I was very interested in this story from NPR about girls achieving math parity with boys as far as test scores throughout high school. I have generally been dismayed by the roasting of Lawrence Summers for just leaving open the possibility of gender differences in academic areas of strength, and I think this response is much, much more helpful. You don’t have to kick the guy in the head for acknowledging that as one possible explanation; you have to do more research and find out whether that’s the reason or not.

But I’m also fascinated by this story because, for about seven years, I coached a high-school mock trial team made up entirely of girls. Girls don’t have the same reputation for lagging behind in debate skills that they do in math, but I do believe that they face powerful gender issues that I discussed with them quite often.

(If you don’t know how mock trial works, basically a team of students rehearses for a period of months, learning the facts and developing a presentation of a particular case (everybody on all teams works on the same case for the whole season) in which team members will eventually act as the “attorneys” and also the “witnesses” for one side or the other of the case. They then compete against other schools — everybody learns both sides of the case, because you wind up competing in multiple “rounds” in a tournament, and sometimes you’re on one side, and sometimes you’re on the other. For the attorneys, it’s a lot like debate; for the witnesses, it’s basically acting. It’s hard to explain if you’ve never seen it, but it relies most heavily on your ability to think on your feet and, in the case of attorneys, to know the case backwards and forwards and be extensively prepared to make objections, respond to objections, and so forth. Minnesota has a very strong state high school program, and the school where I coached had a very strong program with a very good reputation.)

Rounds are generally judged by local lawyers, and occasionally by local judges if you’re lucky. I cannot tell you how many times I saw competition judges — easily half of whom were women themselves — react with obvious distaste and dismay to strong, authoritative performances by girls. I’m not talking about being rude or snotty or overly aggressive or pushy; the philosophy of the school’s program was always very much against that, both because it sucks and because you don’t usually get anywhere. I’m talking about simply getting up and speaking persuasively in favor of your position. I actually listened to a judge, during a post-competition critique, accuse a seventeen-year-old girl of being “snippy” simply because she questioned witnesses with an authority and confidence that would be absolutely unremarkable in a boy her age. The girls’ team shirts that year said “Smart Not Snippy.”

(Oh, and the ones the first year I coached say — I still have mine — “Hard Work. Fair Play. World Domination.” Oh, I loooooooved that team. One of them’s currently taking the bar exam.) (You know the scene in Parenthood, where Steve Martin’s kid manages to catch the fly ball, and Steve Martin goes into this ridiculous dance around the field, where he’s waggling and rolling on the ground with his feet in the air, and he kind of knows he’s being ridiculous and overinvested but he can’t help indulging his moment of triumph? I had that moment with that team.)

Anyhoo, high-school teachers who work with a lot of girls will tell you that they disproportionately have the “I don’t know if this is right” syndrome. You ask them a question, and before they offer their answer, they say, “I don’t know if this is right, but…” Going from there to fiercely protecting a witness from objectionable questions from an opposing lawyer is really a tough shift.

My mom used to do a little experiment in her classes to demonstrate (or, really, to discover) girls’ tendency not to raise their hands in class. She would, without saying anything to the class, start calling on boys and girls, alternating between the two. Boy, girl. Boy, girl. Absolutely even. And every time she did it, it would take a very short time before somebody said, “How come all you’re doing is calling on girls?” Just having girls speaking half the time felt to the class like it was nothing but girls being called on.

I’m absolutely certain that boys disproportionately  have other issues in school, and I don’t know that one is easier and one is harder. But seven years teaching girls to stand up without apologizing, interrupt people to make objections without apologizing, stand up straight, speak with authority, and generally feel comfortable as debaters convinced me once and for all that it’s very much worth being aware of all these issues. If you look at that research on math skills, it makes you realize that without teachers who are aware of the stereotypes that girls can face, and their tendency — for reasons apparently not related to aptitude — to stop taking hard math classes in high school, they’d get nowhere.

Hard Work. Fair Play. World Domination. And lots and lots and lots of math and the rules of evidence.