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One of the joys of the blogosphere is the free trade in ideas.
Today, Susan Walsh of HookingUpSmart has an excellent post about the Kay Hymowitz piece in Saturday's Wall Street Journal. She kindly refers to some of the remarks I posted about it on Saturday. Link to Susan's post here.
If you do not know Susan's blog, I will tell you that each of her posts elicits an exceptionally interesting and wide ranging discussion. She has a wonderful community of commenters. So, it is always worth while to go back to the post and check out the new comments... and even to participate.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
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2 comments:
Let me suggest that most educational institutions are not geared for the male student in general. Some of this is due to the fact of how subjects are broken down into teachable units.
I would posit that large number of men are much more deductive than inductive in their approach to learning. In the pre-college years, because of the manner used, many males find it tedious and boring. I saw it in myself, many of the men I meet while in the military and in my own son.
As an example, my son was not what one would call really interested or a high achiever in school. When I talked to him I was consistently surprised in how much he actually knew. After some prodding he went into the Air Force and became a Flight Engineer on C5s. Somewhere before he retired he started taking courses. He earned a degree in Computer Science and then an MBA. He now works in 6 Sigma and actually knows what an ANOVA is and how to use it. We can sit down and talk statistics, operational research, et al and know there is knowledge being exchanged.
I cannot tell you the number of guys I meet during the Vietnam War who were C and D students in high school who went on to colleges and universities on the GI Bill to attain degrees in engineering, science, et al.
Many of these men, much like myself when in college, would start off slow in many classes and by the time they took the finals were acing these exams and getting the extra points. Considering that grades were/are cumulative the grade received did not reflect the actual knowledge gained.
It does seem that many of us as men do very well when we can see the concept as a whole. Drilling down is then the easy part.
Hi Doc,
Got word through the grapevine about your recent post wrt Kay Hymowitz's WSJ article. Here's my comment on the matter over at Hooking Up Smart (would love to get your reaction to what I said about what I call the Marginal White Male): http://www.hookingupsmart.com/2011/02/22/relationshipstrategies/how-women-made-good-men-passe-and-sabotaged-their-own-futures/#comment-31598
Best,
O.
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