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Boys are not defective girls.
What a great comment. </p>
<p>All too often society and educators in particular view girls as flowers about to bloom while boys need to be fixed. I find that disheartening, and it does not bode well for men or for women who want men in their lives.</p>
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<p>The concept of a learning environment that is predominantly sitting still and listening (as well as crafts/coloring/worksheet activities) just isn't a boy model, it's a girl model.</p>
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<p>It's always struck me as a pretty stupid model, at least if the goal is to get children interested in what you want them to learn. I went to a Montessori elementary school, and I'm a big believer in that movement (children work at their own pace, they largely work independently, conversation and movement are acceptable in the classroom, etc.). It doesn't work for every kid, but I think it works better for more kids than the ridiculous idea of sitting a bunch of 6-year-olds at desks. Girls may be better at cooperating with that system than boys are, but that doesn't mean that it does them any good.</p>
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You make an interesting point and I think you are suggesting that some aspects of our educational system aren't that good for girls or boys. What would you change?</p>
<p>"Imagine getting extra credit for resisting authority, and having points deducted for being compliant with arbitrary rules and meaningless deadlines."</p>
<p>yes, that would be a great lesson for the real world- darn those deadlines for work, paying bills, applying for passports, showing up at airports...yep rules and deadlines are awful things</p>
<p>I would change age based class rooms to classes that encompassed 2 or 3 grades- unless students have a strong objection, they would stay with same teacher for several years.
This allows students to be both youngest and oldest in class, developing different strengths. More continuity also allows for less time wasted at beginning of year as the teacher is also familar with majority of class.
This strategy also allows students to learn at their level- with such a wide variation of strengths it is more acceptable for a student to learn where they are ready.
My oldest daughter had a team of two teachers for 1st & 2nd grades, and one teacher for 3rd,4th&5th grades - this worked very well
The reason why I chose my 2nd daughters public school is because it went from K-12, with most of the classrooms containing more than one grade level, however despite my protests she was always placed in a single graded classroom, since she had extreme transition difficulties, this resulted in those years not being as useful for her.
How productive would we be, if we changed jobs every year- a new boss with new expectations- mostly new classmates- expecting to perform different tasks without clear explanations of what would be same and different.( not to mention considering that we had almost three months off to totally change our schedules before we started the new job)</p>
<p>Yes some of us would thrive on these new challenges, but a lot of time would be spent trying to figure out what the new rules were- and what we needed to know-</p>
<p>I think the point of the letter in the OP was to demonstrate how the educational system has dramatically shifted to favor girls and, in the process, has hurt boys. The letter did that by describing what a boy-centered system would look like and illustrating how unfair that would be to girls. His examples were funny and true:</p>
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Imagine that students get rewarded for being overtly aggressive in school and that there is a zero tolerance policy for being passive.
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We all know that schools aren't going to reward aggressive students. Why, then, does it reward the converse - the passive students - and is this a good thing? </p>
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Imagine getting extra credit for resisting authority, and having points deducted for being compliant with arbitrary rules and meaningless deadlines.
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This statement evokes a powerful image. In general, I think boys naturally resist authority. Schools have worked hard to recondition them so that they are more compliant. Why? One reason is because it makes things easier for the educators. A room full of children with vibrant, curious attitudes is much harder to deal with than a room full of children sitting at their desks, obsessing with the details of their schoolwork. In today's world, it's clear that the latter group of children are better students. I wonder, however, which group of children become better citizens and people?</p>
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What an interesting idea. Some students do benefit from continuity, assuming they have a competent teacher and especially during the primary years when they often bond with their teachers. Plus, I think students learn almost as much from mentoring younger students as they learn from a good teacher. Haven't we all found our math, english, and other skills enhanced from helping our children learn those subjects in primary and middle school?</p>
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You define qualities that are typically associated with girls as moral and good, while qualities that boys typically manifest are bad. Girls are not inherently moral and disciplined. Boys are not immoral and undisciplined. This isn't a nursery rhyme where all the little girls are made of "sugar and spice, and everything nice" and boys are naughty. For instance, there is value to society to have some members who willingly demonstrate courage and determination and who will be risk-takers and question authority.
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I agree with your concluding statements, but my problem lies in your distinctions between girls and boys. Perhaps a better phrasing of my point is that I don't think boys tend to challenge authority inherently or that girls tend to be passive inherently etc. I think that this behavior is mostly manifested because that's what we expect from them ("boys will be boys"). What I suggest is that there should be no differing standard between boys and girls. ALL students should be encouraged to be courageous but scrupulous, challenging but wise, driven but ethical. It is unfair to use a double standard for boys and girls.</p>
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I'm curious, have you always believed that masculine men are violent and disrespectful or did they teach you this in school?
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<p>I don't believe that; hence the triple quotes. In the OP, the letter suggests that the opposite of passivity (the girl's supposedly inherent trait) is overt aggression (the boy's supposedly inherent trait). My contention is that it is because of THIS thinking (i.e. associating masculinity with aggression and challenging authority) that boys are made act so differently in school. Why not expect BOTH sexes to exhibit the same, optimal behavior, rather than cater to what's "proper" or "normal" in a boy or girl?</p>
<p>while my d didn't get to be in a mixed age classroom- she did get to be a mentor for a younger student which was great for her ( she was in 5th grade and her friend was in 2nd)- she also had an older student who I think was in 10th grade as a mentor- this was a great opportunity to learn from each other.
I agree that when you are having to teach someone else, it really forces you to examine the process-
Even though D is now in a regular traditional high school, a recent assignment was to prepare a lesson in marine science and work with a group of 5th graders over a period of about a week.
The kids really enjoyed it, and I would like to see more connections between younger and older students in teh community.</p>
<p>One of the things that I miss about her K-12 school, was the connections the students had with each other, the high school students were very aware that younger students were listening to them and watching their behavior</p>
<p>( especially when some of those younger students were their siblings- some of the roughest students are amazingly patient and protective of their younger brothers and sisters) & I think that pressure made them "behave" a little more responsibly, than when they don't feel like they have to set a good example. :)</p>
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Excellent point but the devil is in the details. The OP was showing the extremes, with passivity at one end of the continuum and aggressiveness at the other end. I think it's fair to say that our current educational models are skewed to the passive end and, at some schools, encourage complete passivity in students. Most people don't see how skewed our system is and the OP was trying to illustrate that by demonstrating how shocking it would be if our educational system skewed to the other, aggressive end of the continuum. </p>
<p>No one would object to your statement that "both sexes should exhibit the same, optimal behavior" but I'm not sure it gets us anywhere. The first step is to recognize there is a skew toward passivity. Then you can more effectively evaluate how to reach the optimal balance.</p>
<p>I quite agree, then. I'm fine with encouraging less passivity, so long as this change in behavior is targeted towards both sexes.</p>
<p>Wow... an internet debate that ends with understanding on both sides. The mythical beast!</p>
<p>People who think boys and girls are basically the same have never raised kids. (And specifically, moms who think most likely that have no sons.)</p>
<p>Hmmmm.... generalizations.</p>
<p>Mom of two boys, no girls. My boys never had any trouble being still and focusing on their work. They used to report that, in middle school, the girls were just as likely to be rambunctious as the boys. I can believe them from my frequent visits to their classes. The girls matured earlier physically. In fifth and sixth grades, some of them towered over the teachers. I saw one girl actually ruffling the hair of one young and inexperienced female teacher (who left after one year). </p>
<p>I cannot say that I observed much gender discrepancy in classroom behavior or in achievement. I did notice fewer girls in advanced math and science classes.</p>
<p>Tetragammaton - </p>
<p>You listen and think about other people's point of view. That's a rare quality, perhaps as rare as agreeing in internet debates. Does that make you a mythical beast?</p>
<p>DRJ4:</p>
<pre><code> "Boys are not defective girls."
I'd like to take full credit for that, but I can't. It came out of a quote in the Jan. 30 issue of Newsweek, the cover story "The Boy Crisis" which delved into this topic. Michael Thompson, the author of "Raising Cain" was commenting on the fact that elementary school classrooms, as the emphasis has shifted to stressing reading and language arts and test-taking, have put a premium on sitting quietly and not talking out of turn. This is the beginning of the "mismatch" between boys and school. Cain said, "Girl behavior becomes the gold standard. Boys are treated like defective girls."
</code></pre>
<p>I think the letter cited by the OP is problematic because it wants to make a point by looking at extremes, but it ends up distorting the real issue of how education is delivered in the classroom and how it puts boys at a disadvantage from a very early age. Boys enter school generally lagging behind girls in maturity, in social skills, in listening ability (which relates to getting along with the teacher and following directions), in reading skills, etc. and in time, many boys decide that school is torture. According to the Newsweek article, a Univ. of Mich. study found that the number of boys who said they didn't like school rose 71 percent between 1980 and 2001. I suspect one could find the same results among friends who have boys. Boys generally, as late bloomers, become more ready for the demands of education (not to mention high stakes testing) as they get older but by then, many are turned completely off by school and have stopped playing the game altogether. It might be better if boys could delay entry into the school system by more than a year, by two at least, but then while the boys might be developmentally matched to the girls, there would be a huge mismatch in size and maturity. </p>
<p>Tetra: The difference between boys and girls is not how we raise them or the messages we send them or the values we try to instill in them. The differences, as they pertain to school and learning, are biological and psychological and developmental. They can be taught the same "optimal" rules of behavior about not hurting other people, taking turns, but boys cannot be expected to be like girls. The kinetic, disorganized, physical and energetic side of boys is not something they've been pressured into believing defines masculinity. Those characteristics are hard wired in the boy brain, an expression of male chemistry produced by male hormones. You don't unlearn that. Perhaps the attempt to unlearn it is what leaves many boys feeling so crushingly defeated by their experience in school. </p>
<p>A few more statistics from the Newsweek article: Boys are 33 percent more likely than girls to drop out of high school. High school girls are 36 percent more likely to take AP or honors biology than boys. Girls were 22 percent more likely to say they planned to go on to college than boys. The percentage of male undergraduates dropped 24 percent from 1970 to 2000.</p>
<p>Marite,</p>
<p>You probably have smart kids that were able to adjust. Our son also attended a school where boys and girls excelled but that's because rambunctious boys (and girls) learned to conform. Those who didn't conform, boys or girls, were held back or medicated until they did or their parents gave up and sent them elsewhere.</p>
<p>By the way, here's an extreme but unsurprising example of how our educational system rejects competition: A high school that has 41 valedictorians. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/16/AR2006061601789_pf.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/16/AR2006061601789_pf.html</a> (Marite, you should post a thread on this.)</p>
<p>Marite:
I tried to sprinkle the qualifier "many" liberally through my missive. I agree there are boys who don't have a problem meeting the expectations of teachers from an early age, but they are more likely to be the percentage that are developmentally and academtically advanced. I have to admit that both my boys proceeded through school to date without falling off any academic cliffs, but I cannot say the same for the sons of close friends of mine. There is a real problem with boys, even including gifted boys, turning completely off to school in the upper elementary and middle school grades and they don't come back, as the statistics for male enrollment in college would suggest. </p>
<p>One note to add, though, my 14-year-old son, a straight-A student, recently has begun to let me know how much he "hates" school. Successful (so far), but hating it. More gray hairs for me.</p>
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The Newsweek article was interesting and it's one of the reasons I started thinking about this topic, but I'm not sure I agree that the problem is boys' lack of maturity that can be resolved by waiting a year or two to start school. If, as your next paragraph suggests, boys and girls are hardwired differently then waiting a year only helps if your goal is to wait until boys are mature enough to emulate girls. I don't see the value in having unisex kids. Shouldn't our educational system be able to teach girls and boys?</p>
<p>I think school in general today is too much sitting and too little moving around...hence, the gigantic, exponential increase in teachers' "diagnosing" (despite the illegality of such dx by school teachers) so many boys as ADD. </p>
<p>My daughter is a very active, athletic child, and while she has towed the line in sitting for hours on end, it isn't healthy for her either. She is going to a private school next year where movement and more independent learning is fostered and nurtured.</p>
<p>Girls also suffer from the immense amount of time spent disciplining acting out students (yes, usually those boys that someone thinks are ADD, when they are just normal boys, with plenty of energy). All this punitive action towards kids who are really reacting to unrealistic expectations (because sitting for hours on end is pretty unrealistic for children) is really absurd.</p>
<p>So, I think more boys suffer from this model of schooling, but it isn't just boys who do the suffering.</p>
<p>Right. I don't seriously think delaying boys entry into school would make any real difference. The article mentions some teaching strategies that have had good results, but personally, I think the single-sex classroom would make the most difference for the greatest number of boys. Maybe it will be more widely available for my grandchildren. Where I live, the only all boys schools available are Catholic-Jesuit and that would not work, at all, for us. And a boys' boarding school was never an option financially.</p>