Hormones on the Brain

At school, boys are fidgety, difficult, inattentive, and slow to learn, compared to girls. Nineteen out of every twenty hyperactive children are boys. Four times as many boys as girls are dyslexic and learning disabled. "Education is almost a conspiracy against the aptitudes and inclinations of a schoolboy," wrote psychologist Dianne McGuiness, a sentiment to which almost every man with a memory of school will raise a hearty cry of assent.

But another fact begins to emerge at school. Girls are simply better at linguistic forms of learning, boys at mathematical and some spatial skills. Boys are more abstract, girls more literal. Boys with an extra X chromosome (XXY instead of the normal XY) are much more verbal than other boys. Girls with Turner's syndrome (no ovaries) are even worse at spatial tasks than other girls but just as good at verbal ones. Girls who were exposed to male hormones in the womb are better at spatial tasks. Boys who were exposed to female hormones are worse at spatial tasks. These facts have been first disputed and then actively suppressed by the educational establishment, which continues to insist that there are no differences in learning ability between boys and girls. According to one researcher, such suppression has done both boys and girls far more harm than good.

Notes:

How hormones affect learning in school children.

Folksonomies: evolution education gender gender differences development

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The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature

Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Ridley , Matt (2003-05-01), The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature, Harper Perennial, Retrieved on 2011-05-03

Folksonomies: evolution culture sex evolutionary psychology