Boys and Girls

Learn Differently
based on the research and writings of

Michael Gurian
Debra Austin

Background
Brain Stem

where fight-or flight responses reside

Limbic System

where emotion is processed

Four Lobes at Top of Brain

where thinking generally occurs

Different sensory stimulants are processed in
each lobe

Top of Brain

Left Hemisphere

verbal skills speaking, reading, and writing

Right Hemisphere

spatial skills measuring, perceiving direction, and

working objects

Female Brains vs Male Brains

Female brains mature earlier and more
quickly than male brains
Girls acquire complex verbal skills earlier
Corpus callosum is the bundle of nerves
that connects the right and left
hemispheres
Up to 20% larger in girls than boys
Gives girls better cross talk between
hemispheres

More Structural Differences

Girls take in more sensory data than boys
Hear and smell better
Take in more information through their
fingertips and skin

Girls have better verbal abilities and rely

heavily on verbal communication
Boys rely heavily on nonverbal
communication, being less able to verbalize
feelings and responses as quickly as girls
Boys have more development in the right
hemisphere, providing them with better
spatial abilities

Chemicals and Hormones

Boys
Male brains secrete less serotonin than
female brains, making males more
impulsive and fidgety
Testosterone is the male growth, sex-drive,
and aggression hormone
Males receive 5 to 7 testosterone surges
per day, beginning around age 10, and
these can cause moods that vacillate
between aggressive and withdrawn

Chemicals and Hormones

Girls
Oxytocin is more constantly stimulated
in females, making them capable of
quick empathetic responses to others
pain and need
Progesterone is the female growth and
bonding hormone

Hormones and Learning

When females have high estrogen,
they score higher on tests
When testosterone is high in males,
they perform better on spatial
exams, but worse on verbal tests

Female Brain has

Learning Advantage
Resting female brain is as active as the
activated male brain
Ruben Gur brain imaging techniques

Female brain uses its resources quickly,

often, and in more places
Areas of Greater Functioning
Females are memory and sensory intake
Males are spatial tasks and abstract
reasoning

Considerations for Teachers

Because girls can hear better than
boys
Boys need a louder voice
Boys may need to be near the front of
the room

Females can see better than males in

a darkened room and males see
better than females in bright light

Emotional Processing
Girls
Process more emotive stimulants and more
completely than boys
More likely to process hurt and talk about it with
others
Emotionally tougher they talk or cry about
distress

Boys
Move information to limbic system and brain
stem
This response short-circuits intellectual and
academic learning
This emotive process takes longer and involves
less reasoning

10 Brain-based Differences
1. Deductive/Inductive Reasoning
Boys
Deductive
Start reasoning from general principle and apply it
Have advantage in fast multiple-choice tests such as
SATs

Girls
Inductive
Begin with specific, concrete examples and build
general theory, adding to their base
Have advantage in verbalization, writing, and giving
an example

2 Abstract/Concrete Reasoning
Boys
Better than girls at calculating something
without seeing it
Abstract is explored more by the male brain,
than the female brain
Boys like abstract arguments, philosophical
conundrums, and moral debates

Architecture and engineering, which rely on

abstract design principles, are attractive to
male brains

Girls
Better when math is taught with manipulatives

3 Use of Language
Females
Produce more words than males
Prefer ideas conceptualized in normal language
with concrete details

Males
Use fewer words and often work silently
Find jargon and coded language more
interesting

Groups
Parity in word use in female groups
1 or 2 dominating males speak more

4 Logic and Evidence

Girls
Better listeners, hear more, and
receptive to details

Boys
Hear less and ask for clear evidence to
support anothers claim

5 Likelihood of Boredom
Boys
Bored more easily than girls
Need more & varying stimuli to keep
them attentive
Once bored, likely to give up on learning
and may act out

Girls
Better at managing boredom

6 Use of Space
Boys
Spatial brains require more space
Need more physical space when they learn
Especially when younger

May use more of a table than a girl,

which teachers consider impolite or
aggressive

7- Movement
Males
Movement stimulates male brains
Helps manage impulse behavior

Girls
Do not need to move around as much while
learning

Tips
Give boys something to touch, chores,
modeling clay, or encourage doodling
Movement included in lessons physical
representations
Breaks stretch breaks change locations in
room

8 Sensitivity & Group Dynamics

Cooperative Learning
Easier for girls
Girls can learn while attending to a code
of social interaction
Boys focus on performing the task well,
without sensitivity to those around them

Pecking order
Important for boys and they are fragile
learners when low in the pecking order
Less popular girls perform better than
less popular boys
Males at lower end of pecking order
secrete more cortisol (stress
hormone), which can sabotage the
learning process. It forces the brain to
focus on survival rather than the
intellectual process.

9 Use of Symbolism
Both boys and girls like pictures, but
boys often rely on them in their
learning because they stimulate the
right hemisphere, which is where
many boys are more developed.
Boys like symbolic texts, diagrams, and
graphs because of the coded quality
Girls prefer written texts

10 Use of Learning Teams

Both genders benefit
Boys create structured teams
Boys spend less time than girls in
managing teams
Boys pick leaders quickly and focus on
the goal

Girls form looser organizations

Academic Performance
Girls study harder than boys
Girls choose harder courses in
middle and high school at a higher
rate than boys
Girls get 60% of the As and boys get
70% of the Ds and Fs
62% of the top 1/5 of high school
performers are girls

Classroom Behavior
Boys are louder, more physically aggressive,
more competitive, and prone to attentiongetter behavior than girls
Boys are less mature
Girls are more quiet, passive and sendentary
than boys
During puberty/adolescence boys seek
outward dominance and girls seen inward
excellence
Girls have longer attention spans than boys

Reading & Writing Competence

Girls are approximately 1.5 years
ahead of boys in reading and writing
competence at all school levels
Boys are dominant in certain aspects
of math and science due to brain
structure
Improved instruction is necessary for
boys in reading and writing, as well
as for girls in math and science

Test Scores
Boys score slightly higher on SATs
Males are slightly better at storing singlesentence information than females
Male brains have a visual advantage in
working with and making quick deductive
decisions on lists (such as multiple choice)
Female brains think more inductively and
need substantial information to make a
decision
Females have the advantage on essay
questions

Psychological, Learning &

Behavioral Disorders - Girls
Girls experience overt depression and
eating disorders in their teens
For every 1 suicide attempt by a boy, there
are 4 attempts by girls
Females are less likely to experience
learning, psychiatric, or behavioral disorder
Not as many attention problems
Use more cortical areas for more learning
functions
Secret more serotonin than males so less
inclined toward hyperactivity

Psychological, Learning &

Behavioral Disorders - Boys
Male brain lateralizes activity,
compartmentalizing it in smaller areas
of the brain, therefore suffering more
learning disorders
2/3 of the learning disabled and 90% of
the behaviorally disabled are boys
Boys have 80% of the brain disorders and
70% of the substance-abuse problems
For every girl who actually commits
suicide, 4 boys do.

Psychological, Learning &

Behavioral Disorders
Because girls use more cortical areas of
the brain for learning, if they experience a
slight defect, another area makes up for it
Because the male brain lateralizes, a
defect in one area of the brain may affect
the only area in which a particular learning
function is taking place
Many boys are misdiagnosed with learning
disorders, ADHD, or ADD

Psychological, Learning &

Behavioral Disorders
For Boys - create classrooms to help
them deal with their natural
impulsiveness, lateralization of brain
activity, left- hemisphere
disadvantage, and learning styles
For Boys & Girls create bonding
and attachment communities in our
classrooms/schools

Maturity, Discipline &

Behavior
The maturity gap between boys &
girls, especially teenagers, is one of
the most pronounced brain-based
gap and may be the most profoundly
disabling feature of classroom life. It
is the root of many behaviors labeled
defective.
The Boys and Girls Learn Differently
Action Guide for Teachers, p 26

Maturity, Discipline & Behavior - Sex

Female hormones, maturing earlier,
guide girls toward long-term emotional
attachments at a time when
Immature male hormones may guide
the boy toward short-term
experimental attachments
Teen pregnancy may lead the girl to
drop out of school and the boy to
abandon the girl and child

Maturity, Discipline & Behavior

SCHOOL
Boys, with more impulsive and less mature
brain
Get into far more trouble in school
Cause 90% of the discipline problems
Are 80% of the dropouts
Garner the majority of punishment for behavior

Discipline that works for girls in middle and

early high school
Often inconsistent, friendly, and lacking
profound authority

Often doesnt work for boys

Elder dominance systems with intense bonding

and authority best manage boys until they learn
to manage themselves

Educational Aspirations
Both boys and girls fear failure (boys
more than girls) due to parent demands
to compete in school and workplace
On average, 8th and 12th grade girls
have higher educational aspirations
than boys
60% of college grads are female and
college graduation is the most
consistent indicator of stable future
income

Athletics and
Extracurricular Activities
Boys tend to choose interactive social
activities that de-emphasize verbalization
and emphasize spatial and physical
aggression
Boys participate more in sports (and have better
funding) only 37% of HS athletes are girls

Girls tend to choose interactive social

activities that emphasize verbalization
Girls are the majority of student-government
officials, club leaders, and community liaisons

Cultural Gender Bias - Boys

Boys are at the most gender-based
disadvantage in our schools

K-6 teachers are 90% women

Teachers have not received training in male
brain development and performance
Most systems rely less on kinesthetic and
male-brain appropriate educational strategies
needed by boys
Early writers, eager to deal with anti-female
bias in the workplace, may have been eager to
prove similar bias in schools
Although boys are called on more than girls,
much of the attention boys get in school is
punitive, not rewarding

Cultural Gender Bias - Girls

Boys may dominate discussions in
some classrooms resulting in loss of
voice for girls
Role modeling and heroes in
literature are more often male
Good-old-boy networks in some
schools teach males they are
inherently privileged and bestow
advantages on them, especially in
access to employment networks

Cultural Gender Bias

Student Coping
Girls are more likely to express and
detail negative feelings and
experiences
Boys are reluctant to share feelings
about any experience or details about
a painful experience
Girls are only slightly more likely than
boys to express feelings about bias

Sexual Abuse and Violence

Because males primarily victimize
other males, boys are 3 times more
likely than girls to be victims of
violence on school property
Girls are more often victims of sexual
abuse or harassment at the hands of
teachers, parents, coaches, school
staff, and other students

Protecting Boys and Girls

Create a different school culture
Closer bonding, smaller classes, more
verbalization, less male isolation, better
discipline systems, more authority, more
attention to male learning styles
Anti-bullying curricula help students
deal with their internal systems for
expressing angry, sad, and hurt energy

Benefits of Experiential Learning

In learning-by-doing, students
internalize the content
Content is less likely to be perceived
as the teachers
As students engage in activities,
they are more apt to ask questions
and make inferences

Benefits of Experiential Learning

Many projects are group-based
Safety of group encourages
introverted students to verbalize
understandings and conclusions
Group work allows students to
experience, observe, and learn about
group processes and dynamics
Listening, cooperating, and competing

Benefits of Experiential Learning

Learning is retained when students
can practice their new skills and talk
or reflect about their new knowledge
soon after the learning experience
Coaching and feedback is especially
important in the process

Resources
http://www.michaelgurian.com/
Boys and Girls Learn Differently! A Guide
for Teachers and Parents
ISBN 0-7879-6117-5

The Boys and Girls Learn Differently Action

Guide for Teachers
ISBN 0-7879-6485-9

The Minds of Boys: Saving our Sons from

Falling Behind in School and Life
ISBN 0-7879-7761-6