"Teachers Don't Like Boys, Mom"

A couple of weeks ago, I was volunteering at my son Aidan's elementary school after hours. The building was empty but for a knot of teachers clustered in the hallway. As we entered his classroom, Aidan leaped up to touch the door frame. Immediately, one of the teachers scolded him about safety.

Aidan apologized. As soon as we were alone, though, he rolled his eyes at me. "Teachers don't like boys, Mom. If I was a girl, she never would have said anything."

"They're just trying to keep you safe," I said.

Still, I couldn't help wishing, as I do so often, that we had better schools for boys.

I say this with resignation as another school year draws to a close. Now that Aidan, the youngest of our five children, is in sixth grade, I have little hope that the system will change. Our public school curriculum in Massachusetts, as in so many states, is designed to help students conquer basic skills and prepare for the state-administered MCAS exam. Not a bad goal. Just one problem: our teachers now scramble to teach to the tests. This means lots of worksheets get handed out and there's little time left for creative, hands-on projects.

This is a tragedy, especially for boys. Research tells us what most parents know: boys are apt to be "kinesthetic learners." That's educatorspeak for the fact that most boys learn best while they're in motion. Boys want to get their feet wet and their hands dirty. They want to build things and take them apart, trap small animals and climb tall trees. Or jump up and touch whatever they can.

As Aidan observed once, after spending an entire science class watching a movie about the life cycle of frogs, "We'd learn a lot more if the teacher just brought tadpoles and frogs into the classroom and we could look at them."

Students in our public schools are rewarded for being quiet and respectful, for scoring well on tests, for coloring inside the lines, for collaborating instead of competing, for writing about their feelings, and for civilized classroom behaviors that don't include farting or burping. All fine skills. The thing is, most girls -- I'm basing this on our own family of three boys and two girls, plus the children of friends - seem to want to please their teachers and be praised. That's why so many more school valedictorians are girls. The boys, not so much. Until you show them why something matters in the outside world, they mostly don't see the point of doing something that bores them silly. And I mean silly.

It doesn't help matters that most teachers are hard-working, well-meaning women who are already overwhelmed with the responsibilities heaped on them by school administrators, inclusive classrooms, parents, needy kids and the threat, always, of losing their jobs or having their pay cut. Would things be different if more men populated our classrooms? I have no idea. I only know that, as it stands now, boys are more likely to fail in school and to be three times more likely to be labeled as ADHD than girls because of their activity level (www.healthcentral.com/adhd/c/1443/13716/addadhd-statistics/). Aidan earns A's and B's in school, yet I'm constantly fighting battles like this one: When he misbehaves, his teachers take away recess. Please. Are they out of their Vulcan minds?

Recently, I was walking with a few friends and listening to their lamentations about next year's teachers and class sizes. When they asked my opinion, they were shocked when I shrugged and said, "Maybe it doesn't matter. It's just school."

But I can't help seeing school as a necessary evil instead of an inspiration. It's great that Aidan has learned how to do algebra, read a map, write an essay and navigate social situations without a black eye. Outside of school, though, is where Aidan does most of his real learning. He pursues his interests with passion: rock climbing, coin collecting, fishing, engineering, snowboarding. Our house is one big science lab; in recent months Aidan has built a hovercraft in the driveway, figured out that you could shrink potato chip bags in the microwave oven, and erected a K'nex roller coaster taller than he is. He has memorized the periodic table and taken apart an old computer. He surprised me in the kitchen by saying, "Here's a cool invention for kids, Mom," and pushing a cup of milk onto the ice dispenser of our freezer. Instead of dispensing ice, cereal came pouring out of the freezer and fell into his cup of milk. Messy, but way cool.

What would a perfect school for boys be like? Classes would be small and held outside half the time. Boys of all abilities and temperaments would build, paint, draw, take things apart, play computer games and listen to music while reading if they felt like it. If they wanted to write about volcanoes instead of the weather, or study the Civil War in January instead of September, why not let them choose? And, if they wanted to do math standing up or run a few laps between exams, why not?

Oh, wait. Our boys couldn't do that. That would be breaking the rules.

Comments

[Traci Perg]

"What would a perfect school for boys be like? Classes would be small and held outside half the time. Boys of all abilities and temperaments would build, paint, draw, take things apart, play computer games and listen to music while reading if they felt like it. If they wanted to write about volcanoes instead of the weather, or study the Civil War in January instead of September, why not let them choose? And, if they wanted to do math standing up or run a few laps between exams, why not?"

And that, in a succinct nutshell, is homeschooling. The problem that you have pointed out in your excellent article is only one of many, many problems with our broken public school system. There is too much violence. The teachers who don't care, or aren't very smart themselves (one of the "emporer has no clothes" things that one is just NOT allowed to say) far outnumber the committed, intelligent, inspiring ones. The system does not need tinkering. The system is irreparably broken. It needs to be replaced.

[WorldNeedsHope]

Homeschooling yes - but also Montessori, and Waldorf. We have had our three young sons enrolled in Montessori preschool since the oldest was four, and now we are thrilled to be involved in the founding of a public, Montessori-based charter school that will go from pre-K through high school. Montessori is very conscious of, and honors, the normal development of children - boys AND girls - and allows them to be active when they need to be, and quiet when they need to be. At the same time it promotes harmony, peace, grace and courtesy. For those of us who can't home school it's a blessing.

[mragan]

Hi Holly,
Great article! My only comment is about your sentence that teachers in Massachusetts teach to the MCAS test. As a high school English teacher, I can tell you that I most certainly do not teach to the MCAS, or any other test. A good teacher, no matter where he/she works, will figure how her students learn best and mold the classroom activities to help their students achieve.
My son, a student at a school in NH, has a teacher that "doesn't like boys". She likes things clean, neat, and orderly. So NOT my son! And they don't have any kind of state test to take!
Thanks!
- MR

[Endersdragon]

I was talking to my stepdad and I was wondering if any other boys had a really horrible experience in English class. Now I get that this is an incredibly feminine field, but why can't teachers teach more books for boys. I mean in terms of Shakespeare plays we read Romeo and Juliet, freshman year (chick play), junior year... I forget what but it was another chick play, and Senior year we read A Winters Tale (chick play), Othello (chick play), and another chick play. No Caesar, no Macbeth, no Richard III, etc., even though those are some of his greatest plays. Outside of this it seemed to be a 6 to 2 to 1 ration of female to both to male books. I get that these are some of the greatest stories ever, but they are skipping over a lot that boys can read too. Why is this?

[emcg]

I wanted to share my experience because I see know that I'm not alone. Yes my story is extreme but it validates the article. My oldest son during my husbands 15 month deployment (2006) started third grade having a male teacher I thought would be great during the deployment. Worst mistake ever this teacher verbally abused my son throughout the whole year. Saying things about his dad being in Iraq, he was going to tell him about his behavior and grades etc. Now this deployment was particularly hard we were losing our guys and my son knew it. He knew dad was in harms way even though I tried to protect them from it. He was worried about dad and now the teacher was going to tell on him and dad would be mad at him all the way from Iraq. I addressed it and thought that I stopped the situation. The vice principle and the guidance counselor even blew off the situation. Mothers day my card that year was a hand made card that was a suicide note. I sought out counseling and talked to the school board yet the teacher since it was his last year in that district left with no punishment. I later found out that this teacher did this each year to boys in his class. I expected my husband after a long deployment to come home with post traumatic stress disorder and instead my son was the one being treated for it.

[MNmommy]

Boys are getting royally screwed at school.

Boys that really DO have ADHD are getting even more royally screwed. I have a son and a daughter, both with ADHD and my daughter, the teacher pleaser, does very well. My son? Not so much. His 504 was converted to an IEP after 10 days of in-school suspension in the "quiet room" in third grade (manifest determination). Spent 75% of fourth grade in the resource room mostly acting as a "helper" with children that had learning disabilities worse than his. Subsequently, he was still writing on a first grade level in fifth grade (he has dysgraphia and written expression issues) and after being grade accelerated for math for 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade didn't even score well enough to be placed on the accelerated track for middle and high school.

What's wrong with that picture?

[Holly Robinson - Huffpost Blogger]

You're right: both of your kids are losing out. Because girls with attention problems aren't usually as disruptive, they often don't get the services they need. Meanwhile, boys with attention problems are labeled defiant, bad, disobedient, special needs, etc. My own brother (very bright, ended up going to grad school and now works at Cornell) was sent to make wallets and comb cases with the "special" kids because he acted out when he was bored. My husband, who went to MIT and became an engineer, was put in a corner in his classroom with empty desks all around him to keep him from disrupting his classmates when he was bored. Good luck to you. Your kids are lucky to have you in their corner.

[eclamont]

This is not an excellent article. This kind of concern always comes up whenever women make any progress. First, I ask, why all this sudden talk about schools being too rigid for boys? Schools used to be much more rigid historically and yet boys excelled. So why the change now? That is the question we ought to be asking. Second, there is the assumption that teaching conformity is good for girls just because they manage to do it. No one stops to think that in the long run, this is also bad for girls, promoting the passivity that allows for their exploitation. Finally, if boys are doing so badly, if we so favor girls, then why do men remain in almost all the top positions of power? That doesn't seem like failure to me. What it seems like is that we so favor boys that they can do poorly in school and still succeed in life. By the way, these people who bemoan boys doing badly really mean WHITE boys doing badly - that is their only concern. When black boys do poorly in school and then get good jobs, we cry discrimination. And as a culture, we really don't seem to care that people of color are being failed by our education system. I worry about my son being raised in a culture where every time women make any progress, people bemoan the situation of white, upper middle class males loss of privilege.

[twintwine]

Culture of convenience, if adopted by teachers, makes it difficult to listen to kids. Even if the teachers do happen to prefer to teach girls, the girls aren't really helped because their fairly basic needs are only relatively met in relation to the neglect to boys.

[Malkin71]

Basically, it comes down to this....

Girls tend to do what they are told moreso than boys.

The education system does not reward free thinkers.

[maribelle1963]

Girls don't have it so easy either when they don't fit into girl-behavioral stereotypes.

My daughter was a rough and tumble tomboy. This did not go over well with her teachers.

In her 3rd grade, we got called in for a serious conference, with teacher, nurse and principal. They were very alarmed that K had drawn a GUN in a "continuing story" (each kid writes a page).

In her pic, a girl was lying on a gun, kids around her in a circle. K said the girl had fallen on the gun to save the class. The teacher was horrified she had added a gun to the story. "In all my years of teaching," she said "I have NEVER SEEN A CHILD DRAW A GUN BEFORE. I am very concerned."

I turned the book to the previous page, the page on which my daughter had continued. There was a picture of a gun, introduced on Danny's page. My daughter had continued the story by making the girl a hero by falling on the gun.

The principal just about had a stroke when she saw it. THE TEACHER HAD NOT EVEN NOTICED THAT DANNY HAD PUT A GUN IN THE STORY.

I looked that teacher dead in the eye and said "you owe my daughter an apology." And to her credit, she called K in and promptly did so.

Just remembering that story makes my blood boil. ~ maribelle

[BZ25]

This is a really interesting article and makes me curious to see what my son (who is 4) will be like as a learner in middle school. Although my daughter (who is older) is definitely very "present" and attentive in school I would never say she does not like to be hands-on - she definitely is, she learns well that way, and she asks a TON of questions and wants to get right in there and try things. Fortunately for her, despite the MCAS our family's Massachusetts public school embraces a project-based learning approach and teachers knock themselves out to try to balance all that they *want* to teach with all that they *must* teach. I am feeling really lucky right now to know that when my son is in middle school he will be going to a school that will likely meet his needs better than one with a more traditional structure (ironically, we live in the city and have seen friends move out to the suburbs for "better" schools)....Will have to see if that really proves out in a few years.

Speaking of touching the tops of doorways, you may enjoy this article from the Onion: http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/area_boy_enters_jumping_and

[vanessav2]

As a fledgling teacher in an inner city school, it's really hard to read this article. It is hard to read because it is so true. I look around at what goes on in my school and am not surprised that kids are ditching, getting into trouble, or just not coming in the first place. I studied Economics as an undergrad and believe that people are motivated by choices and the ability to make them...yes, even kids. We take inventories as a class to figure out what kind of learners we are and I take this into account when planning lessons. During math, some students stand and sing a song with "kinesthetics" (body movements) to remember the steps to solving a problem while other students write a neat list. Some students played with crickets and worms to learn about invertebrates and arthropods while others played a game on the computer that taught the same principles. I open the door to my classroom and let students run in the grass between subjects. My point is is that some of us bust our butts to make this happen. Are we perfect at it? No way. The sad fact is that most of what I was doing was frowned upon by district curriculum folk, my administrators, other teachers, and even some parents because it wasn't aligned to THE test. Teaching how to take multiple choice tests should not be curriculum in a 4th grade classroom.

[MNmommy]

You sound like an excellent teacher. We need more of you.

[Holly Robinson - Huffpost Blogger]

I second the comment above -- I hope you stay in the field. We really need you not just for our sons, but for our daughters. The whole point of teaching should be to recognize EACH child's strengths and talents, and to design the curriculum accordingly. Keep fighting the administrators. The parents will support you and you can change the system from within.

[Holly Robinson - Huffpost Blogger]

I wish my son had you as his teacher!!

[MerhabaAbi]

My oldest son, (diagnosed ADHD) figured it out in middle school. Do enough to get by, it's only school. He'll have his B.A. soon and is usually on the Dean's List. He's always been smart but he saw through the facade presented by the education industry. Emphasis on INDUSTRY.

P.S. he wrote a novel in high school while getting C's and D's in english.

[Holly Robinson - Huffpost Blogger]

Yep. That story sounds SO familiar, alas. Sometimes it's enough to make you wonder if "adhd" is how many teachers spell "boy." I'm not saying the diagnosis isn't true for many children, many of whom do better with medication. Only that, if our schools were structured differently, these kids would shine for their creativity and individuality rather than be noticed as "problem" kids. Thanks for sharing.

[RobinSeattle]

That was me. Did just enough in school to get my C and then got serious in college, from where I graduated with honors, because I could study what I was interested in.

There is one other thing about female teachers that doesn't get discussed: they don't like to be challenged aggressively by their male students. That is, if a student isn't quite buying what she's saying and starts really picking it apart, female teachers see that almost as lese majeste because girls aren't going to go after the nut of a topic so aggressively.Male teachers allow much more give and take.

[LeftRight]

Not all male teachers are that way, the only teacher I ever had kick me out was a male teacher who didn't like me correcting his false information...

[CanisLatrans]

I'm a part-time teacher, teaching children Hebrew for their Bar- and Bat-Mitzvahs. We meet once a week for an hour. Aside from the challenges of teaching a language in such limited scope, and dealing with kids in school when their friends are out playing, I've noticed a serious disconnect between the boys and girls learning. As said in the article, the boys love the hands-on, interactive stuff: when we play Hangman in Hebrew, or do Wheel-of-Fortune type games with Hebrew. The girls prefer the quieter classroom style.

It's a balancing act-- when we do something active, the boys are engaged and the girls' eyes kinda glaze over; the opposite is true when we do more 'traditional classroom' stuff. At any given time, I'm only really getting half my students.

We've tried dividing into small groups of 3 or 4, either all boys or all girls, with only a couple mixed groups based on observing personality types, and rotating them through tables where different subjects are taught in different ways depending on what group is at your table. This 'round-robin' style gets some results, but it is reliant on motivated volunteer teachers.

I used to dislike the idea of gender-based education, being an egalitarian at heart, but I am beginning to think that at some ages it may be for the better.

[Vickster]

Most teachers don't like children who challenge them.

I remember my first day of "real school" (meaning the first grade) in 1960. For the record, I taught myself how to read when I was four, using a Wild Kingdom book on paleontology to make signs for my collection of plastic dinosaurs. And somewhere along the way, the letters began to make sense.

Anyway, on the first day of "real school" in 1960... a half-day... the teacher had each of us stand up, say our name and tell the class what we wanted to be when we grew up. The kids who went before me declared ambitions that were typical of young children... mothers, teachers or nurses for girls, cops or firefighters for boys. As for me, I stood up and said I wanted to be a paleontologist.

The teacher said, "Girls can't be paleontogists. Wouldn't you rather be a nurse?"

Later, the teacher passed out crayons and paper so we could draw pictures while she walked around the classroom, engaging us in small talk as she tried to get a handle on our young psyches. She was smiling when she approached my desk. Then she saw my picture and scowled, for I had drawn two dinosaurs moral combat with a caption that read, "The Tyrannosaurus Rex wants to eat the Stegosaurus."

The teacher called my mother that afternoon and asked her to prevent me from reading until the rest of the class caught with me.

[kapalabhati]

Sad story, indeed, but I believe, at least in the case of our public school, that the teachers allow our gifted students to work to their skill level. Our younger was permitted to take the spelling tests when ready, not on the scheduled day, then work on other projects, journaling, etc. I'm very satisfied so far.

[Endersdragon]

That is a good school, most I have experience with aren't like that. Beyond that while that will work good for some subjects others not so much. I mean I was gifted in math far beyond my years and when you get gifted enough, you can't always educate yourself (teaching yourself algebra isn't too hard, teaching yourself geometry, nearly impossible). So I was required to continue learning what I already learned, and this was back just like 10 or so years ago. From what I have seen its still like this.

[LeftRight]

I didn't have that sort of a problem until 7th grade, when I was assigned to the gifted science classes, then kicked out of them for behavioral problems (really bad temper) and assigned to the same teacher, but a dumber class. The gifted class was about 3 chapters ahead of the regular class by that time, and I was about 4 chapters ahead of the gifted class.

When the teacher would say something like "Only animal cells have cell walls," and I would correct him (only PLANT cells have cell walls...) he would assign me detention. I wouldn't attend the detention, and so eventually got kicked out of his class. The principal informed me that the teacher had never kicked ANYONE out of his class..... I informed him that perhaps he hadn't had a smart student before...

[Holly Robinson - Huffpost Blogger]

I completely understand your frustration -- I have a son in college who's thinking about becoming a teacher, and he had the same sort of bad experiences volunteering in an inner city elementary school. He found the whole thing really disheartening. You're also correct when you observe that Montessori is still very female-friendly, and that private schools might give you more freedom to design your own curriculum, but much less money for your efforts. I hope you'll stick with public education -- the few new young male teachers who have worked in our school have made a tremendous difference, not just in their own classrooms, but in the whole feel of the place.

[Endersdragon]

Well right now I would pretty much have to start over with to get into any sort of education. My school won't give me certification after my Chicago experience. As might other schools not. I will never be able to teach in the main stream system anyway (us aspies struggle with teaching in neurotypical schools, and in a system that values test scores and worksheets, no way) so even I stick with public schools I will go into special education and work more with my type (same thing in Montessori from what I have heard, 1 teacher told me that her class was almost half aspies.) So basically ending up in mainstream education is certainly not for me, you will have to look for other male teachers (not trying to be rude, just stating facts).