Christina Hoff Sommers - the war against boys in education and the boys disengagent from school. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqOTj9NDv80&t=26m50s
Six degrees of separation - sexual differences in education: http://boysadrift.com/ed_horizons.pdf page 3
It talks about how mixed school classes (as mixed military) underperforms because of the differences in autonomous fuctions specific to each gender.
| Girls | Boys | |
|---|---|---|
| Stress response is influenced more by | Parasympathetic autonomic nervous system | Sympathetic autonomic nervous system |
| Primary neurotransmitter | Acetylcholine | Norepinephrine |
| Primary humoral factor | Acetylcholine | Adrenalin |
| Activation often result | Dizziness, mental slowing or “freezing” “I just couldn’t move-felt paralyzed.” | Sharpened senses,arousal,excitement “Never felt so alive.” |
| Activation of the system is experienced as | Stressful, unpleasant,even nauseating | Thrilling, arousing— “Let’s do that again!” |
"With boys, they speak loudly and in short, direct sentences with clear instructions:“Put down your papers. Open your books. Let’s get to work! Mr. Jefferson, that includes you.” With girls, they speak much more softly, using more first names with more terms of endearment and fewer direct commands: “Lisa, sweetie, it’s time to open your book. Emily, dar- ling, would you please sit down for me and join us for this exercise?” One teacher told me how he once “forgot” to change voices for the girls’ classroom after a morning with the boys and used his “boys’ classroom” voice: “All right, let’s get moving! Open your books now! No dawdling!” The girls’ eyes widened. One of them looked as if she would cry. Finally one girl raised her hand. “Mr. Johnson, are you mad at us?”
Conversely, if you speak in a quiet tone of voice in an all-male class- room, the boys may daydream or drift off to something close to sleep. One teacher complained that none of the boys in her all-male classroom paid any attention to her. She was astonished when a more experienced teacher came into the classroom and immediately commanded the atten- tion of every boy—merely by speaking in a much louder voice than the boys were accustomed to. Again, such differences in teaching style are nearly impossible to implement in a coed classroom. How can a teacher speak simultaneously in both a loud voice and a soft voice?"
*Six degrees of separation * "Another application of the new research has to do with the ambient temperature of the classroom. One of my colleagues last year visited an elite all-male private boarding school. This school, founded almost 200 years ago, caters to the sons of some of the wealthiest families in the United States. Tuition is almost $30,000 per year, and the school’s endowment is more than $170 million. But when my colleague entered the main building, she found it uncomfortably chilly. “Excuse me,” she said to the headmaster. “Please forgive me for saying so, but with all the money you charge for tuition, and your enormous endowment, can’t you afford to heat your school properly? It’s cold in here!” “If you turn up the heat, the boys go to sleep,” the headmaster answered. “Not literally asleep, but they might as well be. If it’s too warm in the classroom, the boys get sluggish and their eyelids get heavy. If you keep it just a little chilly, the boys learn better.” We’ve heard similar remarks from many other heads of all-male schools. Understanding that the sympathetic nervous system predominates in boys and that the sym- pathetic nervous system is tuned to react best in the cold helps to put this observation in context. Recall the last photo you saw of a “polar bear club”—a group of people who enjoy jumping into ice-cold lakes in the wintertime. Such clubs are almost entirely male. Few women regard jumping into freezing water as an enjoyable pastime. Ergonomics specialists have found that the ideal ambient tempera- ture for young men is about 71º F, versus 77º F for young women"