Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young sang that we should teach our children well and feed them of our dreams, but for millions of parents of sons, dreams are only that, and boys are falling behind educationally at an alarming rate in this country. Richard Whitmire, author of Why Boys Fail, Michael Gurian, author of The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons from Falling Behind in School and in Life, and many other authors and educational experts proclaim that we have a crisis in the education of boys in this country. The media attention to this topic has been extensive in recent years, yet I do not see the systemic changes that are needed.
Gurian's book presents statistics that boys get the majority of D's and F's in most schools, create 90 percent of the discipline problems, are four times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with ADHD and be medicated, account for three out of four children diagnosed learning disabilities, become 80 percent of the high school dropouts, and now make up less than 45 percent of the college population. If you look in your newspaper right now, in June, you will see the photos and bios of valedictorians from many of your local high schools, and will notice that the majority of them these days are girls.
What Do the Experts Say?
According to Whitmire, children are forced to use literacy skills much earlier than in the past, and boys develop these skills later than girls. In the world of "Kindergarten is the new first grade," boys are struggling mightily to keep up. When it comes to writing, the gender divide is even greater. NCLB and our hyper-focus on standardized test scores is worsening, not ameliorating, the academic struggles of boys, and subsequently increasing the numbers of boys who turn off to school and eventually drop out.
According to Gurian, boys learn by doing and by moving their bodies through space. The more emphasis is placed on the development of early reading skills, and the less emphasis is placed on a healthy amount of movement and experiential learning, the more disadvantageous our schools will be for males.
Our boys need our attention, and although some of what I'm about to write pertains to girls as well as boys, and although gender differences naturally fall across a continuum and no single description fits all boys or all girls, there are nonetheless a number of characteristics that differentiate the two genders generally speaking.
On Growing Up With Boys, Then Raising a Girl
As the mother of a female only child, my parenting experience, while not always idyllic, has been relatively peaceful. As a toddler, my daughter was sedentary and cautious, and seemed to have nowhere she needed to go. She would sit in one spot on the floor for hours with a pile of books, "reading" to herself. I could shoot from room to room, accomplishing tasks, and she would smile up at me from her place on the living room rug as if wondering, what's the hurry?
She was much like I was as a child, and nothing like the brothers I had grown up with who requisitioned large expanses of the floor plan of our house for their games, commandeering space like an army of two. The entire finished basement was needed for indoor hockey (and windows were expendable). Outdoors, acres of woods were barely enough for their imaginary villages and the conquering of foreign lands. Unwitting trees were the patient recipients of nails and ropes and bungee cords, bending uncomplainingly to the weight of whatever animate or inanimate objects were tied, strapped or hung from them.
One day my brother devised a pulley system to ferry a dangling ceramic soap dish full of birdseed back and forth between his bedroom window on the third floor and a distant pine tree in the back yard, only to have it immediately collapse under its own weight, sending the heavy chunk of porcelain careening downward in a 90-degree arc until it came into abrupt contact with a doomed sliding glass door. This was a terrific lesson in physics. It was also funny.
The Nature of Boys
As Gurian explains in his book, the primitive hunters men used to be were the product of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. Spatially developed male brains resulted from physical interaction with the environment that allowed sensory input to stimulate the right hemisphere and build white matter and synapses in ways that would be useful for survival.
Even though the concept of the square school with the square classroom with one teacher to 20 or more kids has been around for a few hundred years, our boys are still young hunters whose brains need the same types of stimulation to grow and be healthy as did their male ancestors millennia ago. Our schools are vastly different from the setting of family, tribe and natural environment that used to be the educational milieu for growing boys.
Why Our Educational System Does Not Support Male Learning Styles
Our modern educational system works for many children, particularly girls, but for some boys (and girls) it places constraints on a very normal and necessary experiential type of learning, not to mention the need of many children to move around rather than sit still. While it may be a cynical statement, I have often felt that co-ed schools are girls' schools that boys go to.
I am not advocating for a return to life in caves and an educational system for boys involving the activities and rituals described in my college anthropology book. What I do advocate for is a greater understanding and appreciation for who boys are and how they learn best, and the subtle pedagogical modifications that would benefit millions of children.
How Schools Could Honor Who Boys Are
Simple changes to the pace and tempo of the school day, such as incorporating several brief recesses throughout the day, devoting more time to physical education, and including more hands-on activities go a long way towards alleviating some of the natural restlessness of boys and harnessing male energy in positive ways. How much Ritalin could remain on the shelves if we created schools that are ready for boys rather than boys who are ready for schools?
Just as we collectively addressed the needs of girls over the past couple of decades and made great strides in closing their achievement gaps in math and science, let us now turn our attention to our nation's boys and take equally deliberate steps to assure their success in school and in life. The revolution in brain science over the past fifteen years gives us the knowledge and the tools we need to do this, and we must, for as a society we are setting our boys up to fail in a system that is stacked against them, stacked against the very way they are neurologically wired.
This is not to say that social and cultural influences are not contributing factors to who boys are today, but we now have medical evidence, once elusive, that illuminates the very significant role biology plays in male/female brain development and learning. Parents and teachers need to become better educated about how boys and girls really are different, and how to best meet the needs of each. Particularly relevant to this discussion is the theory of "natural learning," which takes for granted that a learner is a whole person -- a living system -- and that every aspect of a person, boy or girl, contributes to his or her learning.
What Does the Future Hold?
At some colleges today, boys are being given a boost in the admissions process because they have become a minority. If we do not address boys' educational needs earlier in life than this, the skewing of college enrollment, and thus opportunity in life, will only get worse.
Meeting the learning needs of all of our children is a lofty yet imperative goal. We must join together to nurture and celebrate what it is to be female and what it is to be male and the very essence and value of the difference. After all, boys will be boys.
Follow Lori Day on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Lori_Day
Susan Sawyers: Are Single Sex Schools Good for Girls?
Lisa Bloom: How to Talk to Little Girls
Patricia Zohn: No Boy Left Behind
Why Boys Fail - Education Week
Our boys are falling behind in education - The Denver Post
The Truth About Boys and Girls | Education Sector
Why Are School-Age Boys Struggling? - Newsweek
Single-gender education gains ground as boys lag / Experts worry ...
Nice, real nice.
Further, this statement is way off the mark:"...we now have medical evidence, once elusive, that illuminates the very significant role biology plays in male/female brain development and learning."
In fact, there is no evidence from brain structure or function studies that boys and girls learn, remember, or process academic information differently. When it comes to cognitive and emotional abilities, boys and girls' brains and behavior overlap far more than they differ.
For a counterpoint to the Michael Gurian hype, please see my award-winning article "The Myth of Pink and Blue Brains" in Educational Leadership: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/summer11/vol68/num10/The-Myth-of-Pink-and-Blue-Brains.aspx
Gender essentialist views are not going to help anyone, except those who teach to the stereotype.
That's why you see girls dominate in K-12, and even in college. But at the very top of the most abstract sciences and math, "boys" still dominate. It is interesting, but men tend to populate more than girls both the lower and higher extremes of intellectual achievement.
Yep, for the average boy, the school environment is nearly unbearable.
What I sense here from most of the teachers that commented is a mean-spiritedness towards boys probably because they can be exhausting in your overcrowded class rooms. I am thankful I live in LA where there is an abundance of secular homeschool groups because you have pretty much convinced me to opt out of the systematic warehousing of children. I am convinced I can do better then most of these teachers.
And to those who ask why this hasnt been a problem in the past, they used to unleash harsh corporal and punitive punishments....which causes its own long lasting problems.
My turn came up, she rushed me through in under 5 minutes. Back then I was really shy . I only wanted to take an elective that was semi hands on for the heck of it. I figured even if I did bad it was only for a semester. I got pushed into an engineering program that I just wasn't qualified for and I held deep reservations about it. When I expressed my concern she said "you can just go to a community college for two years then transfer".
I tried really hard in the class but bombed it, it totally demoralized me. I would of gotten first honors(only got second honors before). I was trapped in a class I never should of been in and I just stopped going to school because of it(which resulted in me failing a quarter because I missed too much time even though my technical grade in every other class was A's and B's).
I ended up moving for my senior year because I was just so bitter over it I wanted out of the District. Well the Allentown School District Councilor was even more of a bigot and rushed me through in under 4 minutes with the only thing said was "what do you want".
The problem is that the educational system systematically dehumanizes boy's. Look at the male suicide rate of 11.3%. Male depression is way more common then people will admit because males(heck even different males will handle it differently) tend to handle it differently.
My modus operandi was pure suppression. As an empathic guy(I guess I use both reason and emotion, deny one and the other suffers) it got so bad in my teen years that I got shooting pain from it. Once strong enough that it made me drop to my knees. Even went to a doctor, did a bunch of test's and told me it was "all in my head"(hence the reason I don't trust or like doctors).
The reason males of previous generations where able to cope with the abuse society sends at us is because of "male privilege". For Gen Y that is dead and was replaced with "boy's are stupid throw rocks at them". So on the one hand we are still held to "male responsibility", but on the other we suffer from society wide abuse and neglect. I am not advocating other than treating boy's and men like human beings with emotions/feelings too.
Teachers make the comment that they are driven by tests and curricula, but pedagogical change can mean that some tasks do take longer for a group to complete when done with activity, the need to revise is reduced as learning and recollection are improved.
Let me give an example of putting physical activity into a simple classroom activity. Comprehension - something done in many classrooms at all levels most days. Students are paired up. In each pair one is the runner and one is the scribe. The scribe has the comprehension passage. The comprehension questions are spread around the room. When the activity starts the runner goes to a question, reads it and dictates it to their scribe and the pair sit together and work out the answer. The runner goes and gets another question etc etc. After several questions the roles are swapped. Comprehension is marked together.
In other words, blame it on the boys themselves. It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that this feminist society refuses to even harbor the thought of helping boys, let alone making sure they are being tended to properly. Trying to raise these points often come with calls of misogyny. Boys can't even get a gender minister of their own to examine the possibility they have needs, inequities and complaints that aren't addressed. And, until very recently, any attempt to push the issues of boys/men forward would get usurped by feminists for more women's "rights", like the need to get more women into hard science and math's. But it's the boys that can't adapt.
One problem I see is Vision 2012. I can't see a total inclusive classroom without additional staff in the classroom all day! I can't see a school without a resource room. We want to better educate our children, but the government seems to think we can do this will less staff and elimination of critical programs, such as music and art! They do not realize that these programs are essential tools in learning for all children, not just boys. Stronger educational requirements and more pay will breed better teachers as well.
Wonder how many posters have school aged children? We have three: two boys and one girl.
My mother-in-law raised five boys and two girls. She used to say, "raising five boys was easier than one girl. With the boys you got what you got. It was physical and then it was over. With the girls it would last for months and you never knew what it could be."
Most young children through elementary school are taught by women. Men don't typically appear until middle school.
Your child's elementary school experience will be shaped by the quality of that year's teacher. Our boys connected and did better academically with those teachers that "appreciated" the "boy energy," set high expectations and had raised children themselves, especially boys. Interestingly, our daughter did better academically as well.
Call me crazy but combining less recess, less gym time with highly processed fake food is creating a lethal mix and then feeding them pills to sit and read a book can't be the answer.
Wonder if there aren't more posts from school-age-moms because their sons are busy rolling, running, jumping, climbing and sliding.
Thanks so much for your reply.
Also enjoying the substance & differing opinions. Oldest are in high school (boy & girl) and youngest (boy) to middle school. Fortunate to have had wisdom and guidance from two very special teachers from nursery school that raised boys. Who knew that children have different learning styles, personality traits that can be nurtured, and a need for socializing skills when so young age. Favorite example: when someone is chasing you and you don't want to play any more, stop, turn around and say, "STOP chasing me. I don't want to play anymore." And, walk away. Simple but powerful lesson. And...boys like to run!
Parents (in my humble experience) can be part of the problem. Our daughter played baseball (coached by dad) and first played softball in the 4th grade. When fielding a ball she held on to it and the parents chanted, "throw the ball...throw the ball..oh, it's okay...maybe next time." Her words, "gesh, don't the parents know the girl at first base can't catch the ball."
A few favorite expressions:
We give them roots and we give them wings.
Life isn't fair.
Worry about yourself... not someone else.
Everyone has to play together.
You may not like someone but you need to respect them.
My mom's best: that could be our family next week so be mindful and kind
Wow! More than a few stories are coming to mind...
Best
There is good reason to think that many of our challenges in education arise from, among other factors, the rise of the electronic screen.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/126/2/214.full.pdf+html
Not only are kids getting less recess time at school, they are less active and more tuned in to electronics at home as well.