WASHINGTON Aug 27, 2006 (AP)

I don’t agree with that at all.  I’m a woman and I’m pretty sure I learned better from men.  For instance, in high school I was having problems learning both math and chemistry.  I was getting bad grades constantly, and I just didn’t understand what I was supposed to do.  I thought the teachers (who were both women) didn’t do a good job explaining things.  Anyway, I managed to scrounge together some passing grades and I got into the second level of the classes (Chemistry 2, math 2..I can’t remember the exact names now.) They were both taught by men.  I did much better…I was getting mostly As and Bs.  And thinking back through all my years in school, it’s pretty consistent that I did better with male teachers than with females.  There’s one exception… astronomy class.  I didn’t do very well in it at all, but a male was teaching it. 

I think it varies from person to person.  Some people might learn better from women and some from men…it doesn’t matter what gender you are.

I think it has far more to do with the student and teacher’s abilities than sex.  I’ve had good male and female teachers, and bad ones of both.

Although I’ve had good/bad teachers of both sexes, I have found personally that I definitely do better when the teacher is female.  At least in terms of my 4 years of college so far, I notice that female professors tend to teach in a more “lets talk about/discuss the subject” kind of way, with essay or short answer tests, while most of my male professors have more of a detail orientated “remember these definitions and lists” style of teaching, with multiple choice tests.  This is in no way inclusive as I’ve had many professors that don’t fit the stereotype, but it is definitely a pattern I’ve seen.

I chose “Gender Doesn’t Matter” because it’s the closet to what I think.  I think everyone is different, learns a different way, teaches a different way.

I tend to think that it leans more toward the student and how the student needs to learn.  But both teaching and learning are so varied it is hard to generalize and be accurate.  I’m sure if someone wanted to provethis wrong they could find the results to show that in a similar study.

I, too, voted ‘Doesn’t matter.’

However, men and women think differently (in the general sense), and men are a bit more naturally adept at the sciences, and women at things like literature and the arts.  Of course, there can be marked exceptions.

The article stated that boys learned science better from men.  Maybe the men understood the subject better?  Or cared about it more?

I was a math major, (oh, do I regret that pursuit!).  And now that I think about it, every professor was male.

One way to kind of support my contention (it isn’t mine, actually) but a way to support what I said is the observation that men dominate chess.  There is no discrimination in the ranks of chess players, if you win, you get rated higher, if you lose, you don’t.  It is not like golf, or car-racing, where the   male drivers will conspire to defeat a female (I think they are afraid to admit to themselves that it does not require massive testosterone to drive a race car.)

Dan, throwing in his two-pence worth, for better or for worse

I disagree Dan.  I don’t think it has to do with the subjects they teach.  I think that in general men and women have different learning styles, regardless of subject.  It makes sense that teachers teach in a way that would of helped them learn if they were a student.  In other words, they try to be the teacher that they would have wanted to teach them. 

Of course, if men and women tend to have different learning styles, then they will also have different teaching styles.  They are going to teach the way they believe is best.  A male teacher will teach to a male learning style and vise versa.

Of course like I said before, this also requires mass generalizations.

As to chess, men don’t necessarly dominate chess because they are better at that kind of thinking skills.  Perhaps they tend to dominate because few women choose to play chess due to differing interests or perhaps societal expectations.  I.E. a male gets less strife from his friends about being in the high school chess club then the female may get.  Or if the chess club is mostly male, a female may feel uncomfortable being in an all male club.

The article centered around middle school students, that area of life where kids become acutely aware of sexual differences which can cause unrest or discomfort.  This would affect which gender they are frequently more able to find comfort in learning.

Public schools generate students of varying cultures as well, whether ethnic or simply family.  The importance or differences displayed by those cultures will also influence which gender will positively affect teaching them outside the home.

Teachers also set gender or no-gender attributes in their teaching approach as well and based on the age and cultural influences that have molded the student, a masculine man’s sensuality may well influence an older female student into attentiveness (in an effort to please him), but may also have the effect of being a competitor to an older male student whose hormones may drive his attentions to posture rather than study.