It has been interesting to observe the behaviour of younger children as the school trips go around the nature park. Even the youngest classes we used to get at secondary level have their hormones switched on, so all of the older kids' behaviour is tainted by that poison.
I am also able to observe more because I am still only doing bits of the tour. The kids are fully occupied and both leaders are excellent, so I feel that what I am seeing from the kids is real, not exacerbated by boredom.
When I was over in England in January/February, I noticed a difference in behaviours between girls and boys when Holly's friends came round or when we went to playgroup. These were well-parented kids, but even at 18 months, the boys were far more forceful and attention grabbing. They would look at objects and then bash or throw them. Their mothers were having to deal with their behaviour all the time.
At the Nature Park I have noticed similar patterns. The children that we have seen so far have been Kindergarten up to grade two, so the oldest I have seen are seven years old.
In general the boys will be at the front of the group. They will call out answers and tend to raise their voice to do so, so they seem louder. All of the hyperactive behaviour I have seen so far has been from boys.
There is a point in the tour where Lori or Joanne get them to see how many times they can flap their arms in ten seconds, to show them how amazing the hummingbird is. If you try this you can most likely not do many more than one flap per second. When the children are asked how many times they flapped, the girls will usually give an answer around ten, the first boy will say something like twenty and the next one will be more and so on, until the last boy asked has flapped his arms fifty or sixty times in ten seconds. If you ask a girl in the middle of this flapping contest, she will still say the number she has counted rather than join in the contest.
The boys seem more open to auto-suggestion. If we tell them to look out for garter snakes, the boys will all see one, even though the park staff haven't seen any yet this year.
At this age, the girls seem like better scientists. Even so, I'm still not convinced that the difference in behaviour is more than the result of differences in the way parents treat them or the way they relate to their parents in terms of gender.
This morning we had a group who had come from further afield and there were a lot of dads who had driven them. When the dad was there with a boy, there was a lot of photographing of their sons next to the snake tank, the interaction on the trail was more 'hey, come here and look at this, have you seen that?' and then when we walked the snake trail, although the dads were reassuring their sons (as we had) that there were no dangerous snakes in the park, the script went 'and no rattlesnakes, no anacondas, no cobras,' they had to mention the dangerous ones by name.
In contrast, the conversations between dads and their daughters was more along the lines of 'it's ok sweetie, daddy's still here, you go back and listen to the teacher.' The dads encouraged their daughters to be part of the group and value what the teacher said, but they wanted to interact with their sons individually, re-directing their attention when convenient.
I know I have written this as though I were valuing one behaviour more than another, and in a way I do, because I am a teacher, and the class as a whole benefits more from the quieter 'listen and observe' approach.
Humans are animals though and obviously the different types of behaviour have evolved for a reason. Male animals tend to have brighter colours, in the park it's the male animals who have to do the singing to attract the females. But humans have the potential to modify their behaviour at will. If we close the gap between 'natural' male and female patterns, what could result? Will we stop reproducing? See I don't think so, because across human society a whole range of child rearing paradigms have developed. In our own highly prized democratic western society we value choice and freedom. We no longer need a male-female pair to raise children, we don't even need the male-female sex act to produce a baby, although it helps, and we do still need the basic building blocks of sperm and egg just as we ever did.
I'm not sure whether I think the patterns of gender behaviour that I am observing are good or bad or doomed overall. What I do think is that we need difference. The flawed, the agent provocateur, the 'he said, she said'.
Hegel showed us history as an ongoing conversation. A generation acts, thinks, and moves the conversation forward and then another generation reacts, re-thinks, takes another step. In Hegel's theory there is an end to the conversation, when the dialogue of history (the dialectic) finally reaches an ideal, like two people coming to agreement at the end of a discussion.
Is this what is happening? Are we headed towards metrosexuality? It doesn't really matter, so long as we have to interact with other people, whatever their gender, we still have seasoning in the soup.
So what when the conversation's over? What when we are all agreed on our ends and our means? I believe that the ongoing dialectic improves our society, and I can envisage that there will be an ideal which could be reached. What I don't think is that people will ever stop being individuals, just that in the end, if gender differences are blurred, we will make choices about how we want to live, behave and be instead of having to play a role. At the moment, I'm pretty sure that what I am seeing is little actors being groomed for the roles their parents or society thinks they should play.
When we stop expecting that everyone should behave like a boy or a girl, then they will be able to just be the person they want.
So long as they all shut up when I'm talking to them.
2 comments:
You know, today's theme is very similar to yesterday's. And you and Hegel sitting in a tree together is part of the problem. The idea of the dialectic shows no understanding of human nature. The next generation don't learn from mum and dad: in the words of thousands of grandparents 'they won't be told'. They'll make their own mistakes, get old, try and warn their grand-kids, who'll smile sweetly, take their money and do whatever the hell they want.
And how does your mate Hegel explain the Dark Ages? Or America?
yeah they do, you're a better, smarter person than me. It's not a ladder it's more like...a herringbone pattern. Can't see the problem with the dark ages unless you think they were a better pattern of a society than we have now.
I also think America is a good example of Hegelian dialectic in progress. There are parts of the US where people can live a physically and intellectually good life, tolerant and free and there are other parts where bigotry rules. If Hegel was right, eventually the South will catch up. Course a bit more Clintonism might make the whole thing quicker.
My mother was clever but she never got the chance to go to university. The generation of women who taught me were exceptional in that they had had to be special to go to uni. My generation had good access to university because of the actions and thoughts of generations before, both men and women. In my opinion, many reforms of the twentieth century were brought about by David Lloyd George, although obviously his thinking was informed by many women.
I agree that existential philosophy has influenced my thinking though.
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