Gender Equity In Science Education

A basic premise behind the push for gender equity is wrong (C&EN, Aug. 24, 2009, page 31). In the process of structuring our schools to encourage girls, we've inadvertently taken out of the schools something necessary for all children, and especially boys, to learn. This nation used to be a nation of small schools where there was plenty of open space for vigorous play. Besides that, children were required to perform everyday chores, which included hunting, farming, building fences, and lots of work around the home.

Now, we have big schools with limited outdoor recreational facilities, and our children have few, if any, chores at home. This means school athletes are the only children who have assured access to an abundance of vigorous exercise. The rest get structured recesses and physical education classes and have to trade vigorous fun-filled play for adult-directed physical exercise. From this we get fidgety kids who have trouble sitting still in class.

So we tell parents their children have attention deficit disorder and encourage placing them on drugs such as Ritalin. We're doping our kids because they aren't getting enough exercise and so are having trouble learning. If you look at the statistics, you'll see the vast majority of the children taking these drugs are boys. And we wonder why our children, especially the boys, are having problems.

Michael Jemiola
Redondo Beach, Calif.