suggest that there was more demand for girls schools than boys (at least in Bristol). Two of the girls schools have since merged and one became a co-ed Academy.

JQH wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 05, 2021 9:59 pm

It's rare to see such blatant sexism loose in the wild these days. Proceed with caution. Readers with high blood pressure are advised to have their meds to hand.

https://www.horrishill.com/about/why-bo ... U15IGetaWU

Weirdly I find it hilarious rather than anger-inducing. That chemistry photo is brilliant - the range of expressions from totally over-acting to the boy second from the right who is clearly bemused at being asked to look in astonishment at an empty table.

Their claim that 40 minutes is the optimum length for lessons because "boys" lose concentration after longer - do girls have wildly different concentration levels than boys? I'm pretty sure my lessons used to be around 40 minutes long when I was at an all-girls school (though we did have double lessons for STEM subjects during GCSEs and during A-levels we were tortured with triple physics on Thursday afternoons). It's almost like 40 minutes is a good length of time to fit in a range of classes in a school day.

It's funny how it's so gender normative (boys like getting muddy and playing with Lego!) but also recognises that not all boys are like that - some like acting! and making music! (the p.ssies). Never mind that the highest paid actors far out-earn the highest paid actresses, the highest-paid musicians are still predominantly men, and The National Gallery held it's first major exhibition dedicated to a female artist in 2020. And let's not forget that gardens (at least on large estates) were the domain of men until very recently. These are all girly subjects and boys need a safe-space to be able to learn to express themselves. Or maybe most kids need to feel safe and confident they won't be laughed at before they try to express themselves artistically, boy or girl.

Fishnut wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 2:57 pm

That chemistry photo is brilliant - the range of expressions from totally over-acting to the boy second from the right who is clearly bemused at being asked to look in astonishment at an empty table

I thought second from the right boy was more "I admire its purity" than bemused; he's the one that might burn the school down

Spent a while looking on the website to see if the Principal was E. Blyton.

OK I'll stick my head up.
I went to a boys only school.
I later taught at boys schools for 17 years. In between I had jobs for a year or so each at mixed schools finally ending up at a mixed SEN school.

I do not recognise the following heap of sexist tripe as reality:

Horris Hill can dedicate resources entirely to activities that appeal to boys e.g. Raspberry Pi, Lego, trains, bushcraft, judo, Warhammer......the list is endless.

I have had no problem with teaching any of these to girls in mixed classes, well not judo, but the rest.
As for this:

Equally boys are comfortable in zones that are often dominated by girls in mixed schools e.g. Drama, Music, Art, Kitchen Garden and therefore learn a huge range of skills.

I have not seen the so called domination in these subjects by girls at all in mixed schools. This is just not reality.

Every time I mention the fact that I am a Woodwork/metalwork/tech teacher in mixed company the ladies always complain that they were not allowed to do those things and were forced to do cookery/ sewing etc.

It's f.cking cultural folks.

I was very surprised to find the the current head went to a coeducational school himself.

When our eldest was moving up to secondary, one of the schools we looked at had a co-ed entry, but made a big point of having single sex teaching groups. The feeling was that the school knew what its pupils needed by the type of uniform they would wear, rather than by considering the children as individuals.
It seemed limiting then and doesn't seem any wiser now.
The school closed a few years later.

shpalman wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 2:17 pm

I seem to have in mind that boys do better in co-ed but girls do better in girls-only schools, but if this is true then I would have learned it from someone on here, so whoever that was can post the evidence for it.

Twas probably me. It was bandied about in the 90s as a carved in stone truth, but I can find no hard evidence for it now. So no sorry.
But it's probably true.

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:22 pm

Every time I mention the fact that I am a Woodwork/metalwork/tech teacher in mixed company the ladies always complain that they were not allowed to do those things and were forced to do cookery/ sewing etc.

We had one term of textiles (sewing), one term of HE (cooking) and one term of DT (woodworking). My favourite was the woodworking and I was the only one of my friends who was comfortable with the jigsaw so I got to cut all their stuff out as well as my own

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:22 pm

It's f.cking cultural folks.

So much this.

Fishnut wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:41 pm

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:22 pm

Every time I mention the fact that I am a Woodwork/metalwork/tech teacher in mixed company the ladies always complain that they were not allowed to do those things and were forced to do cookery/ sewing etc.

We had one term of textiles (sewing), one term of HE (cooking) and one term of DT (woodworking). My favourite was the woodworking and I was the only one of my friends who was comfortable with the jigsaw so I got to cut all their stuff out as well as my own

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:22 pm

It's f.cking cultural folks.

So much this.

The jigsaw and the sewing machine feel really similar to use.

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:45 pm

Fishnut wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:41 pm

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:22 pm

Every time I mention the fact that I am a Woodwork/metalwork/tech teacher in mixed company the ladies always complain that they were not allowed to do those things and were forced to do cookery/ sewing etc.

We had one term of textiles (sewing), one term of HE (cooking) and one term of DT (woodworking). My favourite was the woodworking and I was the only one of my friends who was comfortable with the jigsaw so I got to cut all their stuff out as well as my own

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:22 pm

It's f.cking cultural folks.

So much this.

The jigsaw and the sewing machine feel really similar to use.

Jigsaw was far easier imo - no complicated lacing of thread. Though during lockdown I've managed to finally get to grips with a sewing machine and even made my own masks.

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:45 pm

The jigsaw and the sewing machine feel really similar to use.

Helen Czerski wrote: Earlier this year, I had to learn how to arc weld while filming a BBC programme about the sun. The old-school professional welder in Arizona who taught me was astonished that I learned so quickly, and even more astonished when I explained that this was because it was almost exactly like icing a cake. The pose you adopt is the same (left hand closer to the nozzle, right elbow high up in the air), the method of controlling the speed of either icing or welding metal is the same (squeezing) and the overall aim is the same: depositing a thin stream of liquid in a controlled manner. One might involve slightly more molten metal at 3000C and slightly less sugar, but they’re essentially indistinguishable.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1048361

Also mentions sewing machines

Grumble wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 1:20 pm

I went to a primary school that was mixed and was barely aware that girls - or indeed anyone much outside my circle of friends - existed.

I went to a mixed C of E primary school in the 1960s, with a 90% 11-plus pass rate. In the top 10 of the class there was me and two other boys, and 7 girls. I don't think anyone thought this was remarkable, even at the time. Interestingly, the bottom of the class was mostly girls too.

There is a thing called the "greater male variability hypothesis", which seeks to explain why men have more Nobel prizes but also make up 90% of incarcerations, and certainly seems to have face validity. But in my class in 1970 it was the exact opposite.

Fishnut wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:41 pm

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:22 pm

Every time I mention the fact that I am a Woodwork/metalwork/tech teacher in mixed company the ladies always complain that they were not allowed to do those things and were forced to do cookery/ sewing etc.

We had one term of textiles (sewing), one term of HE (cooking) and one term of DT (woodworking). My favourite was the woodworking and I was the only one of my friends who was comfortable with the jigsaw so I got to cut all their stuff out as well as my own

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:22 pm

It's f.cking cultural folks.

So much this.

God. I did woodwork, plastics, electronics, textiles, 'food tech', graphic design at school...proper little technologist, I look back and I'm kind of amazed at what I got to do between the ages of 12 and 15, and I don't feel like I'd have a clue now. But if 13 year old me can do it then so can 34 year old me.

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:22 pm

OK I'll stick my head up.
I went to a boys only school.
I later taught at boys schools for 17 years. In between I had jobs for a year or so each at mixed schools finally ending up at a mixed SEN school.

I do not recognise the following heap of sexist tripe as reality:

Horris Hill can dedicate resources entirely to activities that appeal to boys e.g. Raspberry Pi, Lego, trains, bushcraft, judo, Warhammer......the list is endless.

I have had no problem with teaching any of these to girls in mixed classes, well not judo, but the rest.
As for this:

Equally boys are comfortable in zones that are often dominated by girls in mixed schools e.g. Drama, Music, Art, Kitchen Garden and therefore learn a huge range of skills.

I have not seen the so called domination in these subjects by girls at all in mixed schools. This is just not reality.

Every time I mention the fact that I am a Woodwork/metalwork/tech teacher in mixed company the ladies always complain that they were not allowed to do those things and were forced to do cookery/ sewing etc.

It's f.cking cultural folks.

Indeed

Remember that computer programmer used to be a "woman's job".

I also think it's telling that the sex ratio amongst my engineer colleagues is different for those who are British compared to those who are immigrants, with the British women being under-represented compared to immigrant women engineers.

Fishnut wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:56 pm

Jigsaw was far easier imo - no complicated lacing of thread. Though during lockdown I've managed to finally get to grips with a sewing machine and even made my own masks.

At one school the head of department refused to believe that I could set up the four needle overlocker by just following the f.cking instruction diagrams printed on the machine, because she had to attend a one day course to do it. To her there was no competency that was not the result of a course attended. I did not get on with her. She also made the kids wear safety goggles to use the sewing machines.

Old sewing machines are easier because they don't hide their functionality behind covers or styling, all the bits are there to see and every bit has a purpose. If you think, "What's that little hook for?" then you are well on the way to working out the path of the thread.

Years later I encountered sexism the other way, we had miniature bench drills for drilling sub 1mm holes in PCBs they were powered by sewing machine motors and the brushes had worn out. So I went to the sewing machine shop in Watford to get some, first I couldn't get served (there were no other customers.) and then they utterly refused to entertain the thought that I as a man might know what I was talking about. I bought the brushes online.

They seem to be spectacularly missing the fact that a certain proportion of their intake will be equally “under pressure” to "impress the boys".

Yes, it is a bit heteronormative.

I went to an all-boys school.
The Debating Society was a big thing. We got away trips to girls schools.
Also, the school was located right by Corona Academy stage school. As was the '220' cafe. Mostly we were left on our own to work out how to not be dicks with girls.
Debates and Corona were steep learning curves. Many failed.