Editorial: Science & Education Need to Work Together for Boys & Girls

Kelley King, Kathy Stevens, and I were honored to have our article "Gender-Friendly Schools" published in this month's Educational Leadership. Our work follows two decades of field research in the application of gender science to classrooms. In our article, we feature a number of schools that have utilized science-based strategies and pedagogy to close achievement gaps, move off of state watch lists, make AYP, increase teacher effectiveness, and turnaround low-performing schools.
 
If you read the blog post by Professor Lise Eliot (regarding "gender pseudo-science"), you'll notice Eliot attacks me and my colleagues as educators who make "bogus" claims. Seeing students as boys and girls with inherent (and sometimes differentiated) learning needs is problematic for Eliot, and she claims to have "proof" that her opinion is the right one. 
 
It is worth noting: Eliot's opinion that gender science is not a well-developed science is not necessarily shared by every neuroscientist in the field of gender studies. For nearly 100 references to studies in brain science that conclude differently than Eliot, please check out www.michaelgurian.com/about.html. One study you'll see on that reference page is "The Science of Sex Differences in Science and Mathematics," by Halpern et al., in Psychological Science in the Public Interest (August 2007), 8 (I). 
 
Diane Halpern, Camilla Benbow, and their colleagues have studied more than a million individuals, utilizing brain scan technologies, other laboratory measures, and field research. They've been conducting this research for nearly three decades. Their scan, laboratory, and field work is not bogus or "pseudo-science." It is good science that we as educators need.
 
This last point is crucial: We educators are experientially developing wisdom-of-practice research regarding gender science in our schools. I hope you'll read "Gender-Friendly Schools" or the book Boys and Girls Learn Differently. You'll meet educators like yourself who have looked into the eyes of their students, realized boys and girls have some clear, differentiated learning needs, and closed achievement and behavior gaps by innovating scientifically and creatively to meet those needs.  
 
Post submitted by Michael Gurian, cofounder of the Gurian Institute and coauthor of 16 books on gender studies, including Boys and Girls Learn Differently and Strategies for Teaching Boys and Girls.