Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: MentorNet (one woman's response)



At 06:44 12 10 2002 , the following was received:
This thread has so far not focused on what can be done to improve women's
performance in physics classes. The evidence for this problem goes way
back and there are many articles in Jour. of Res. in Sci. Teaching (JRST)
which investigate this problem. It starts in grade school and continues all
the way through graduate school. At each stage women have difficulty and
drop out. Science, and especially physics seems to be a filter which
removes women.

John, another facet which you don't address is the problem solving
abilities of men vs non-men: Male brains tend to be either left or
right -- Generally they are good chefs, painters, composers, etc -- ie
creative OR they tend to be analytical and have a high sneakiness
coefficient -- good accountants (as we have seen recently). OTOH the
brains of non-males seem generally to have right and left brains function
synergistically -- They can analyze and create at the same time -- and in
my classroom they do seem to excel in this regard compared to males -- ie
they ought to make fine physicists.

Apparently they are also wise enough to use their talents elsewhere.


Jim Green
mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen

This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.