Dr. Çetiner’s Blogs (Dr. Beytullah Gültekin Çetiner)

Boys cost more to raise than girls
Boys cost thousands of dollars more to bring up than girls. A research, carried out in Britain among 2000 families, has revealed that raising boys is more expensive than raising girls.

Perhaps, many would thing the reverse meaning that girls’ expenses are more than boys. The following research reveals that this is not true.

Bringing up a son costs about $15,000 more than raising a girl, a study has found.

Parents are forced to pay out more than $65,780 through a boy’s school years - around 23 per cent more than it costs to fund a girl’s upbringing.

The London study found parents will splash out $4407 each year on their sons for clothes, gadgets and hobbies.

Daughters cost $3354 a year - or $50,858 in total.
The study, which examined the spending habits of 2000 parents, was done by GE Money.

A company spokesman said starting and raising a family was exciting and enjoyable but it could stretch finances.

The study revealed most of the money was spent on clothes, with $8087 splashed out on a boy’s childhood and $6524 on a girl’s.

Another $5357 went on buying and replacing a boy’s school uniform, compared with the $3397 for a girl. Parents then have to spend $5350 on their son’s leisure activities, such as football, basketball and cricket, while daughters generally will ask for just $2080 towards their hobbies.

Technology-loving boys also receive more when it comes to buying gadgets and are treated to $6223 worth during their childhood. Girls will have just $3088 of gadgets bought for them.

Mother of two Heather Lambert at first was surprised at the survey results.

“I would have thought that it would cost a lot more to raise a girl when you consider that you have to buy the hair straightener and the hair dryer but, when you think about it, boys do like the expensive gadgets like computer games,'’ she said.

P.S. In our belief, Educational aspects regarding different genders should have also been thoroughly examined in the study which seems to be lacking currently.

Spoonfeeding
First let us describe spoonfeeding. The following are the definitions of spoonfeeding in dictionary.

What is SpoonFeeding (Spoon Feeding)?
Spoonfeeding as a noun
1. Spoonfeeding is simply feeding someone from a spoon by treating him/her as a baby
2. spoonfeeding (teaching in an overly simplified way that discourages independent thought)

Spoonfeed as a Verb
1. Spoonfeed (feed with a spoon)
2. spoonfeed (teach without challenging the students) “This professor spoonfeeds his students”

What is wrong with Spoonfeeding?

Nothing is wrong in spoonfeeding if one of the situations applies to you (see below). However, in education, things are different.

Spoonfeeding in Engineering Education
Spoonfeeding is the greatest harm to an engineering student. An engineer is expected to be innovative, creative in his/her career. How could someone expect these challenging task from an engineer in the real life if he/she was spoonfed during the engineering education?

An environment where an instructor simply rattles down information to be memorized and recalled during exams will kill creativity and reward a lack of critical thinking. A more ‘Socratic’ enviroment where the student is lead to ‘discover’ principles will assuredly lead to better understanding, retention, creativity, fun, ease of use, ability to apply in unfamiliar situations, etc…

By supplying readily available resources to engineering students in the classroom and solving some easy-to-digest problems in the classroom later to ask them in a similar fashion in exams by just changing some numbers may be seeming very attractive to students since they can easily pass the exams and obtain a good grade.

This kind of teaching can provide at most a second level of learning in Bloom taxonomy what we call as comprehension and in many cases memorization level only which is the first level of learning.

Bloom Taxonomy
In 1956, Benjamin Bloom headed a group of educational psychologists who developed a classification of levels of intellectual behavior important in learning. Bloom found that over 95 % of the test questions students encounter require them to think only at the lowest possible level…the recall of information.

Bloom identified six levels within the cognitive domain, from the simple recall or recognition of facts, as the lowest level, through increasingly more complex and abstract mental levels, to the highest order which is classified as evaluation. Verb examples that represent intellectual activity on each level are listed here.

1. Knowledge: Recall data or information. Example verbs to measure this level of learning are arrange, define, duplicate, label, list, memorize, name, order, recognize, relate, recall, repeat, reproduce state.
2. Comprehension: Understand the meaning, translation, interpolation, and interpretation of instructions and problems. State a problem in one’s own words. Example verbs to measure this level of learning are classify, describe, discuss, explain, express, identify, indicate, locate, recognize, report, restate, review, select, translate.
3. Application: Use a concept in a new situation or unprompted use of an abstraction. Applies what was learned in the classroom into novel situations in the work place. Example verbs to measure this level of learning are apply, choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, operate, practice, schedule, sketch, solve, use, write.
4. Analysis: Separates material or concepts into component parts so that its organizational structure may be understood. Distinguishes between facts and inferences. Example verbs to measure this level of learning are analyze, appraise, calculate, categorize, compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, test.
5. Synthesis: Builds a structure or pattern from diverse elements. Put parts together to form a whole, with emphasis on creating a new meaning or structure. Example verbs to measure this level of learning are arrange, assemble, collect, compose, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, manage, organize, plan, prepare, propose, set up, write.
6. Evaluation: Make judgements about the value of ideas or materials. Example verbs to measure this level of learning are appraise, argue, assess, attach, choose compare, defend estimate, judge, predict, rate, core, select, support, value, evaluate.