Men are from Mars, women are from Venus' (Gray, 1993). 'Men have obsessions; women have personalities' (Hornby, 2000). Men single-task, women multi-task. Are these differences between the sexes real or imagined?
Whenever I talk to practitioners and ask if they see any differences between the sexes, I am always given a resounding yes. Distinctions noted include the way they behave, react, approach learning, and think.
Boys tend to see a difference between work and play - one they like, one they are not sure of (Paley, 1984). Girls tend to gravitate towards adults, they appear more settled, they talk, they like to create something with a tangible end product. Boys tend to gravitate away from adults, preferring activities involving high levels of movement and exploration and building on a large scale. But not all boys are as described, nor all girls.
Nature or nurture
These differences should concern us, because if one group of people is from Venus and another from Mars, then to understand them fully we need to know what it is like to be Venetian and Martian. I liken this to teaching, say, a child who is autistic - you have to understand that state before you know how to teach the child effectively.
I believe the differences are created by nature and nurture. Boys and girls have differing amounts of chemicals surging around their bodies. Boys have more testosterone, which means they are more concerned with competing, where girls are more compliant. Boys have less serotonin, leading to greater risk-taking and experimentation. Girls have higher levels of serotonin, which means they can analyse data more rationally and control behaviour more logically. Boys have lower levels of dopamine, causing a shorter attention span and need for greater stimulation. Girls have higher levels of dopamine, enabling them to hear better, listen more attentively and need less stimulation.
We could simply allow boys to be greater risk takers and less able to concentrate, and let girls be more compliant and more able to listen. But we should be helping boys settle into education, giving them attention before it is demanded. With girls it is important to give attention even though they may not demand it, and encourage them to take risks.
Boys' spatial ability is good but verbal skills not as developed, and girls' verbal skills are good but spatial ability not so developed (Bee, 2000). We need to nurture that which children find easy and help them with skills that do not come so easily.
We also need to be aware that we cannot always make the same demands on both sexes. For example, boy's wrist bones are fully developed by five years six months, but in a girl by four years five months (Needlham, 1996). At four and a half years, boys are going to find it more difficult than girls to use writing materials.
Elaine Millard (1997) considers that we need to do education 'both gender ways'. For example, males and females tend to have different reading interests. Females tend towards novels, and males towards non-fiction. She argues that teachers still favour narrative fiction and that if we want to help boys with reading, we must make reference books and magazines available. There is a completely different skill to reading a reference book than a novel, and maybe boys find that an easier way to learn to read.
Educational experiences
A number of researchers point to the fact that boys and girls create different educational experiences for themselves, which, if we don't watch out, we will condone. Boys may create more discipline problems for staff, and they don't easily gravitate to the formal aspects of the curriculum. The visible children tend to be boys and not girls. We can end up with boys who are not as adjusted to nursery (Davies, 1991), having not developed positive learning attitudes, and girls who can be ignored because they are complying.
So what is the answer? Initially we have to make more observations. Davies found that adults do not visit areas where boys play, such as block- play and outdoor games involving lots of movement. So they are in essence letting the boys get on with it and not helping to develop positive learning attitudes. By their lack of presence the adult is giving a low status to boys' interests and ultimately to them. In any special needs group, right across all phases of education, you will find there are more boys than girls. Many boys are not as settled about school as they need to be to make the most of it.
We should also ensure that children have a balanced curriculum. In a free- choice play setting this may not always happen. Often there will be a group of boys who always go to the block-play area and a group of girls who always go to the home corner. Walkerdine (1996) found that if girls came across boys in the home corner they would put them in a subservient role - the dog, baby or chair! Likewise, when boys come across girls playing with the blocks, they will take over.
Our job is to support children and sometimes stop groups using certain areas. To support children, you need to play with them until they are able to use an area freely and able to stick up for themselves if someone tries to take over. You may also have to let girls only in the block-play area and boys only in the home corner, so they have enough time to experiment, become proficient and confident with the activity and materials.
This may seem artificial, but it is more worrying to see the sex stereotyping that is so readily condoned in settings. Boys have a right to play house and girls have a right to run about. We also need to be aware that 'a high level of conformity to sex-stereotypes is not only undesirable in terms of personal development, but also militates against academic achievement' (Whitehead, 2000). Sex stereotyping leads to some boys and girls thinking it's 'uncool' to be academic. These attitudes start at an early age.
Playing together
Finally, what about boys and girls playing together? Classroom practice can militate against the sexes getting along - for example, when outdoor play is timetabled and poorly planned, there may be a host of bad behaviour, including stereotypical play. When outdoor play is allowed alongside indoor play and is clearly valued, the poor behaviour vanishes and boys and girls naturally play together (Bilton, 2004).
We need to help boys to concentrate and girls to be more adventurous. We need to consider grouping children and supporting them in new areas or activities. We must not see either sex as the deficit model. We need to take the formal curriculum to the boys through games outside - for example, chalking words, letters or numbers on the ground on to which one is expected to throw a ball.
Building with girls in the block-play area will give them more opportunities to develop their spatial abilities.
Some staff overlook poor behaviour in boys which they would condemn in girls. This is not fair or helpful. If a certain behaviour is not allowed, it cannot be allowed by boy or girl.
We all have gifts. Multi-taskers are useful in some situations, single-taskers useful in others. Together, females and males can make great teams!
