Does A Teachers Gender Play A Role In Education?

[kandrathe]

Your own schoolboy blueballs aside, do you think the study is essentially saying students learn better when there's no sexual attraction to the teacher? Now, I would guess that to be most of the time, so I lean toward the study showing something else... though whatever it is, any practical use it may have escapes me.

-Lemmy

My interpretation was more "Why would boys in a segregated classroom learn better from a male teacher?" At that age (pre-rebellion), adolescents are firming up their identity formation. So, it would seem to me that segregated, adolescents are more willing to "follow the leader" rather than "compete for attentions from the opposite sex". I would imagine the "beauty/handsomeness" of the teacher also would have something to do with the level of competitiveness. So the fly in Doc's ointment of "trying to please", is that they may be doing that competitively standing on the head of the other students. This competitiveness reduces the energy that can be devoted to learning. But it's just a hunch.