10 ms·

Boys lag behind: How teachers’ gender biases affect student achievement

181 points by yasp 6y ago

fortran77 6y ago
Maybe we need more male teachers for kindergarten and the younger grades. Perhaps some sort of affirmative action or preferential hiring for male teachers for k through 6th grades?
- baskire 6y ago
  I’ve actually been suprised feminist aren’t pushing for this. It’d help their overall narrative. You have similar gender gaps in nursing as well.
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    You have similar gender gaps in nursing as well. British teaching unions shot it down - said it was misogynistic to hire men as it implied women weren’t doing a good enough job. This logic of course doesn’t apply to tech.
    - annexrichmond 6y ago
      Do you have a source for this?
  - MyHypatia 6y ago
    I think some feminists do push for this in the name of gender equality, and caretaking not only being a female responsibility. At the same time, the idea that mainly women should solve the problem of "young boys need positive male role models" seems ironic. I'm sure many women do care because they want their sons to thrive, but men want their sons to thrive too, right?
  - HarryHirsch 6y ago
    I thought in nursing the gender gap is closing because it's one of the few careers that actually pays off these days. At regional colleges the nursing major is usually the one with the highest salary, you can check that on the Department of Education's website. High school leavers seem to be directed towards it, especially first-generation students.
- MyHypatia 6y ago
  There are various initiatives to attract more male teachers, but research suggests that the low status and pay of teaching deter men from entering education. Raising the respect and salary of teachers would be a good starting point. Preferential hiring to balance the gender ratio of role models in a school may be helpful as well. https://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage https://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  I’ve heard from a friend whose a special ed teacher that there effectively is a strong desire for male teachers in these grades. But there’s also so much need in this space that there’s a desire for any credentialed teacher. It’s not really like software engineering where people have to know algorithms and do whiteboard exercises. It’s about credentials and desire.
- joshuaissac 6y ago
  Quotation from the paper:[1] > I find that the gender bias does not differ by teachers’ gender in literature, and only marginally in math. In this subject, female teachers are less biased in favor of girls than male teachers So adding more male teachers might marginally increase the discrimination rather than decrease it. 1. http://ftp.iza.org/dp10343.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp10343.pdf
  - MyHypatia 6y ago
    That's interesting thanks for sharing. I guess that begs the question: even if there are some documented negative effects, does it outweigh the benefit of young boys experiencing positive role models in the classroom? Measuring the benefit of role models is really hard to quantify, but role models definitely influence people.
- newsclues 6y ago
  Maybe we need robot teachers to remove the bias?
  - adrianN 6y ago
    Now we only need to figure out a way of making bias free AI.
    - newsclues 6y ago
      AI will do that for us.
- etempleton 6y ago
  Elementary and middle schools in the United States would welcome more male applicants. The issue is there are not many males that major in education at the undergraduate college level and so there are not many male applicants to choose from. This is a societal / financial issue. Societal because boys see education as a woman's job, which is reinforced through their educational experience of having mostly female teachers. Financial because as much as Americans like to think that they live in a progressive society, males are typically expected to be the primary income earner. Education simply does not pay well; particularly when you consider the education and credentials required. Education in the United States has added increased prerequisites to become a teacher in a public school. In all likelihood, your child's teacher either already has or is working on their master's in education to maintain their teaching credentials. If they have aspirations of being an administrator they are likely working on a doctorate. This to earn a maximum annual salary of less than $100,000 and only after decades of working for a school district.
  - jdbernard 6y ago
    Another reason is that American society today often assumes there is something wrong or creepy with men who choose to spend their time with children. I don't think this is a valid assumption, but it is a common one, at least in my experience as a father.
    - HarryHirsch 6y ago
      The pedophile hysteria in the US makes teaching elementary school an actively hazardous career choice for men.
  - worker767424 6y ago
    > The issue is there are not many males that major in education at the undergraduate college level and so there are not many male applicants to choose from. This is like the mythical pool of untapped female engineering talent VPs of Diversity and Inclusion imply exists.
baskire 6y ago
“ Without teachers’ bias in favor of girls, the gender gap in choosing a science track would be 12.5% larger in favor of boys.” Does this not mean we have a gender bias towards females in STEM at the education level? If so it’d turn around a long held belief that STEM education is biased towards men. At least in grade school.
- mdorazio 6y ago
  Yes, it does. It also implies that women not seeking engineering degrees likely has other factors that go mostly ignored or dismissed today.
  - etempleton 6y ago
    Girls typically abandon STEM at the high school / undergraduate level. I do not pretend to know all of the factors that go into that, but one such reason I have heard is that the gender bias in STEM tends to strongly favor boys at this level and perhaps a bigger component to that is not the teachers' bias, but the bias of peers and society that students at the high school level will be increasingly aware of.
    - jl2718 6y ago
      I don't see any specific age when women abandon STEM as individual contributors; it seems to be constant throughout all life stages at a moderately higher rate than men. Until high school, however, there is no choice, and female grades are generally higher in everything, so they stick with it until they have to make a prioritization choice. I see it naively like this: life is a long process of eliminating options that don't meet your interests or best chances at success. Women in general have more options in life than men, career being only one aspect of that, which means that over time, any one of those options is going to be chosen less and less. Sociology distinguishes itself from economics in the assumption that people's choices are the result of stupidity or victimization. I just looked up the top math student in my 5th grade class. She's a 5th grade public school teacher after attending an Ivy for Geography. I have not the slightest clue why one would ever study Geography in college, nor would I find it financially prudent in my situation to be a public elementary schoolteacher, but I also know this person to be quite smart and fully-capable of making her own choices. I talk to female H1B engineers that came here for a better life, which was not STEM work, so they often quit as soon as they get a green card. I see women retiring earlier to start new careers. Female attrition is a constant feature of the entire STEM pipeline. If I try to be honest with myself, I will admit that I was not at all intellectually interested in my engineering degree. Computers were always about creation and expression and social possibilities to me, not the pedantism and rigor that I practiced for financial reasons. I think we all just saw it as a test to see whether we could make it, or how well we could do, a game. It might as well have been pinball, and it never ends. 30-year SWE veterans still play leetcode. I am constantly being told that the opportunity to unleash my creativity and wonder upon the world is just around the corner. I should have dispensed with all that and started out as an artist. All the STEM greats quit this game early. That says something. If Gates, Zuck, Musk, Jobs, etc. had never taken DiffEq, would they have been any less capable or motivated? I doubt it. The women that abandon STEM may have more in common with them than we admit. They're probably doing something better with their lives. Maybe women leave STEM because they can.
luckylion 6y ago
Here's an abstract that will get flagged quickly...
CJefferson 6y ago
I've read this paper in the past. Like many papers, it has some powerful results, but I think it overclaims on correlation vs causation. What is true is teachers overrate girl's performance earlier in school compared to boys, then girls catch up and overtake, often approaching their teacher's predictions. This might well be a case of matching expectations. Another, to me reasonable, explanation for the results is that teacher's grading includes potential, based on their experience. It's hard to know, and would be very hard to ethically test. This area deserves more research, and less sgouty arguments, but there isn't a clear cut answer.
- grayhatter 6y ago
  I remember reading a study that asserted the best predictor of success is if your teacher believes you're capable. Teachers were told a group of students we're 'gifted' and those students ended up improving more than their peers. Unfortunately, all students were randomly assigned to either the gifted, or non-gifted groups. Actually being brilliant is much less important than if someone believes in you.
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    > best predictor of success is if your teacher believes you're capable. It's important to look at the mechanism here. I'd guess it's mediated by pushing those students harder. Which is a double-edged sword; there is a reason we don't just push everyone harder.
  - rewq4321 6y ago
    Affects similar to the "relative age effect"[0] are really important. Kids that just so happen to get ahead early (whether by a slight age advantage, or any other) often end up being put into some sort of "gifted" track where they have access to better teachers/resources, which compounds until they are well ahead of the others. Even without any sort of gifted program, the self-confidence that gets built around being "the smart kid" is a powerful motivator. The fight for self-confidence in school classrooms is zero-sum. What surprises me is that, from what I've read, the IQ literature doesn't seem to take this basic compounding affect into account. So it seems like some skepticism should be held for the idea that IQ is ~50% genetics and ~50% environment. It could be 5% genetics that compounds into 50%. That would seem to be in line with the observation that the measured heritability of intelligence increases with age. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect
austincheney 6y ago
It appears to cost money to access the actual paper and the abstract does indicate the means by which this bias is applied. Without that important detail this only points to speculation and assumptions.
- gwern 6y ago
  There's 3 copies of the preprint in Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=14339668929271894249&hl=en&as_sdt=0,21 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=14339668929271894... And it's 2020, you should know how to use Sci-Hub/Libgen by now.
- Yetanfou 6y ago
  Just feed the DOI to Science Hub and be done with it. I have official access to a number of journals but use Sci-Hub even for those as the process of getting access is so much easier than running the Wiley gauntlet.
JdeBP 6y ago
See also https://mitili.mit.edu/research/boys-lag-behind-how-teachers-gender-biases-affect-student-achievement https://mitili.mit.edu/research/boys-lag-behind-how-teachers... .
bArray 6y ago
Reading this makes me sad and bitter. You have groups of activists such as feminists that claim to be for equality of all (scope creep), but yet they are silent on important subjects such as this. Don't be convinced that feminism simply doesn't care about men's rights, they sometimes actively work against them [1]. To suggest that men may experience oppression weakens their perceived oppression, therefore it's in their interest to fight against it. It's no surprise that men are outnumbered in higher education too. There is always talk of increasing the number of women in STEM fields, but never any talk of increasing the number of men in the arts, English or the -ologys. Don't get me wrong, I am very happy to see equal opportunity. I am glad to see the riddance of "toxic" environments that discourage people from fulfilling their objectives based on arbitrary characteristics. But I also look at the future young men of today with genuine concern. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO_X4DkwA_Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO_X4DkwA_Q
- OCASM 6y ago
  Also, to modern feminism equality doesn't mean treating everyone the same but rather to give advantages to what they consider "historically oppressed minorities".
  - rewq4321 6y ago
    I think the idea is simply to give resources to those based on what they need rather than to give to everyone equally. It costs more to educate a kid from a poor/disadvantaged background. It doesn't really make sense to "treat everyone the same", since different people have different needs. Not everyone needs a wheelchair, but some people do, for example.
    - OCASM 6y ago
      So women need a wheelchair but not men? Doesn't seem like sex/gender is a good criteria here. Socioeconomic background would be far more applicable.
      - rewq4321 6y ago
hosh 6y ago
Reading this, it is easy to get into the weeds: how to keep teachers from being biased; culture wars on which way that bias should swing, etc. Viewing it from the the frame of regenerative education though, this particular problem is lessened. In this frame, children are not taught from a curriculum that the adults choose. There are no standards, or grading. Instead each child chooses something meaningful to make a contribution. Children are given a framework in which they can understand whatever it is they set out to do. They learn how to problem solve, critically think, and reflect, as they go about trying to make meaningful, real-world contributions that have real consequences. Teachers are there as resources. The feedback doesn't come from teachers, but rather, when they are trying to accomplish something that has real world consequences. You're not graded by an external source against a standard, but instead, you evaluate whether the outcome was really what you set out to be. It folds within it "grit" and "growth mindset", but not for its own sake. In such a setup, it is no longer about gender bias (conscious or unconscious), or even equal opportunities. Furthermore, achievement is reframed from effort rewarded in external praise and material gains from society and inverted to what you meaningfully add to the community and society. What develops is intrinsic motivation and purposeful action. There isn't an exhortation to "apply yourself", or the "when you grow up and have to pay your rent and etc". The childhood dreams, aspirations, and imagination is redirected towards something meaningful, instead of being crushed by the grind of adult living. Your ambitions are not about getting your just rewards for working hard, or winning the lottery, or exploiting opportunities. It doesn't have to be big things. There are ways to develop this from when a child is a toddler, starting with small contributions. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/09/616928895/how-to-get-your-kids-to-do-chores-without-resenting-it https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/09/6169288...
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I think this is a great education model for happy kids in a stable environment, but I'm worried it would compound inequality if applied universally. Many kids don't have much in the way of family or friends encouraging them towards learning. If we take away the structure of a curriculum and the grading expectations of success, will it still be possible for them to succeed?
bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
Has anyone seen analogous behavior in (adult) tech spaces? Raise your hand if so.

181 points by yasp 6y ago

Maybe we need more male teachers for kindergarten and the younger grades. Perhaps some sort of affirmative action or preferential hiring for male teachers for k through 6th grades?

baskire 6y ago
I’ve actually been suprised feminist aren’t pushing for this. It’d help their overall narrative. You have similar gender gaps in nursing as well.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  You have similar gender gaps in nursing as well. British teaching unions shot it down - said it was misogynistic to hire men as it implied women weren’t doing a good enough job. This logic of course doesn’t apply to tech.
  - annexrichmond 6y ago
    Do you have a source for this?
- MyHypatia 6y ago
  I think some feminists do push for this in the name of gender equality, and caretaking not only being a female responsibility. At the same time, the idea that mainly women should solve the problem of "young boys need positive male role models" seems ironic. I'm sure many women do care because they want their sons to thrive, but men want their sons to thrive too, right?
- HarryHirsch 6y ago
  I thought in nursing the gender gap is closing because it's one of the few careers that actually pays off these days. At regional colleges the nursing major is usually the one with the highest salary, you can check that on the Department of Education's website. High school leavers seem to be directed towards it, especially first-generation students.
MyHypatia 6y ago
There are various initiatives to attract more male teachers, but research suggests that the low status and pay of teaching deter men from entering education. Raising the respect and salary of teachers would be a good starting point. Preferential hiring to balance the gender ratio of role models in a school may be helpful as well. https://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage https://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage
ed25519FUUU 6y ago
I’ve heard from a friend whose a special ed teacher that there effectively is a strong desire for male teachers in these grades. But there’s also so much need in this space that there’s a desire for any credentialed teacher. It’s not really like software engineering where people have to know algorithms and do whiteboard exercises. It’s about credentials and desire.
joshuaissac 6y ago
Quotation from the paper:[1] > I find that the gender bias does not differ by teachers’ gender in literature, and only marginally in math. In this subject, female teachers are less biased in favor of girls than male teachers So adding more male teachers might marginally increase the discrimination rather than decrease it. 1. http://ftp.iza.org/dp10343.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp10343.pdf
- MyHypatia 6y ago
  That's interesting thanks for sharing. I guess that begs the question: even if there are some documented negative effects, does it outweigh the benefit of young boys experiencing positive role models in the classroom? Measuring the benefit of role models is really hard to quantify, but role models definitely influence people.
newsclues 6y ago
Maybe we need robot teachers to remove the bias?
- adrianN 6y ago
  Now we only need to figure out a way of making bias free AI.
  - newsclues 6y ago
    AI will do that for us.
etempleton 6y ago
Elementary and middle schools in the United States would welcome more male applicants. The issue is there are not many males that major in education at the undergraduate college level and so there are not many male applicants to choose from. This is a societal / financial issue. Societal because boys see education as a woman's job, which is reinforced through their educational experience of having mostly female teachers. Financial because as much as Americans like to think that they live in a progressive society, males are typically expected to be the primary income earner. Education simply does not pay well; particularly when you consider the education and credentials required. Education in the United States has added increased prerequisites to become a teacher in a public school. In all likelihood, your child's teacher either already has or is working on their master's in education to maintain their teaching credentials. If they have aspirations of being an administrator they are likely working on a doctorate. This to earn a maximum annual salary of less than $100,000 and only after decades of working for a school district.
- jdbernard 6y ago
  Another reason is that American society today often assumes there is something wrong or creepy with men who choose to spend their time with children. I don't think this is a valid assumption, but it is a common one, at least in my experience as a father.
  - HarryHirsch 6y ago
    The pedophile hysteria in the US makes teaching elementary school an actively hazardous career choice for men.
- worker767424 6y ago
  > The issue is there are not many males that major in education at the undergraduate college level and so there are not many male applicants to choose from. This is like the mythical pool of untapped female engineering talent VPs of Diversity and Inclusion imply exists.

baskire 6y ago

“ Without teachers’ bias in favor of girls, the gender gap in choosing a science track would be 12.5% larger in favor of boys.” Does this not mean we have a gender bias towards females in STEM at the education level? If so it’d turn around a long held belief that STEM education is biased towards men. At least in grade school.

mdorazio 6y ago
Yes, it does. It also implies that women not seeking engineering degrees likely has other factors that go mostly ignored or dismissed today.
- etempleton 6y ago
  Girls typically abandon STEM at the high school / undergraduate level. I do not pretend to know all of the factors that go into that, but one such reason I have heard is that the gender bias in STEM tends to strongly favor boys at this level and perhaps a bigger component to that is not the teachers' bias, but the bias of peers and society that students at the high school level will be increasingly aware of.
  - jl2718 6y ago
    I don't see any specific age when women abandon STEM as individual contributors; it seems to be constant throughout all life stages at a moderately higher rate than men. Until high school, however, there is no choice, and female grades are generally higher in everything, so they stick with it until they have to make a prioritization choice. I see it naively like this: life is a long process of eliminating options that don't meet your interests or best chances at success. Women in general have more options in life than men, career being only one aspect of that, which means that over time, any one of those options is going to be chosen less and less. Sociology distinguishes itself from economics in the assumption that people's choices are the result of stupidity or victimization. I just looked up the top math student in my 5th grade class. She's a 5th grade public school teacher after attending an Ivy for Geography. I have not the slightest clue why one would ever study Geography in college, nor would I find it financially prudent in my situation to be a public elementary schoolteacher, but I also know this person to be quite smart and fully-capable of making her own choices. I talk to female H1B engineers that came here for a better life, which was not STEM work, so they often quit as soon as they get a green card. I see women retiring earlier to start new careers. Female attrition is a constant feature of the entire STEM pipeline. If I try to be honest with myself, I will admit that I was not at all intellectually interested in my engineering degree. Computers were always about creation and expression and social possibilities to me, not the pedantism and rigor that I practiced for financial reasons. I think we all just saw it as a test to see whether we could make it, or how well we could do, a game. It might as well have been pinball, and it never ends. 30-year SWE veterans still play leetcode. I am constantly being told that the opportunity to unleash my creativity and wonder upon the world is just around the corner. I should have dispensed with all that and started out as an artist. All the STEM greats quit this game early. That says something. If Gates, Zuck, Musk, Jobs, etc. had never taken DiffEq, would they have been any less capable or motivated? I doubt it. The women that abandon STEM may have more in common with them than we admit. They're probably doing something better with their lives. Maybe women leave STEM because they can.

luckylion 6y ago

Here's an abstract that will get flagged quickly...

CJefferson 6y ago

I've read this paper in the past. Like many papers, it has some powerful results, but I think it overclaims on correlation vs causation. What is true is teachers overrate girl's performance earlier in school compared to boys, then girls catch up and overtake, often approaching their teacher's predictions. This might well be a case of matching expectations. Another, to me reasonable, explanation for the results is that teacher's grading includes potential, based on their experience. It's hard to know, and would be very hard to ethically test. This area deserves more research, and less sgouty arguments, but there isn't a clear cut answer.

grayhatter 6y ago
I remember reading a study that asserted the best predictor of success is if your teacher believes you're capable. Teachers were told a group of students we're 'gifted' and those students ended up improving more than their peers. Unfortunately, all students were randomly assigned to either the gifted, or non-gifted groups. Actually being brilliant is much less important than if someone believes in you.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  > best predictor of success is if your teacher believes you're capable. It's important to look at the mechanism here. I'd guess it's mediated by pushing those students harder. Which is a double-edged sword; there is a reason we don't just push everyone harder.
- rewq4321 6y ago
  Affects similar to the "relative age effect"[0] are really important. Kids that just so happen to get ahead early (whether by a slight age advantage, or any other) often end up being put into some sort of "gifted" track where they have access to better teachers/resources, which compounds until they are well ahead of the others. Even without any sort of gifted program, the self-confidence that gets built around being "the smart kid" is a powerful motivator. The fight for self-confidence in school classrooms is zero-sum. What surprises me is that, from what I've read, the IQ literature doesn't seem to take this basic compounding affect into account. So it seems like some skepticism should be held for the idea that IQ is ~50% genetics and ~50% environment. It could be 5% genetics that compounds into 50%. That would seem to be in line with the observation that the measured heritability of intelligence increases with age. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect

austincheney 6y ago

It appears to cost money to access the actual paper and the abstract does indicate the means by which this bias is applied. Without that important detail this only points to speculation and assumptions.

gwern 6y ago
There's 3 copies of the preprint in Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=14339668929271894249&hl=en&as_sdt=0,21 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=14339668929271894... And it's 2020, you should know how to use Sci-Hub/Libgen by now.
Yetanfou 6y ago
Just feed the DOI to Science Hub and be done with it. I have official access to a number of journals but use Sci-Hub even for those as the process of getting access is so much easier than running the Wiley gauntlet.

JdeBP 6y ago

See also https://mitili.mit.edu/research/boys-lag-behind-how-teachers-gender-biases-affect-student-achievement https://mitili.mit.edu/research/boys-lag-behind-how-teachers... .

bArray 6y ago

Reading this makes me sad and bitter. You have groups of activists such as feminists that claim to be for equality of all (scope creep), but yet they are silent on important subjects such as this. Don't be convinced that feminism simply doesn't care about men's rights, they sometimes actively work against them [1]. To suggest that men may experience oppression weakens their perceived oppression, therefore it's in their interest to fight against it. It's no surprise that men are outnumbered in higher education too. There is always talk of increasing the number of women in STEM fields, but never any talk of increasing the number of men in the arts, English or the -ologys. Don't get me wrong, I am very happy to see equal opportunity. I am glad to see the riddance of "toxic" environments that discourage people from fulfilling their objectives based on arbitrary characteristics. But I also look at the future young men of today with genuine concern. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO_X4DkwA_Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO_X4DkwA_Q

OCASM 6y ago
Also, to modern feminism equality doesn't mean treating everyone the same but rather to give advantages to what they consider "historically oppressed minorities".
- rewq4321 6y ago
  I think the idea is simply to give resources to those based on what they need rather than to give to everyone equally. It costs more to educate a kid from a poor/disadvantaged background. It doesn't really make sense to "treat everyone the same", since different people have different needs. Not everyone needs a wheelchair, but some people do, for example.
  - OCASM 6y ago
    So women need a wheelchair but not men? Doesn't seem like sex/gender is a good criteria here. Socioeconomic background would be far more applicable.
    - rewq4321 6y ago

hosh 6y ago

Reading this, it is easy to get into the weeds: how to keep teachers from being biased; culture wars on which way that bias should swing, etc. Viewing it from the the frame of regenerative education though, this particular problem is lessened. In this frame, children are not taught from a curriculum that the adults choose. There are no standards, or grading. Instead each child chooses something meaningful to make a contribution. Children are given a framework in which they can understand whatever it is they set out to do. They learn how to problem solve, critically think, and reflect, as they go about trying to make meaningful, real-world contributions that have real consequences. Teachers are there as resources. The feedback doesn't come from teachers, but rather, when they are trying to accomplish something that has real world consequences. You're not graded by an external source against a standard, but instead, you evaluate whether the outcome was really what you set out to be. It folds within it "grit" and "growth mindset", but not for its own sake. In such a setup, it is no longer about gender bias (conscious or unconscious), or even equal opportunities. Furthermore, achievement is reframed from effort rewarded in external praise and material gains from society and inverted to what you meaningfully add to the community and society. What develops is intrinsic motivation and purposeful action. There isn't an exhortation to "apply yourself", or the "when you grow up and have to pay your rent and etc". The childhood dreams, aspirations, and imagination is redirected towards something meaningful, instead of being crushed by the grind of adult living. Your ambitions are not about getting your just rewards for working hard, or winning the lottery, or exploiting opportunities. It doesn't have to be big things. There are ways to develop this from when a child is a toddler, starting with small contributions. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/09/616928895/how-to-get-your-kids-to-do-chores-without-resenting-it https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/09/6169288...

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I think this is a great education model for happy kids in a stable environment, but I'm worried it would compound inequality if applied universally. Many kids don't have much in the way of family or friends encouraging them towards learning. If we take away the structure of a curriculum and the grading expectations of success, will it still be possible for them to succeed?

bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago

Has anyone seen analogous behavior in (adult) tech spaces? Raise your hand if so.