Grammar Police Officer

Boys and Girls Learn Differently...

...is the title of a book I am currently reading. The author is Michael Gurian, of the Gurian Institute, and I already read his The Wonder of Boys and The Wonder of Girls, both of which were very well-researched and very well-written, and which I really enjoyed.

So here is an excerpt that caught my attention:

"Girls tend to have better verbal abilities and rely heavily on verbal communication; boys tend to rely heavily on nonverbal communication, being innately less able on average to verbalize feelings and responses as quickly as girls. This has immense ramifications in our present [educational] culture, which relies so heavily on talk, conversation, word. We [teachers] are all far better trained at listening to words than at watching silent cues, which often makes comunication with a male difficult." (italics mine.)

I find Gurian's research, writing, and theories really interesting! Gurian bases all his claims on brain and body research, on scientific evidence. I've noticed all kinds of differences between females and males for quite a while now, but most of it I thought was just my limited experience. It's not...Gurian cites research which gives physiological evidence for the peculiarities of each gender.

So I was wondering:

• Men, do you agree with the quote? Do we women over-talk without reading body language?


• Women, do you agree with the quote? Do men read our nonverbal cues better than our verbal cues?

Source of quote: Gurian, Michael. Boys and Girls Learn Differently: A Guide for Teachers and Parents. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001. Quote from page 27.)