Role model?
I’m often asked about this, as a female physics teacher. I’ve been one of 4 women in a physics department fortunate enough to have 7 full-time specialist teachers. You’d think that would encourage the girls to shrug off the oily overalls image and believe in the shiny spacesuit of A level physics? But no – in this co-ed setting, we seldom had more than 25% girls in sixth form physics classes.
So what’s the problem?
Do girls have different brains? Or is it a nurture problem?
Let’s hope this will soon be a thing of the past
Are we unable to shield our girl physicists from negative messages put about in the media – or, dare to whisper it – from their schools or even their parents?
In Horizon a couple of weeks ago Michael Mosley and Alice Roberts concluded that girl/boy brains are slightly different, (even girl monkeys prefer playing with dolls than trucks) but not enough to account for the variation in behaviour. So we have to look to the environment in which we bring them up. Here we were shown some shocking experiment results suggesting that even parents discriminate, and set tougher challenges for their baby sons than their daughters.
This Verizon ad shows how messages can be deeply embedded in children by our parenting of them.
The sum of the nature-nurture imbalance is that we have girls who, generally-speaking, are more risk-averse, caring, collaborative and better at multi-tasking. Yes, really: fMRI reveals left-right hemisphere neuronal connections crossing over more in female brains!
But how does this affect uptake of physics by girls?
Well, I’ve seen first-hand over many years of teaching physics that girls in mixed classes can be put off by the confidence of boys. Boys can be impatient to get their hands on the apparatus and competitive in showing off what they know. Even in single sex classes, girls can be very unsure of their ability, doubting their own understanding despite scoring high marks. The result is that risk-averse girls veer away from the subject they fear they will fail, especially if there are strong messages telling them that physics is not for them.
HOWEVER – all these diagnoses have a remedy: excellent teaching. Sounds simple…but that’s for another blog!
So why bother encouraging the girls in physics…
…if their brains are different and the socio-behavioural odds are stacked against them? Let the boys develop the fusion energy, future screen technology, particle colliders, green transport, space telescopes, MRI scanners. As long as we’re plugging the 40 000 STEM jobs gap to keep the politicians and economists happy…
Ok fine. Just don’t tell the girls that they’re missing out on the best brain-training for life: studying a subject which brings them analytical and quantitative ability, dexterity and ICT skills – and a whole new technicolour view of the universe in all its glorious workings (my favourite cartoon below).
And they might just enjoy it.
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