Comments on: 2 Boys and 2 Girls– fairness and gender

By: Robin

Robin — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:52:10 +0000

This is basically the same conundrum that underlies a lot of racial/gender discrimination issues. Assuming that one gender/race has historically been disadvantaged in receiving equal opportunities, whether in achieving scholastic honors (college admissions, for example) or obtaining high-paying jobs, people think that by forcing others to include a mandatory quota of said gender/race they are helping the disadvantaged party to have a greater chance of achieving success. Others argue that the very fact that they are categorized as a different, separate group actually reinforces the prejudice, and in the end will only send the message to the disadvantaged party that they don’t need to work as hard to improve themselves as the opposite gender/race because they will receive preferential treatment no matter who the more skilled person is.

Of course, on a grade school level, I’m sure nobody thought it out quite that far. I bet they just wanted to make sure that, as you said, spelling is not just for girls or for boys, but for everyone. Kind of a dumb idea, not just on the level of gender equality, because I’m sure those poor teachers are going to have to suffer through a few tantrums of girls that beat out other boys but don’t get to go to the school bee because of that rule. Some people just don’t think ahead very far. I doubt the rule will last longer than one year!

By: Jim F.

Jim F. — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:28:14 +0000

Interesting coinage. For a moment, though a very short one, I first read it as “tongues lip” and I couldn’t figure out what that mixture of plural and singular could mean. But it was only a millisecond or so before I saw my mistake.

By: pdad

pdad — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 23:56:13 +0000

pmom, nice save

By: Pmom

Pmom — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 05:32:39 +0000

Christian, tongueslip is my coinage. : )

By: Pmom

Pmom — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 05:24:08 +0000

Zina, I don’t know have any hard statistics in front of me about spelling performance by gender, but I suspect that one can’t use the National Spelling Bee as a good yardstick. I think I read somewhere that regarding mathematical ability in school children, they’ve shown that girls’ mathematical performance clusters more around the middle whereas boys account for both a higher percentage of the low performers and a higher percentage of the high performers. There have been many, many male national champion spellers–which certainly establishes that it is possible for boys to spell very well. However, on the local elementary school level, I do think it’s true that there are noticeably more girls that excel at spelling. That’s just my anecdote though.

By: Christian F

Christian F — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 04:37:59 +0000

I think the winner should be the child who correctly identifies “tongue slip” as two words rather than one. Or maybe it should be the first boy and the first girl to make the identification.

By: Zina

Zina — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 04:08:45 +0000

oops something got dropped there. I think it said “In which case the new rule at your school seems unfair.”

By: Zina

Zina — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 04:07:21 +0000

I don’t mind gender segregation in, say, collegiate sports, so whether or not I’d support the idea of dividing up the genders would depend on whether it holds true that one gender nearly always outperforms the other. I haven’t followed the national spelling bees closely, but from what I *have* seen I think there’s a pretty equal showing amongst boys and girls, no? In which case the (There’s a disproportionately high showing of Indian Americans and homeschoolers, though, I hear.)

Lis, that’s a terrible way to choose for a G&T program. In our district all the kids who want to apply have to take the same test (they administer a standardized test for a grade level above what the students are at,) which does discriminate against kids who are bright but are not good at taking tests, but aside from that, at least everyone gets the same chance.

By: Pdad

Pdad — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 20:46:26 +0000

I agree that this was a poor judgment though I don’t feel like it is worth addressing.

I do think this is a matter of judgment vs principal. Though I don’t care to do it, I think one can come up w a reasonable defense of the new process. I think where someone comes down on this issue primarily depends on two things. A one’s view of how different boys do vs girls at spelling (as you point out). B what one’s position is in general of using gender as a way of dividing kids up in grade school.
The more natural one thinks it is to divide kids up based on gender the more natural it will seem to “pick the two best kids of each gender per class”.

By: lis

lis — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 16:21:36 +0000

I agree that is just silly. In no way should it be based on gender. This is similar to a problem I had with the kids old school. When students were chose for the gifted and talented program each teacher chose there two best student (there was no test is was all just the teachers idea of who was doing well). But when the top five students happen to be in the same class three of them don’t get to be in gifted and talented when student from other classes who aren’t doing as well as them do get to be in. It just seems silly.