Suggest these standardized Naplan test questions by your 10-year-old and listen to her answers.
When the holidays are over, Dad’s uncle (my great uncle) from Italy comes to visit.
This sentence contains an error when using a
One upper case letter.
B. a comma.
C. an apostrophe.
D. brackets.
Anna opens a savings account. She deposits $ 4 in the first week. Then she deposits twice as much money every week as the week before.
The total amount in the account is
A. always strange.
B. always here.
C. sometimes strange and sometimes even.
Many 10 year olds will respond with “I’m not an English girl” or “I’m not a math girl” when faced with such questions. In other contexts, I’ve heard 10-year-olds say, “I’m not a sporty girl.” For my book, Ten-ager – What Your Daughter Needs To Know About The Transition From Child To Teen, I sought the advice of 500 Australian 10-year-old girls, 1,600 mothers and 100-year-old 5 teachers, and I’ve heard many girls tell me what they weren’t good at, as if they had made up their minds at 10am.
You can hear psychologist Karen Young, the founder of the Hey Sigmund website, shudder when she says, “We don’t even know what they can do when they’re 10! They are placed in these environments where, instead of being playful, it becomes competitive. “
And even if they are told the tests are not competitive, they are. They send signals to children that they are below average, or not where they should be. “Even when teachers and parents say, ‘That’s great, you did a great job and we’re really proud of you,'” they look around at others, “she says. And when they feel, even in a small group of four or five friends, being at the bottom of numbers, the message is clear. “I’m not a smart girl.” “I’m not athletic like my friends.” “I’m not going to do math / science in high school . “
They put a ceiling on their potential, and many of them carry that on to Years 6 and 7. “We don’t even know what they’ll be like at 10,” says Karen Young. “Their brains are still developing.”
In this project I chased so many rabbits into so many holes: girls’ passion for their pets; their love of cooking; how they wanted to improve the world; their struggle to find lasting friends; what they see when they look in the mirror; the messages encrypted in the digital background that fills their lives; the first tentative steps of independence; the brutality of Covid-19; the anxiety of depression, self-harm and eating disorders; the search for self-worth and the monster that sometimes presents that body image. But the one that got me down the drain was how 10 year olds determine what they see as their future path … in year 5!
Many of them then write their own story. They stop trying in a particular topic. They are withdrawing from the hockey team. They decide that the science club is not for them, but for the “science girls”.
“I can’t do math.”
“I’m not good at sports.”
“I can never finish my homework on time.”
“I’m worried about schoolwork because I’m not good at it.”
“I’m bad at school.”
“I’m worried that I won’t be able to go to high school because I’m not smart enough.”
None of them say they aren’t good at being nice, or have empathy, or play an instrument, or sew, or argue, or be a pet owner, or any number of other talents that could be just as important, if not more important, than one year 5 math quiz.
“My daughter thinks because she doesn’t get As at school, she’s not smart,” a mother wrote to me. “I think that is sad.” Another says this: “She can’t even ride a bike, and now she won’t try anymore.” Another: “She has given up the sport because she has a high standard and doesn’t believe she is good.” And yet another: “She won’t make the most of her talents because she’s afraid of making mistakes or looking stupid.”
And so it continues – a fear that girls will put themselves in a box at the ages of 10 and 11.
Prof Susan Sawyer, president of the International Association of Adolescent Health, says these restrictions may be the result of gender-based beliefs about what boys and girls in families should or could do. But the potential is also limited by what girls internalize at this age.
“This is often very unconscious, but we adopt the values around us and the feedback we receive as successful or unsuccessful,” she says.
This can affect the confidence we then have when performing tasks, such as math. And our confidence and expectations will determine how “brave” we will be in terms of future engagement.
The tendency of young girls – and, often unintentionally, their parents – to put a ceiling on their talents frustrates educators across the length and breadth of our country. The director of the Korowa Anglican Girls’ School in Melbourne, Helen Carmody, sees this journey for many girls as part of their quest for identity. They take over the messages of those around them, and that can quickly turn into very closed options for themselves. Carmody, and almost everyone else who has been studied, begs the question of whether we might be complimenting our kids too much. “I think parents tell them a lot about what they are good at. You know, instead of rewarding them for the work they do, or the challenges they face, or the things they try, there is that very constant praise, ”she says.
It sounds like this: “Oh, that’s a beautiful piece of art, but then you’re such a great artist.” Instead of, “You worked so hard. You should be proud of that; it took 10 hours. “
Author Rebecca Sparrow says, “That idea of ’you are great’ and ‘look how great you are’ – I think that message is problematic. And when you have that message, I think you may have less room for understanding [others]. “
Matt Macoustra, deputy chief of operations at Barker College in Sydney, says if you ask a girl why she says she’s “not a math owner,” she’ll say, “Because I’m not good at it.” Sometimes he sees the penny drop when he explains that perseverance can change that. “And it seems to be much more common in young women than in boys,” he says.
Girls could sometimes internalize criticism and take an exam result in person, instead of seeing it as “a point on the page.” He gives this analogy: if a boy were told he had made a mistake in football, he would think he was not kicking the ball properly in that particular match; it wouldn’t be a problem about him as a person. However, a girl is likely to take the mistake personally.
Educators say that once a child has made a decision that they can or cannot do something, it is difficult to change that mindset. It has prompted some schools to cross subjects – for example, to include art in science or technology in math. “So the learning comes together, so you can see the application of what you’re doing and less likely to think about dividing things along subject lines,” says one teacher. Another explains an early focus on entrepreneurship, where children are encouraged to make a product, pitch it, sell it, and create a business plan. The idea, from start to finish, is to open a closed mind.
Susan Dalton, director of Miami high school, says schools need to be strategic with their schedules in order to provide girls with a range of experiences so they don’t limit their interests and skills too early. “Schools have control over how they can help not to pigeonhole girls at that age,” she says.
But there is a constant need to work to ensure that girls continue to “reach for the stars”, step out of their comfort zone and become part of a “culture of inclusion”. It works best when parents and school work together. So what advice would Dalton give to the parents whose girls are shaky about pursuing activities they don’t win at?
To listen more than we talk. Keep the lines of communication open. And don’t use our daughters to fulfill our own dreams.
-
This is an edited excerpt from Ten-ager – What Your Daughter Needs to Know About the Transition from Child to Teen, by Madonna King (Hachette, $ 32.95)