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Equality in education

Our young males are active, time and again being disciplined for their over-activity, often being pulled from the classroom setting and, in due course falling behind. If and when a young man falls behind, he is prone to being identified for special education services and sent to join his peers who encompass a large portion of the special ed populace. If he interrupts, is persistently moving, can't sit still, or plays around he automatically becomes four times more apt to be recognized as having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) resulting in his being medicated. (Conlin, 2003)

Taking a look at the problem as a whole we must first take responsibility for every child from the time they enter school. It is not the high school teacher's duty to play catch-up for what wasn't gained while children were in elementary and middle schools. In saying this, we must be aware that a large percentage of the Ds and Fs given in the United States are given to boys. Moreover, the largest percentage of our high school drop outs are young men and this is the same for classroom discipline problems. (Utsey, 2005)

The question now is how do we address the issues stated above in order to assure an environment devoted to Learning for All? The first thing I looked at was brain research regarding the differences between the way girl's brains develop and the way boy's brains develop. The brain of a girl matures very differently from that of a boy. Girl's corpus callosum is typically up to 25 percent larger than boys by the time she attains adolescence, which enables her two hemispheres to communicate much easier. The part of the brain which manages memory storage is bigger in girls than boys resulting in an advantage in the language arts. Moreover, girls are inclined to having stronger neural connectors in their temporal lobes which supports better listening aptitudes and more thorough memory storage. Also, girl's prefrontal cortex, as a rule, is more active than boys and develops earlier which accounts for girls predisposition to making less impetuous choices. Additionally, girls have more serotonin in their brains and bloodstreams which makes them biologically less impulsive. Much of this brain research can help teachers understand why girls tend to outperform boys in reading and writing. (Utsey, 2005)

Conversely, boys are more inclined to having less serotonin and oxytocin in their bloodstreams which are calming chemicals. Furthermore, they usually have more dopamine in


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