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The New Gender Gap
When the leaders of the Class of 2003 assemble in Lawrence High's fluorescent-lit1 meeting rooms, most of the boys are nowhere to be seen. The senior class president? A girl. The vice -president? Girl.
Head of student government? Girl. Captain of the math team, chief of the yearbook, and editor of the newspaper? Girls. The female lock on power at Lawrence is emblematic of a stunning gender reversal in American education. From kindergarten to graduate school, boys are fast becoming the second sex.
It may still be a man's world . But it is no longer, in any way, a boy's. From his first days in school, an average boy is already developmentally two years behind the girls in reading and writing. Yet he's often expected to learn the same things in the same way in the same amount of time. While every nerve in his body tells him to run, he has to sit still and listen for almost eight hours a day. Biologically, he needs about four recesses a day, but he's lucky if he gets one, since some lawsuit-leery schools have banned them altogether. Hug a girl, and he could be labeled a" toucher”and swiftly suspended — a result of what some say is an increasingly anti-boy culture that pathologizes their behavior.
Overall, more boys and girls are in college than a generation ago. But when adjusted for population growth, the percentage of boys entering college , master's programs, and most doctoral programs — except for PhDs2 in fields like engineering and computer science — has mostly stalled out, whereas for women it has continued to rise across the board. The trend is most pronounced among Hispanics, African Americans, and those from low-income families.
Instead of catering to boys'learning styles, others argue, many schools are force-fitting them into an unnatural mold. The reigning sit-still-and-listen paradigm isn't ideal for either sex.
Experts say educators should focus on helping boys feel less like misfits. Experts are designing new developmentally appropriate, child-initiated learning that concentrates on problem-solving, not just test-taking. This approach benefits both sexes but especially boys, given that they tend to learn best through action, not just talk. Activities are geared toward the child's interest level and temperament. Boys, for example, can learn math through counting pinecones, biology through mucking around in a pond. They can read Harry Potter instead of Little House on the Prairie , and write about aliens attacking a hospital rather than about how to care for people in the hospital.
Indeed, brain research shows that boys are actually more empathic, expressive, and emotive at birth than girls. But the boy code , which bathes them in a culture of stoicism and reticence, often socializes those aptitudes out of them by the second grade ."We now have executives paying 10 , 000 a week to learn emotional intelligence,"says Pollock."These are actually the skills boys are born with."
A new world has opened up for girls, but unless a symmetrical effort is made to help boys find their footing, it may turn out that it's a lonely place to be.
练习题：
Ⅰ. Complete the following sentences with the words given:
banned geared labeled revealed
1. Would you please hand me the bottle wisdom.
2. Many classical books were once criticized and thus by the authorities.
3. Research has how huge the gap between the poor and the rich is.
4. This game is toward a better and faster response.
Ⅱ. Question:
Why did experts design new developmentally appropriate, child-initiated learning?
