Why We Are Failing Female Math Students
/gets on soapbox
STEM programs (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) are currently trying to do their best to erase their image as an 'old-boys club', by offering mentors to young girls entering STEM programs, as well as camps and other activities aimed at high-school aged children. What they fail to realise, however, is that they are starting too late.
The "Girls can't do math." stereotype is slowly fading; however, the fact remains that the only field of science in which women make up half or over half of the population is the life sciences- biology, environmental sciences, molecular genetics, etc.- while in the physical sciences, female enrolment hovers perpetually around the 40% mark, and in all areas of engineering save biomed, seems permanently stalled at 15%. When I was in Grade 9- in 2007!- I had a teacher tell me, when I expressed disdain for optics (because optics is the worst kind of physics. Really. It's terrible.) and asked why we couldn't do more ecology, a unit I had greatly enjoyed- he responded 'Of course you like biology. It's a girl science. It's all about relationships.'
Leaving aside, for a moment, that math is all about relationships, and that physics is the linguistic application of mathematics and that he was therefore, of course, full of shit; there are reasons that these stereotypes exist. Enrollment in math courses at the higher level skews overwhelmingly male, and here's why:
in most schools, higher-level math is not compulsory. After the age of 15 or so, no-one is making you take calculus or algebra or discrete geometry. Which means that, at 14-15, depending on what school you attend, you have to make a choice. The timing of this choice coincides with one of the most rapid periods of neural growth you have experienced since infancy.
In girls, puberty ushers in a flood of chemicals that 'wire' the brain linguistically: most girls
experience a rapid increase in linguistic and sociological capabilities at this point.
In boys, it goes the other way- the part of the brain responsible for analytical thought and spacial reasoning goes through period of rapid and extreme growth. Whereas for years in elementary school, the top math and science students were likely female, it suddenly flips, with the boys surging to the top of the pack. Girls who previously found math and science easy now struggle through it, and are frustrated when they see boys who they had so easily outshone just a year ago master the new language with ease.
Did I mention that it is at exactly this time we are requiring girls to choose whether or not to continue into higher mathematics, which are prerequisites for all fields of the physical sciences?
Here's the thing- girls will catch up. As adolescence ends, and boys and girls alike receive another flood of chemicals; girls who have remained in math courses suddenly find themselves doing it with ease. By the time adulthood is reached, there is no biochemical basis for the gender divide. Unfortunately, by that time, many girls have left STEM courses: their absence is almost certainly a factor in the sociological reasons we are failing female math students, which I will talk about some other time.
So what do we do? Innumeracy is one of the biggest problms facing our society today- without mathematical literacy, it is terrifyingly easy to be manipulated and taken advantage of. Media scaremongering about the apocalypse, for example- that earth will be sucked into a black hole because (gasp) we're in perfect alignment, somehow forgetting that the earth has an ELLIPTICAL ORBIT- takes blatant advantage of the everyman's lack of scientific knowledge.
We combat illiteracy by making language arts compulsory. Why not do the same with math? Why not alter the curriculum, so that every student has to take 4 years of math? It doesn't matter what type- finance, accounting, design and construction math, calculus, programming math- these are all on offer at larger public school across North America, so to do this would not require an material financial difference, but it would go a long way both to closing the gender gap and to making our society a better place to live.
/gets off soapbox
STEM programs (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) are currently trying to do their best to erase their image as an 'old-boys club', by offering mentors to young girls entering STEM programs, as well as camps and other activities aimed at high-school aged children. What they fail to realise, however, is that they are starting too late.
The "Girls can't do math." stereotype is slowly fading; however, the fact remains that the only field of science in which women make up half or over half of the population is the life sciences- biology, environmental sciences, molecular genetics, etc.- while in the physical sciences, female enrolment hovers perpetually around the 40% mark, and in all areas of engineering save biomed, seems permanently stalled at 15%. When I was in Grade 9- in 2007!- I had a teacher tell me, when I expressed disdain for optics (because optics is the worst kind of physics. Really. It's terrible.) and asked why we couldn't do more ecology, a unit I had greatly enjoyed- he responded 'Of course you like biology. It's a girl science. It's all about relationships.'
Leaving aside, for a moment, that math is all about relationships, and that physics is the linguistic application of mathematics and that he was therefore, of course, full of shit; there are reasons that these stereotypes exist. Enrollment in math courses at the higher level skews overwhelmingly male, and here's why:
in most schools, higher-level math is not compulsory. After the age of 15 or so, no-one is making you take calculus or algebra or discrete geometry. Which means that, at 14-15, depending on what school you attend, you have to make a choice. The timing of this choice coincides with one of the most rapid periods of neural growth you have experienced since infancy.
In girls, puberty ushers in a flood of chemicals that 'wire' the brain linguistically: most girls
experience a rapid increase in linguistic and sociological capabilities at this point.
In boys, it goes the other way- the part of the brain responsible for analytical thought and spacial reasoning goes through period of rapid and extreme growth. Whereas for years in elementary school, the top math and science students were likely female, it suddenly flips, with the boys surging to the top of the pack. Girls who previously found math and science easy now struggle through it, and are frustrated when they see boys who they had so easily outshone just a year ago master the new language with ease.
Did I mention that it is at exactly this time we are requiring girls to choose whether or not to continue into higher mathematics, which are prerequisites for all fields of the physical sciences?
Here's the thing- girls will catch up. As adolescence ends, and boys and girls alike receive another flood of chemicals; girls who have remained in math courses suddenly find themselves doing it with ease. By the time adulthood is reached, there is no biochemical basis for the gender divide. Unfortunately, by that time, many girls have left STEM courses: their absence is almost certainly a factor in the sociological reasons we are failing female math students, which I will talk about some other time.
So what do we do? Innumeracy is one of the biggest problms facing our society today- without mathematical literacy, it is terrifyingly easy to be manipulated and taken advantage of. Media scaremongering about the apocalypse, for example- that earth will be sucked into a black hole because (gasp) we're in perfect alignment, somehow forgetting that the earth has an ELLIPTICAL ORBIT- takes blatant advantage of the everyman's lack of scientific knowledge.
We combat illiteracy by making language arts compulsory. Why not do the same with math? Why not alter the curriculum, so that every student has to take 4 years of math? It doesn't matter what type- finance, accounting, design and construction math, calculus, programming math- these are all on offer at larger public school across North America, so to do this would not require an material financial difference, but it would go a long way both to closing the gender gap and to making our society a better place to live.
/gets off soapbox