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There's a simpler but less comfortable explanation, students even more than teachers try to find meaning for why they can't understand things as easily as their

There's a simpler but less comfortable explanation, students even more than teachers try to find meaning for why they can't understand things as easily as their peers. Learning styles is an easy explanation that is just unscientific enough to not be easily testable but still seems plausible as a reason for why a student might not do well well while their peers do. Learning is complicated and involved and it's hard to show students that learning is a marathon not a sprint. I wish they stopped teaching this myth completely because it gives rise to this inherent sexism and binary view when comparing creative and logical thinking. There's no right-hand dominant or left-hand dominant brain. I don't know if it's changed in more recent generations but I was taught that girls are more creative and boys are more logical and that's why more boys go into math and sciences. That kind of thinking is the root of the current gender imbalances among stem and engineering fields. In most ways they are orthogonal. https://www.thersa.org/blog/2018/09/creativity-and-logic-avoid-dangerous-stereotypes https://www.thersa.org/blog/2018/09/creativity-and-logic-avo... People in general like labels and categories.

DiggyJohnson 4y ago
I don’t think you can claim that it entirely accounts for gender differences in academic and occupational specialization. That’s also just unscientific enough to be convincing as well. The truth is we really don’t know. I do agree with the general point of your comment, on how this can significantly account for individuals decisions and self-understanding.
- knaik94 4y ago
  I agree with you, it doesn't account for the the imbalance entirely. I said it's the root of it, as in this creates the stereotypes from such a young age. I think it's a fair assessment based on the stories I hear from my friends and the kids I tutor about what made girls choose certain areas of focus compared to boys. It was even more enlightening hearing about my women friends who ended up not completing a major in stem and especially CS to graduation. I have to admit it's not a hard quantifiably scientific. I still choose to believe it. It's not going to be one little thing that will fix gender imbalances, but in my opinion, these kind of practical changes is where you see longer term positive consequences. I have a brilliant friend, finished a doctorate, nurse practitioner. We talk about our journeys and she still talks about feeling somewhat insecure that her "brain isn't made for math" and I always call her out, she finished some of the most rigorous years of schooling in healthcare and she still doesn't believe she would be good at math. I don't think she has to do math unless she happens to find interest in it, she doesn't have anything left to prove to herself or anyone else. I just feel frustrated as an educator by how rigid that kind of thinking is and how long it follows students through their life.
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    Fair enough, I appreciate the comprehensive response, and I see that our perspectives are quite similarly. This is a challenging subject to be objective about, considering it quite literally has a subjective component. Cheers

DiggyJohnson 4y ago

I don’t think you can claim that it entirely accounts for gender differences in academic and occupational specialization. That’s also just unscientific enough to be convincing as well. The truth is we really don’t know. I do agree with the general point of your comment, on how this can significantly account for individuals decisions and self-understanding.

knaik94 4y ago
I agree with you, it doesn't account for the the imbalance entirely. I said it's the root of it, as in this creates the stereotypes from such a young age. I think it's a fair assessment based on the stories I hear from my friends and the kids I tutor about what made girls choose certain areas of focus compared to boys. It was even more enlightening hearing about my women friends who ended up not completing a major in stem and especially CS to graduation. I have to admit it's not a hard quantifiably scientific. I still choose to believe it. It's not going to be one little thing that will fix gender imbalances, but in my opinion, these kind of practical changes is where you see longer term positive consequences. I have a brilliant friend, finished a doctorate, nurse practitioner. We talk about our journeys and she still talks about feeling somewhat insecure that her "brain isn't made for math" and I always call her out, she finished some of the most rigorous years of schooling in healthcare and she still doesn't believe she would be good at math. I don't think she has to do math unless she happens to find interest in it, she doesn't have anything left to prove to herself or anyone else. I just feel frustrated as an educator by how rigid that kind of thinking is and how long it follows students through their life.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  Fair enough, I appreciate the comprehensive response, and I see that our perspectives are quite similarly. This is a challenging subject to be objective about, considering it quite literally has a subjective component. Cheers