I've done a lot of surveys and interacted with a lot of students, and I was shocked to see that at 12 years old, girls are already talking about dumbing themselves down.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There is an epidemic right now of girls dumbing themselves down... in middle school because they think it makes them attractive.
I'm used to being surrounded by really smart 22-year-old students who have no problem saying that something I suggested is not a very good idea.
Somehow, talking to young students brings you back to reality - it should, anyway.
I think girls from a young age know what they want, and boys kind of have to keep up and catch up to them. Even in kindergarten, girls are pretty much the ones that like the boy first and the boys are like, 'Oh, I want to play with my trucks.' They think it's not cool. I think girls are definitely more ahead than boys.
I think a lot of young kids at school are very conscious of trying to keep credibility in case they kind of stand out in a crowd and get bullied by trying to stay cool and stuff. And my whole thing, all the way through school, was I was just a goof... I didn't care.
Teenage years are hard. And, having taught high school for a number of years, I think they're particularly hard on teenage girls. The most self-conscious human beings on the planet are teenage girls.
Girls enjoy complex social interaction. Their verbal skills - and their delight in using them - develop earlier than boys'.
Education, doing homework, is the way to lift up girls. Around the world, where girls are educated, the economy and the standard of living rise.
All I can say is, I don't encourage younger kids to read my books, and actually, the biggest age group on my Facebook page is 25- to 35-year-old women.
Classrooms keep getting set up more and more around the verbal and less around the kinesthetic and active. They are increasingly becoming environments that favour the girls' brain.