Girls-Only Class Teaches STEM Education to Young Women

Submitted by Mastodon on Tue, 2014-12-09 05:44

Article here. Excerpt:

'Schools across the country have been encouraging young women to get involved in STEM subjects, and some schools have classes where no boys are allowed.

One class at Sherwood High School in Oregon, “Imagine, Design & Built It – No Boyz Allowed”, does just that, according to an article on OregonLive.com.

“Nationwide, at most 3 percent of trades workers are women. But in a Sherwood High School welding, computer technology and woodshop class, it's completely the opposite. Every student is female,” the article said.

The first year, according to Woods and Construction Teacher Jon Dickover, “teachers hoped 60 girls would sign up. Instead about 120 expressed interest.”

"There's less pressure because we're all girls," said sophomore Maddy Griffin, who is taking the class this year, the article said. "You feel more confident. You can take a lot of these skills and use them."'

Like0 Dislike0

Comments

I don't really mind single-sex instruction.

But if they had a STEM class for Boys Only--holy hell would break loose.

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by el cid on Thu, 2014-12-11 15:21

This is a terrible idea. You're teaching junior high level students to be exclusionary. It would never fly where I'm from. The code of conduct for teachers here strictly prohibits discrimination of any kind - something this clearly is. What's next? All white physical education classes?

I guess if they had a boys only class as well as a girls only class it would be okay, as el cid pointed out. But they can't do that, because when you offer the same accomodations to both males and females, it's sexism! [/s]

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by xtrnl on Thu, 2014-12-11 22:02

What about boys lagging behind in reading, writing, and English? For example, each week the local Denver Post has a "Colorado Kids" section, but it seems about 80% of the authors of the stories are girls, not boys. Some weeks there isn't a single boy author. Yet I don't hear much about improving boys' reading and writing skills, even though literacy is as important to function in society as numeracy.

And the "No Boyz Allowed in the name sounds downright rude and exclusionary. Like little girls with their own treehouse saying "No Boys Allowed."

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by mens_issues on Fri, 2014-12-12 02:10