<p>OHMomof2, what I’m saying is that an openness to different personality types would go a very long way. There is a lot of desire for diversity of appearance, but diversity of thought and being can be a very good thing.</p>
<p>There is more than one way to be a respectful and engaged student. Some teachers choose to add some active learning in a classroom, but most don’t. If the teacher sets the ground rules and is fully in charge, some kids (not all boys) will do very well to move from station to station or to do something more hands-on. Every teacher will have some kids who fit in less well in his/her classroom, but when most of the teachers have the same style, that leaves out those kids all the time.</p>
<p>What would you do, if anything at all, to help close the gap between boys and girls?</p>
<p>I guess I mean once they enter the workforce, are men making less $ or having less powerful/influential positions than women, is whatever is going on in school for them keeping them from competing with women as our society defines success?</p>
I would say that education is a major marker of success, and the population who doesn’t graduate isn’t gaining any influential positions, so I would say that what is going in school keeps boys from graduating at the same rate as girls and getting the jobs that require the same level of education.</p>
<p>“close the gap between boys and girls”
-so we want to make boys girly and girls manly? Why? what is a purpose? The schools should close the difference between genders? That is what we are paying for, and paying the most per each kid, absolutely the most expansive and one of the worst k-12 education in the world, surpassed by even some countries in Africa with some immigrants having thoughts of sending kids back to get a real education instead of “closing gaps” and stuff like this…thye luagh really loudly at all stupidity that is going on in American public schools and quietly supplementing their kids education whenever they have a chance to do so…check out who are at Med. Schools, in various Grad. Programs, engineering…etc. make up is by far not representing the population make up…they are not talking about closing gaps, they are able to provide sufficient background to their kids of both genders and their girls are graduating with engineering degrees, they are not falling out…</p>
<p>If we’re going to say the goal of public education is solely to improve economic productivity per hour worked, then no, the results tend to be about equal. There are other measures that might be considered where males fail compared to females, such as incarceration and suicide rates, but I think that’s just the nature of people. Only way to close that gap would likely be to imprison more females and push more females towards suicide, which I think is a terrible idea.</p>
<p>I went back and read the previous page and I still feel like I’m missing something.</p>
<p>In this country males out earn females in pretty much every single occupation.</p>
<p>Males dominate in all STEM fields and careers. No matter what college you go to you won’t find many females sitting in the mechanical engineering courses (or higher division math, or physics).</p>
<p>Males outnumber females in the board rooms and in politics - the 2 major areas of power in this country.</p>
<p>Males outperform on standardized test scores -</p>
<p>It really doesn’t seem the schools are failing boys…or maybe I’m missing something???</p>
<p>BTW - irrelevant statistic: females actually attempt suicide at a much greater rate than males, but males succeed more often. Males are more likely to use guns, whereas females are more likely to attempt to OD from which they can be rescued. So pushing more females toward suicide wouldn’t close the gap.</p>
Boys make up 67 percent of special education students. 80 percent of whom are black or hispanic. I find that a huge problem since special education kids are much less likely to meet any of the benchmarks of success.</p>
<p>Does anyone really think that boys are just that much more likely to have a disability of some sort than girls are?</p>
<p>While the current generation of men holds more positions of power, that will not be the case going forward. The percentage of college graduates, law school graduates, medical graduates, etc. are much lower for the upcoming generation.</p>
<p>I really don’t get why it would even be controversial to want to have policies and procedures in place to get as many kids as possible to graduate and become productive members of society. THe number of boys who don’t graduate is much too larg to be anything but a societal issue. We have addressed how to help girls and have had great improvements in their outcomes. Which is ideal. But why marginalize boys? Who could possibly benefit from that? We are moving in the right direction for girls and the wrong direction for boys. Would all of you be so confused if girls were doing so much less well and being warehoused in special education? I don’t think so. Don’t look at our generation, look younger and younger still.</p>
<p>Not controversial to me. An important goal. </p>
<p>But the problem you are pointing to doesn’t exist yet at the societal level. I get that you see it coming, but it’s still a prediction at this point. I can’t, personally, imagine that in the next generation, our politicians, CEOs and religious leaders will suddenly become mostly women. </p>
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<p>I didn’t know that. It seems special ed may be perceived as a way to punish or hand off boys who act out?</p>
<p>How much of this IS biological? It would seem autism is, but ADD/ADHD, not so much. </p>
<p>I suppose the flip side of twice as many boys being in special ed is that girls who need it may not be getting it, as in the “turns inward and tunes out” example above.</p>
<p>Males have a higher standard deviation of intelligence than females, this has been widely studied and confirmed. There should be more males in special ed programs than females. In fact, I thought the disparity would have been higher.</p>
<p>Maybe the issue is that males are at both extremes? Highly paid, highly achieving and over-represented in STEM and politics, but also “over represented” in special ed, arrests, criminal behavior, violent acts, etc?</p>
<p>For some of the more common issues that lead to being classified into special ed programs, boys are equally or only somewhat more likely than girls to have the particular disorder, but are much MUCH more likely to get diagnosed-- autism/asperger’s and sometimes ADHD being examples. Generally speaking boys with these conditions are more likely to act out in ways that are enough of a disturbance that they end up getting screened for LDs or conduct disorders, whereas girls frequently are more likely to withdraw into themselves or act out in ways that don’t hurt anybody but themselves-- a problem for them but often not enough of a problem for anybody to realize what’s going on and take them to a doctor.</p>
<p>It may be the case that “some” schools are hostile towards boys. But you can’t say all. I work in an elementary; preschool to fifth grade, approximately 400 kids total. We never had a student suspended for something minor like ‘pretending a pencil is a gun’. If that was seen as an ongoing problem or a red flag because the student exhibited other questionable behavior, that student might have to sit in the principal’s office for a day. It takes a lot for a kid to be suspended in our school. Some say the principal should be better at discipline. She retired this year and we have a new, younger male principal. It will be interesting to see what his style of discipline is. </p>
<p>You may not like to hear it, but parents need to teach their kids what may or may not be acceptable in a school situation. I try to teach students that some things they are permitted to do at home, like rough housing with their friends, is not allowed in school. I tell them it’s not wrong to do it, but it’s just not appropriate at school, so just wait until they are home. Or maybe they’re allowed to crawl on top of furniture at home but not at school. The instruction is not given in a mean way, but to allow them to realize they must adapt their behavior to their surroundings. Especially with the older kids, some of them understand. Even tho it seems obvious to adults, some kids really need it spelled out to them.</p>
<p>I mean, what you think is clear is not necessarily what a child thinks. I once knew second graders who thought our principal was the old battle-ax school secretary that sat behind her desk dolling out orders!</p>