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Because you are not a hater. That’s just not your way.</p>
<p>Is the problem really a gender-based problem, or is it that our economy is favoring certain traits that a minority of people, male or female, possess? The really good work available now is for what Robert Reich called “symbolic analysts” with high quantitative ability. The average male (or female) cannot do this kind of work. The kind of work that average men have traditionally done is disappearing, while lower-paid service work that rewards compliance and friendliness (stereotypical female traits) is abundant. I don’t think the school system is to blame; I think the economy is changing in ways that don’t reward the traditional traits of the average male.</p>
<p>I actually loved being in a single sex school, and I don’t think it’s zero sum, but it doesn’t solve the disparity, even if boys are doing better than before. Once they reached college they are still going to drop out.</p>
<p>I do not hate guys. It is an issue that seriously worries me. As I said, I have had my share of male college students who want to quit (and they aren’t even doing that bad). I care about them, AND i worry they are a little too overconfident about finding a good, stable job, that pays well, it’s prestigious, and doesn’t require any college degree. Some of them drop out to join the military, but most expect to be the next Steve Jobs.</p>
<p>What I am wondering is what would lower the rate of boys’ dropout rate. I do think information can lessen the gap (you are not going to be able to afford x lifestyle without the degree), but there has to be more we can do.</p>
<p>Lived this topic since I have 5 kiddos all 1 year apart. 3 boys, 2 girls birth order G,B,G,B,B…all went to the same public schools, same teachers for same subjects and sometimes at the same time. Son son and daughter in chem together and spanish, another son and same daughter in biology and all 3 in physics. Some honors and some AP…didn’t matter the class but the teacher. Very interesting, class with lots of “projects” boys struggled, daughters did great with ease. Classes quiz and exam oriented girls really worked hard and boys breezed through.</p>
<p>Funny story. (well it is now) Younger son FAILED science in upper elementary and middle school, until 9th. Did well in math, grades ahead, same with all other core (was in GATE until I pulled him). Science was project based-posters, book reports, craft stuff…son HATES it. Same son graduated as VAL, admitted early to MIT, CalTech, regular admit to Harvard, P’ton, Penn, Duke, Cornell, Chicago for math major, physics major, bio engineering. Graduated with THREE BS degrees in biochem, microbiology, genetics and economics with highest honors. </p>
<p>Is now in med school on a full tuition scholarship. He hated the science in middle school, because in his opinion it wasn’t science. It was arts and crafts class. Same with social studies, more crafts…he went on to complete a certificate at princeton in hellenic studies (social studies on steriods…).</p>
<p>And we are a single parent family so no immediate male role models. He was able to find those in his sports programs which really helped all his siblings. Not just the boys. Daughter’s swim and dive coaches (all male) really made a huge influence on who she is today and her academic success. Same is true for all my boys, through sports (baseball, football, wrestling, track and field) their contact with their male coaches really helped support my parenting. And I will be eternally grateful to the men in their lives that really helped them when they needed it and they did not have to.</p>
<p>If single sex public option would have been available to us at the time (it is now in our current location) I would have seriously considered it. If we could have afforded and it would have be doable distance-wise I would have sent my boys to private single-sex school.</p>
<p>My boys were so glad to finally get male teachers in math and science in high school who really educated them without “projects”. Son’s biology female teacher did not know what school MIT was…vocational maybe? Dead serious. Granted neither did his wrestling coach (male) but as long as son was going to college coach was happy.</p>
<p>All kiddos pursued STEM in college, but the boys were the ones who finally felt free of all the “garbage” they had to do previously. The boys managed to do well on their senior design team projects (mech e)…did not involve paper mache’ rather engine and laser design. Other son’s senior thesis was calc-based econ healthcare policy with his mentor/advisor going on to win the Nobel prize in econ. Again, no macaroni gluing or flour paste involved! </p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>NJSue, I agree 100% with post #22. Spot on.</p>
<p>And as a not artistic woman, I despised the paper mach</p>
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<p>Actually, higher paid service work rewards compliance and friendliness too (not to mention meticulous and detail-oriented work). Nearly all my professional service people (OK, in eastern Europe) are women: doctor, dentist, lawyer, banker, architect, accountant, etc. </p>
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<p>Sounds like a typical corporation, with Powerpoints and project teams.</p>
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In corporations, there are often professionals whose sole job is to pretty up the powerpoints created by other people. Which is completely appropriate. And corporations don’t care about the personal dynamics of the groups, they care about the product.</p>
<p>There is a trend now for higher SES parents to red-shirt their boys starting in kindergarten. Public schools are pretty strict about birth date cutoffs, but private schools are more flexible.</p>
<p>In my son’s private high school, a significant % of the boys (some girls too) apply as a “repeat” freshman or “repeat” sophomore. There is no stigma attached to repeating. The “repeats” have a maturity advantage. It’s an effective strategy for those who can afford to pay for an add’l year of tuition.</p>
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I really don’t know why those cut-offs are written in stone. It should be the developmental benchmarks that count.</p>
<p>I liked your post, katwkittens. Congratulations on raising some amazing kids.</p>
<p>I agree with you about the educational value of sports for both boys and girls. I actually think that universities should provide more opportunities for high school athletes to continue to compete at a high level, and this would encourage more boys to go to and stay in college. While I don’t have the stats on this, it seems like the trend is in the opposite direction, ie., to eliminate sports.</p>
<p>For my S who is a good student but hates school, he would look ONLY at colleges who offered his sport and wanted him to play on the team. If no such colleges existed, I have wondered whether he would make it through or even attend college at all (unless I took drastic steps to force him as much as I could). It would be unfortunate if he did not, because he is certainly capable of doing the work; he just does not like it. I have to believe there are plenty of boys who think like he does.</p>
<p>*I agree with zoosermom (based on my experience with my own children), that boys are just not as interested in school work as it is set up right now. Sitting still in a classroom most of the day, listening to women teach, with behavioral codes that do not come as naturally to them, all contribute to a lesser desire to continue with education when it becomes optional.</p>
<p>I disagree with mom2collegekids 100% about sports. If there is one thing that keeps boys wanting to get up and go to school everyday, it is the prospect of playing/practicing with the team after school.
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<p>Bay, I must not have been clear with my words.</p>
<p>I’m very supportive of sports. (LOL…good heavens, I think most of CC knows that!)</p>
<p>My point was that if young boys are ONLY or MOSTLY only getting accolades and “attaboys” for sports achievements from their dads or peers, then they’re going to think that sports trumps grades. </p>
<p>Yay for sports, but also boys need to hear a lot of YAYS for academic achievement instead of being made to feel nerdy.</p>
<p>My younger son was told by a pretty girl: “you’re a geek with a social life” (because he was always an A student but was also athletic and kind of cute.) However, many smart boys only get told that they’re geeks and nerds.</p>
<p>So much good thinking on this thread. Thank you. I also agree completely with NJSue in looking at broader changes in the economy, including the type of jobs and job-skills that are needed and rewarded, as a key to explaining what several people here have observed: the gender gap isn’t just an American phenomenon.</p>
<p>I had to laugh at the arts-&-crafts comments. My son has no small-motor skills, and not that many large-motor skills. In any case, anything requiring artsy production went against his rationalist-utilitarian ways of thinking. One thing that almost got him suspended from high school was when he got into a spat with his art teacher (why he took the course, I’ll never know) over whether grades were to be based on progress&learning rather than native talent. He was extremely good in math. He majored in economics in college. Yet in his career now, in which he’s a journalist-writer-statistician, one of the best things he does is represent his ideas in graphics (charts, illustrations, etc.). I would say that he functions well on “both sides of his brain,” but his fingers never would draw for him and his creativity and reputation are mainly based on so-called “left-brained” activity.</p>
<p>On the other side, his sister turned many of her projects in English, history, etc., into art projects, constructions, and so forth – not because she was required to do this but because she wanted to and she had some very accommodating teachers. Ultimately she chose design for a career and earned a BFA in industrial design. She later took her design interests into a broader realm of sustainable product development, including earning an MBA because that was the way to move into that kind of role. She told me that she was one of only two students in her class in a major MBA program that were transitioning from a BFA to an MBA. It helped that she also had very strong math skills, so her GMAT was in the 700’s. In her work now, she’s not using her strictly artistic skills that much but the credentials and her artistic sensibilities definitely help.</p>
<p>As a college professor (social sciences), my main goal in every course has been to get students to think and to express their ideas in words and sentences and arguments. On verge of retirement now, I am proud to say that never once in 40 years of teaching did I use a so-called “objective” exam. If the students weren’t willing to read, to think critically, they weren’t going to do especially well in my courses.</p>
<p>I think our own children were brought up with the same basic guidelines: think for yourself, use your schooling to develop tools and skills but mainly to find out what you are interested in for a career and pursue that when you graduate. But above all, graduate! And if you find that you need more education later, then do a time out from work.</p>
<p>Having just gone thru the med school app process with my younger son, one of the things I learned was: Male URMs are far more desperately desired than female URMs because there are a good number (maybe not enough) of very qualified female URMs applying to SOMs. However, the number of strong stats male URMs (strong MCAT, strong GPA) is less. </p>
<p>There are SOMs who are rather desperate to enroll more male URMs. Some SOM interviewees reported not seeing any male AAs at various med schools, but there were female AAs.</p>
<p>OK, got you, mom2collegekids. I thought I remembered you being a big sports fan. :)</p>
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<p>If this happens in our family, it is because the Dad felt the same way about school work as the son does. :)</p>
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<p>Ideally, yes, but in practice personal dynamics are very important in a corporate bureaucracy. You don’t get rewarded on what you did, but on the impression that other people have of what you did.</p>
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That’s not nearly the same thing as the dynamic between girls in middle school. The two situations really aren’t comparable. There is also the matter of the fact that not every man will have every job, but every boy will go to middle school. I think we have an obligation to not leave out half of the population and I think there are some common sense measures that can be taken to help boys succeed. There is an entire legislative scheme to help girls, which is fine, but there seems to be an unwillingness to consider boys at all.</p>
<p>Globally, under any rules system for school education, girls seem to be doing better. Cut out the busy work, make it all a final exam, and girls will prepare better for the exam. Require content-based projects, girls will put in the time to do them better.</p>
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I don’t agree (But that’s ok, it’s still a great conversation)
Test scores are not nearly as black-and-white as school grades.</p>
<p>For several years I have volunteered to evaluate students for acceptance to a middle school and high school supplemental program. It is targeted at kids that come from low income families, parents haven’t attended college, some are not native English speakers. The goal is to take kids with strong academic potential and provide them with the support they need to get to college. Typically about 200 kids apply to the program each year; I read about a dozen essays in detail, and hear my fellow evaluators talk about maybe 1/3 of of the candidates in discussions.</p>
<p>The kids write some short essays as part of their application. I find the difference between the boy and girl essays to be quite striking. One of the questions is about their career ambitions and how they hope to achieve them. Over 90% of the boys (not kidding) want to be a sports star. They have no backup plan at all. Many of them come from an ethnic minority that doesn’t produce tall/large people most of the time, and tons of these boys think they are going to be pro football players. I am surprised (and pleased) now when I get an essay that does not indicate the goal of being a sports star or that has a backup plan if the sports don’t work out.</p>
<p>I would say about 50% of the girls have a similarly unrealistic plan – fashion designer and professional singer show up a lot. But about half the girls have some ideas like lawyer, doctor, teacher, or scientist of some kind. And some of those girls with the “less realistic” plans have another idea (“I want to be a fashion designer. I plan to take art classes, learn to sew better, and take some business classes so I will be ready to run my own fashion business. If that does not work out I might own a store that sells clothes.”). </p>
<p>The difference between the genders in their career plans and how they intend to get there is stark.</p>