Gender differences in middle school clubs

Read these two middle school club descriptions and take a quiz on how boys and girls in this school are treated.

History Club – Mr. X

The History Club runs the annual National Geography Bee, as well as other activities during the year. We have "Historical Movie" nights where we show movies based on historical events (Pearl Harbor, The Alamo, etc). During these nights we serve pizza and soda. We have enjoyed Saturday field trips to West Point and other historical places.

International Club – Ms. Y and Ms. Z

The International Club is designed to promote sensitivity, understanding, and an appreciation of one another and what makes all people so special. The members are involved in activities such as discussion sessions on cultural topics, culinary lessons, and excursions to museums, theaters, special libraries, and the United Nations.

Questions:

1. How many gender stereotypes can you find in the club descriptions?
2. Which club attracts more boys, and which attracts more girls?
3. Do you think the clubs are designed to target specific genders, or does this just occur by happenstance?
4. Is it a good idea to organize these club around specific interests that may appeal to one particular gender?  If not, what changes would you make to these clubs?
5. What came first, the chicken or the egg?

I'll hold my opinions, but . . .

Gender disparity at the geography bee

From Mark Perry:

National Geographic Bee - GW law professor Jonathan Turley reports that Minot State University professor emeritus Eric Clausen has been battling the National Geographic Society (NGS) in federal court over his claims that the national contest discriminates against girls because virtually no girls have won the national title.... 

According to Professor Clausen only 2 out of the state winners in 2009 were girls and only one girl advanced to the national finals in 2010. Clausen also claims that the “NGS knows and has known since the Geographic Bee competitions began that the contests do not provide girls with an equal opportunity to participate in the higher-level competitions.”

It appears that only five girls won state competitions in 2011, so the trend continues.

Related to this story are my observations during a recent 8th grade class field trip to Washington DC.  During our visits to the museums and other attractions, the boys appeared significantly more interested than the girls in history and politics.  They asked many more questions, including plenty of inappropriate ones.  Last time I checked, the middle school history club was mainly boys.

It could be that one of the reasons boys are drawn more to geography and history is that they tend to be the gender with a stronger interest in wars.  A quote by writer Ambrose Pierce comes to mind:  "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."  Curiously, the trend in history social studies classes seems to be to downplay the military details of wars in favor of an increased focus on the human suffering and victimization aspects.  This causes me to speculate it might be a conscious strategy designed to draw more girls into the subject of history.

On the other hand, take this quiz about two middle school clubs to consider another way our schools might be dealing with gender differences when it come to the study of history.

Beer pong practice

The scenario:	Just past midnight and a chaperone hears loud noises coming from a hotel room where a group of eight-grade boys are staying during an overnight class trip
The evidence:	Ping pong balls, plastic cups filled with soapy water and the hotel ironing board
The explanation:	Training for beer pong
The lesson:	Never underestimate the creative minds of middle school boys.

Transparency is appreciated

When I recently requested some detailed information from our middle school principal, he provided it all, even though it appeared to take some effort to gather it.  This transparency is greatly appreciated, and should be the norm in our school district.

Bless our middle school teachers

Especially bless our middle school health teachers.

Scene:  Middle school health class.

Mrs. X:  "Smoking and drug use can cause angina."
Class:  Uproarious laughter, mainly from the boys.
Mrs. X:  "Sigh"  [Realizing that "angina" sounds a lot like "vagina" to middle school boys]

Class:  "When are we going to learn about sex?"
Mrs. X:  "During the last quarter, so you'll have something to look forward to."
Class: "Yes!"

Graphic organizers - a cheat sheet for parents

As a follow up to my post on the middle school character cluster assignment, I thought I would share a cheat sheet for parents who might be faced with trying to understand the latest graphic organizer (aka concept map) that their children bring home from school

So many choices

Graphic organizers (some of which are also called concept maps, entity relationship charts, and mind maps) are a pictorial way of constructing knowledge and organizing information. They help the student convert and compress a lot of seemingly disjointed information into a structured, simple-to-read, graphic display. The resulting visual display conveys complex information in a simple-to-understand manner. 

Or so they say.  Keep in mind that research tells us that taking a test is superior to using a graphic organizer / concept map for retaining information.  Still, educators continue to use these graphic tools.

[Concept mapping]  — having students draw detailed diagrams documenting what they are learning — is prized by many teachers because it forces students to make connections among facts.
These other methods not only are popular, the researchers reported; they also seem to give students the illusion that they know material better than they do.

And there are so many intriguing choices - Star, Spider, Fishbone, Cloud/Cluster, Tree, Chain of Events, Continuum/Timeline, Clock, Cycle of Events, Flowchart, Venn Diagram, Chart/Matrix Diagram, Y-Chart and many more.  Not to worry, though.  There is even a graphic organizer that helps you choose the right graphic organizer.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/graphicorganizers/

Related:

http://kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/2011/01/retrieval-practice-produces-more.html

How to confuse a middle-schooler

Here is how a teacher can confuse a middle school student and her parents.

Assign a "character cluster" in English class and provide these three slightly different sets of written instructions:

1. Create a character cluster for Tom and Willie using a minimum of three character traits.
2. Please create a character cluster for both Willie and Mr. Tom, that utilizes a minimum of three character traits.
3. Create 3 character clusters for Mr. Tom and 3 character clusters for Willie ( beginning - middle and end)

The first instructions were written on the classroom board and copied by the student.  The second were on the English teacher's web page and the third were on the resource teacher's web page.

When the student asked her mom for help in figuring out the assignment, mom could not assist because she also was confused by the instructions and had her own set of questions for the teacher.
-- What is a "character cluster"?
-- Should one cluster be created for both characters or should three be created for each character?
-- How many traits should be included, three for each character or three in total? If three in total, should both characters share these traits?

The student finally figured it out and wrote her own instructions:

Create two character clusters, one for Mr. Tom and one for Willie, with 3 character traits for each.

It seems ironic that these instructions were written for an assignment in English class, where the teaching of clear writing is an important objective.