I've heard it mentioned as a given quite a few times in quite a number of places (examples off the top of my head: this and this) that boys are ill-served by the traditional classroom model of school. Apparently they find it way harder than girls to sit down, sit still, listen, pay attention, read, write, buckle down and do their work, etc.
But there's a great big neon blinking question mark here that I haven't seen addressed or even mentioned anywhere: the traditional classroom model, complete with sitting, listening, paying attention, and diligently doing work, dates back to when school was for boys only. Off the top of my head and limiting myself only to Anglo-Saxon culture (because that's the only one I have pertinent information from off the top of my head), I know that the traditional classroom model was around in the UK in the middle ages, because the Catholic church used it (at Oxford and elsewhere) to train boys up to be priests.
So when did this model, which was originally conceived for a male-only context, become unsuitable for boys? Why and how did this happen? If someone could figure this out, maybe we could address it or undo it.
6 comments:
Being a no-kidder: I hate how nearly everytime a classroom is shown in the news the desks are arranged in social square(s) formation rather than forward rows with all students facing the teacher.
When I was a kid - lol, most students could very easily ignore any chatterbox girl or malcontent grotty boy types. What does one do when you're placed, throughout an entire day - everyday, sitting backwards (and/or facing a 'bother child', also perhaps a social pod or two beyond sitting immediacy) instead of the instructing teacher?
My Grade 5 classroom was laid out like that, and whenever I looked up from my desk, the table-mate in whose general direction I was looking would tell me to stop staring at them. Even though I was just looking out the window or reading the blackboard or something.
Good question, ImpStrump.
For most of my public-school education, the desks were arranaged in a big square, with the blackboard comprising the 4th side. I liked it, but in any case, it's not new.
A big square wouldn't be too bad I don't think. Many of my university classes were set up like that. (I generally had small classes.) We were in little squares of four or five or six desks, so whenever you looked up there was someone facing you, and it really mattered who you were seated with.
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