Word: sandgerdi
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...Sandgerdi might be the perfect place to raise girls who have mathematical talent. Government researchers two years ago tested almost every 15-year-old in Iceland for it and found that boys trailed far behind girls. That fact was unique among the 41 countries that participated in the standardized test for that age group designed by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. But while Iceland's girls were alone in the world in their significant lead in math, their national advantage of 15 points was small compared with the one they had over boys in fishing villages like Sandgerdi...
...teachers of Sandgerdi's 254 students were only mildly surprised by the results. They say the gender gap is a story not of talent but motivation. Boys think of school as purgatory on the way to a future of finding riches at sea; for girls, it's their ticket out of town. Margret Ingporsdottir and Hanna Maria Heidarsdottir, both 15, students at Sandgerdi's gleaming school--which has a science laboratory, a computer room and a well-stocked library--have no doubt that they are headed for university. "I think I will be a pharmacist," says Heidarsdottir. The teens...
Teachers across the country have begun to experiment with ways to raise boys to the level of girls in elementary and secondary education. Last year Sandgerdi's teachers segregated the 10th-grade mathematics classes after deciding that boys needed intensive instruction. "The girls are strong students, so both the teachers and the students liked it," says Kristjansson. But left alone, "some of the boys had such behavior problems that they spoiled...
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