Why Boys Are Falling Behind (Newsweek)

Parents Forum
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<p>Here's a rather thorough report from a 4-year project studying differential achievement of boys and girls at a couple of specific educational stages in English schools (apparently they are experiencing the same phenomenon). It's 163 pages long, with charts and graphs, but quite readable (assuming you have the time):</p>

<p>Raising Boys Achievement, University of Cambridge Faculty of Education</p>

<p><a href="http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/genderandachievement/pdf/HomertonReport-final.pdf?version=1%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/genderandachievement/pdf/HomertonReport-final.pdf?version=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Run a bubble bath, pour yourself a glass of wine and snuggle down with a nice 163-page report on differential achievement in education. ;)</p>

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<p>In my son's 5th grade class with a young female teacher the punishment for misbehaving in class was to sit in at recess and copy definitions out of the dictionary. My son spent many a recess at the dictionary. And the majority of the detainee's were male. When she went on maternity leave her subs punishment was to have the boys move their desk outside to the hall. It was not a good year. And his last at that school.
The shining star for him that year was his resource teacher who he saw 2 hours a day 4 times a week. She was an older woman who got boys. She would have him in the middle of the session either go out and run a few laps around the field or challenge him to a game of handball or horse. She also would read the sports page each morning and engage him in discussions and used his area of interest to teach him reading and writing.</p>

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<p>From CNN: "Boy sues over girl-friendly teaching styles"</p>

<p><a href="http://www.cnn.com/EDUCATION/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cnn.com/EDUCATION/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Forgive me, Cangel, but "...in some ways-the girls have won"? Yes, and the gestalt of some of the comments here is "Why, this is just terrible, the boys need help....", with the inevitable conclusion that matters will revert to status quo ante, just like God and tradition intended. I'm not seeing the danger signals of a society transformed into one where males are second-class citizens with respect to educational, occupational, and legal rights as females have been for decades, nor would I seek one. IN some places enlightenment consists of tolerating "uppity women," including in the classroom, as long as they know their place and stay in it.</p>

<p>Here in SoCal the dominant model is Middle School, 6-8. When I was a lad in suburban Chicago, junior high was 7-8. No matter how you slice those grades, you're going to have some students that are in a less developmentally desirable match to their environment...changing the model just changes which students are disadvantaged.</p>

<p>Random responses to the PBS topic sentences:</p>

<p>*** at what point should boys be expected to sit/stand still as well as the girls? 8th grade? 12th grade? traffic school? cubicle-land? the boardroom? the operating room? </p>

<p>*** the elementary classroom is primarily language based...considering that language is the medium by which most knowledge is obtained and communicated, there's something wrong with this? Our society values language-centered abilities...should we return to being a hunter-gatherer society so that male attributes have an advantage?</p>

<p>Regarding the preponderance of women as elementary teachers...(and one of the best my D had was male): chicken-and-egg here...how do you encourage males to seek out or accept low-status, low-prestige jobs like elementary school teaching that women who aren't as concerned about status & prestige are willing to do. I guess you could have a salary differential where the men are paid more....wait a sec...check that.</p>

<p>Hands-on learning opportunities: well, that can't mean crafts or anything artistic, we've seen the furor over that already. I kinda scratch my head at finding ways to incorporate running, jumping, bashing, and shooting to teach many skills, though I give kudos to the Middle School science teachers who came up with the notion of using water-powered bottle rockets to teach some science/enginering where the student's grade was dependent on how far the rocket went. But Calculus? Analysis of "Julius Caesar," "The Scarlet Letter," or "Ender's Game"? Somehow I don't think an exercise in which team kicks whose butt is a valid study of the Civil War.</p>

<p>Science fiction, yes; comic books, no. Fwiw, Joe Haldeman teaches an over-enrolled science fiction course at MIT. It is not "easy" and it's not about robots-and-rayguns potboilers.</p>

<p>Boys act out...this should be tolerated or excused? If so, to when? Or do we set them up for a lifetime of "she made me hit her" kind of thinking?</p>

<p>Boys get into more trouble...well, I suppose we could simply re-define things so that what they boys do isn't trouble.</p>

<p>Many fathers show up only for athletic events. !@#$%^&*!@! And whose fault is that? Both parents should be equally supportive of both athletic and non-athletic endeavors. [Note: I was always very taken with the divorced parents of one of my D's classmates. They did not use the child as a pawn but showed up and sat together for her events, both at school and her EC, which happened to be ballet. In this, they put most non-divorced parents to shame.]</p>

<p>Reading aloud to boys and having them read to you... now there's a "Bingo!"</p>

<p>Some of these issues I'd like to explore further, e.g., reading and writing about what interests them instead of teachers & girls. If it's boogers, farts, video games, and girls bodies, no; if athletic, action-oriented, male-characters, yes...to a point. I have no problem with balance; I do have a problem with either side being confined, voluntarily or not, to a narrow range.
Two suggestions: </p>

<p>Every TV that I've ever seen has an off-switch. Ditto video game machines. Neither goes "on" until the school work is done. Make clear that school work is a priority.</p>

<p>No double-standard for discipline, e.g., the girl isn't a young lady but the boys are just being boys. Think carefully about where you draw the lines in the sand, tolerating, perhaps, some things you don't care for but enforcing the lines when they're crossed.</p>

<p>I know that some other parents here have raised some perfectly competent, successful, respectful, yet very masculine young men and have their own suggestions.</p>

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<p>Interesting comment in the CNN video on the lawsuit from Dr. William Pollack (Dir. Cont. Ed @ McLean Hospital, Asst. Clnical Prof, Psychology, Dept. of Psychiatry at Harvard Med School, author of Real Boys):</p>

<p>"We're not taking the data we have and acting on it and creating new curricula, new reading environments, new learning environments that boys will run to."</p>

<p>Which suggests that there might be some actual data.</p>

<p>TheDad:
[quote]
</p>

<p>I know that some other parents here have raised some perfectly competent, successful, respectful, yet very masculine young men and have their own suggestions.

[/quote]

Are you implying that parents who believe there is a gender gap in academic achievement are parents of underachieving boys? Or are you implying that the suggestions of parents of less competent, less successful boys (I will leave out masculine and respectful as there are plenty of respectful, masculine boys who underachieve academically and academic underachieve is what this thread is about) should be dismissed? What do you do with people like me who raised two respectful, masculine sons, one of whom was a spectacular success academically while the other needed five years to complete high school despite an IQ of 130? I also have a daughter who has been accepted ED to a top college so I suppose you could say she is also successful, at least for now. For whatever that's worth to this debate, which in my opinion is absolutely nothing, but you brought it up. </p>

<p>And yes, TheDad, somewhere between elementary school and the boardroom and operating room boys need to learn to sit still. And they do. Children are not miniature adults and we should not expect them to behave as such. And congratulations on reading and digesting the 163-page Cambridge study in little more than half an hour.</p>

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<p>I have not plowed through all 13 pages of responses here, having stopped by just to include a pointer to the CNN video idad references above (and having received my Newsweek late this week :)). But this quote clicked with me.
[quote]
What do you do with people like me who raised two respectful, masculine sons, one of whom was a spectacular success academically while the other needed five years to complete high school despite an IQ of 130?

[/quote]
I'm in the same boat, 1Down. My "underachiever" has an "official IQ" of 150, for what it's worth (which is likely very little). He will someday be an incredible success at <em>something</em>, having risen above the constraints of the "sit down, be quiet, don't fidget, copy this down exactly as I've written it" classroom atmosphere he's been subjected to for all his life, to find a true calling somewhere where he can be all the dramatic, active, creative, insightful, wild things he is naturally.</p>

<p>For my next trick, I will endeavor to help him find a college where he can use these inborn talents to good advantage.</p>

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<p>Well, like I said, I now have a seven year old D who is having the same issues as a lot of these boys that have problems with school. (not problems with learning, but problems with school, homework, timed tests, not motivated to do meaningless boring work, having to sit still, etc). Just the other day I asked her to sing a song with her piano teacher and her daughter and the piano teacher's daughter stood in one spot and sang while my D walked in circles while singing with her--it is very reminiscent of my boys, who when younger would start talking and moving in circles while doing it, esp. if it was something they were really excited about. Her piano teacher and I talked about how in one school she knew of, the kids could pick up wax and play with it during circle time, it helped them to sit still. There are things that the best teachers do to help young kids learn what they need to learn to be in a group (like not distracting others with too much movement) while respecting that it is harder for some, and allowing late bloomers the time they need for these things to develop. (I love my D's piano teacher!)</p>

<p>As for older kids. Well, I think we need more choices as to high school. Some kids achieve and do well in our high school, (maybe more girls do okay than boys, I really don't know. . .) but many are lost that seem like they could thrive in a different environment (less crowded, smaller schools with a stronger sense of community for starters).</p>

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<p>This thread has really been on my mind. I would like to separate the part I have no issue with and think the discussion is productive around, from the part that bugs me.</p>

<p>Part I have no issue with:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Boys are ON AVERAGE different than girls. This means that some girls will actually be more boy-like than some boys, sexual preference not implied here. However, males are different in brain and body from girls. Fine.</p></li>
<li><p>Currently boys are getting lower grades ON AVERAGE than girls. This means some boys are getting higher grades than some girls and vice versa. Fine. Well, not fine, but granted.</p></li>
<li><p>SOMETHING about the current AVERAGE school system appears to cause boys more difficulty than girls.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>Here are the parts I have trouble with:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>One thing that causes boys more trouble is female teachers.</p></li>
<li><p>Girls are happy to sit still and will do what they are told.</p></li>
<li><p>The solution to this is to treat boys differently than girls.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>These parts that bug me bug me because WE JUST GOT OUT OF THIS WORLD! Don't make me go back. Christ, I remember sitting in my pre-calc class, one of only two girls, with the male teacher ridiculing me. I remember my boss's boss, upon being informed that I was pregnant, telling me, "Alu, I'm surprised. I always thought you were a career girl." (A 30-year old girl BTW.)</p>

<p>So if I got one wish in this debate, it would be to look for ways to improve the school process and curriculum in such a way that it BENEFITS BOTH BOYS AND GIRLS!!! What a concept.</p>

<p>I think teachers default to what some people have defined here as "girl-suitable" teaching because it's just plain easier. And I believe girls will benefit from teachers looking hard for more edgy literature, from teachers thinking about the need to move, from teachers balancing competition and cooperation, and even from a few fart jokes:).</p>

<p>But I have worked so hard to be able to lead these boys when they get older, when they don't think a woman should be their boss, and it is hard. I have worked hard to get my son to be able to understand that that funny feeling in his throat is actually an emotion. To get him to understand it's OK to show enthusiasm. Boys are different. And if we don't address it early on in the right way we are giving up on a noble societal endeavour.</p>

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<p>Alu:</p>

<p>I so agree with you. I've endured my share of sexist comments, including one from a male classmate of mine: "Why do you want to get a Ph.D.? You'll be taking a job away from a man who'll be breadwinner." (For the record, I have worked ever since earning that Ph.D.)
My boys were taught by both men and women. Their favorite teachers have been both men and women.<br>
They know that their dad has had female project managers, so I hope they have no trouble imagining themselves reporting to a woman when they join the workforce. </p>

<p>The Newsweek article seems to attribute boys' academic failings to so many different factors, it's difficult to know what could or should be done.
1. genetics: male and female brains are wired differently. Okay, this means a different pedagogical style is called for.
2. boys are developmentally two years behind girls. Okay, hold boys back.
3. 40% of boys do not have male role models in their lives, because of divorce or because the father has abandoned the family or is sitting in jail. Well, what can schools do about this problem? And should they even try?</p>

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<p>Alumother--so right on--improve schools in a way that benefit all kids. There are ways . . . I do better when the discussion is more about how to reach kids with different learning styles, etc. rather than making assumptions about boys and girls (too many exceptions). </p>

<p>Best environment is when kids can feel free to express themselves, to be who they are, not stereotyped. One of the reason my boys had problems in school I think is because they have some qualities that supposedly are not "boy" qualities, like being artsy, emotional. But how can they express themselves when these things are "girl" things? How to be able to do this in a cool "guy" way? I'm kind of wandering, not expressing myself quite the way I want, time for lunch!</p>

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<p>Alu-I had to laugh (ok, choke) when I read your post. When I was a 28 yo corporate controller and announced that I was pregnant, the CEO's secretary told me I was the LAST woman she would expect to have a baby. "I thought you were a career woman."</p>

<p>In later years, during a job interview (when above pregnancy-turned-baby was 4) I was asked by a 60-ish interviewer if I planned to have more children! The younger men on the interview team almost fell out of their chairs. They offered me the job, thus saving substantial legal fees.</p>

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<p>Two points, TheDad, the one 1Down made, boys do learn to sit down, mostly well before the end of high school, my son who is causing me so many sleepless nights, has never had a detention (those begin in their school in 6th grade), is accounted by most all his teachers as pleasant, respectful, funny, non-disruptive, and participates to some reasonable extent in class - the excessive energy is more an elementary/early middle school phenomenon. Most of the boys in academic trouble at son's school aren't necessarily discipline problems, some but not most. It is a deeper and more insidious failing.
Not all boys either, although we have cast it that way in this thread, some girls have slower maturation rates, too.</p>

<p>The other point is that, I think you would have been irate, TheDad, if your daughter's guidance counselor, and teachers and teacher parent had said the kind of things to you that they said to me. It boiled down to "a large number of boys, and your son appears to be one of them, do not respond to the environment of school with grades that measure up to their abilities. It may be hard to tell if they have normal, superior, or inferior ability, but based on the general pattern and his accomplishments outside school, intelligence is probably not the problem. Doesn't mean he is not learning, just doesn't demonstrate it. Well over half our boys are like this, most of them get it together when they are about 16, and there is little or nothing you can do about it until he's ready to change and grow up." Well, what about college - "oh well". </p>

<p>If it was just my son, I'd say, oh well, he is lazy and immature, and he will just reap what he sows - he's not doing drugs or drinking and considers that behavior stupid, certainly it could be worse. The problem is she's telling me over half the boys in his grade are in this boat. What does that mean for our society?
We wasted the talent of girls for many, many years, but that doesn't mean that it is OK to waste the talents of boys. The type of knowledge and learning imparted in this environment is important for the success of our nation - if half the population may not be developmentally ready for this type of learning, we have to do something to not label them failures before they are ready to compete. </p>

<p>I'm a part of that discriminated against majority, I'm proud of what women have accomplished, and grateful to women that put up with c**p, I got my fair share of crap, too - you ought to spend 4 hours holding retractors for a Neanderthal whose only idea of a joke involves blacks, women or Jews, and this nincompoop is going to give you a grade. But I didn't do it so women would dominate, I did it wo that both my children had opportunities to perform to the best of their abilities.</p>

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<p>Alu, et al... The conclusion to the introduction to the Cambridge report speaks to the sensitive issues that concern many of us: Excerpt:
[quote]
We are confident that these intervention strategies, developed by participating schools in contrasting socio-economic environments across England, can be effective in raising boys' achivement. </p>

<p>Such strategies also have the potential to raise girls' achievement, and so in many instances the gender gap -- at least in the short term -- is perpetuated. We are not unduly concerned about this, since we do not find it acceptable to promote intervention strategies which, whilst supporting boys' learning, are detrimental to girls in either an academic or a social sense....</p>

<p>Finally, our research does not support the notion that there is a case for boy-friendly pedagogies. Pedagogies which appeal to and engage boys are equally girl-friendly. They characterise quality teaching, and as such are just as suitable and desirable for girls as for boys.

[/quote]
I realize that we do things differently here in the States, but the basic assumptions and conclusions seem somewhat transcendent.</p>

<p>Mootmom -- the wonderful thing about college is there are so many choices. Unlike public K-12 education, it's not One Size Fits All. Although they all started out there, only one of my kids actually graduated from the excellent public high school in town. And it is excellent -- but it didn't work for 2/3 of my kids and the 1/3 who did do well there, hated almost every minute of it. His brother graduated from a private day school and his sister will graduate from an all-girls private day school. FWIW, they are all normal socially, their problems were all related to academic underachievement. Now a junior in college, my son is still working on his issues, but it gets better as each day passes and he is finally engaged in his classes. Daughter's re-engagement was almost instantaneous after the transfer. Whatever works. Everyone is different.</p>

<p>cangel, as part of the process of trying to sort things out, my son was tested in 6th grade by a male educational psychologist (who admitted to struggling with ADHD), who told us after the results came in that he did not have ADD or ADHD and at 130 his IQ was high enough to handle the material but that he would "probably get some C's in high school" because of the nature of my son and the nature of the classroom environment at the high school (a school he was very familiar with). He wasn't putting down the school or the teachers or my kid; he was saying they probably wouldn't get along well. And he was right. That was a long time ago. What bugs me is that we're all just supposed to accept this as inevitable. And I guess I have to point out that the boy was obedient, respectful, never a discipline problem in school. That wasn't the issue, the issue was underachievement.</p>

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<p>So here is my totally anecdotal response having spoken with my 15 year old son, a freshman in hs, and my 17 year old daughter, a senior. They both agreed girls do better. Why? Observations from the front lines:
There are now "block" classes in high school in which all classes are 80 to 90 minutes long. The boys have a harder time with this and no student is allowed to stand up during this time. Classes used to be 45 minutes long.</p>

<p>Teachers don't pick books boys like. Both kids had to read "The Secret Life of Bees" and when a boy suggested "Heart of Darkness" instead (a classic), the teacher said it wasn't her kind of book. They also said "everybody" in school knew you got higher grades on touchy/feely papers when it came to writing in English.</p>

<p>Sports: Boys sports teams at our school have much longer practices (this may just be our school). For instance the football team practices for 3 hours/day after school and on Saturdays and in August. The girls cross country team practices one hour/day.</p>

<p>Girls (not all girls, but many) care more about their grades. They will do more repetitive work just to get a higher grade. Ther boys will read the same material, but not necessarily read it three times to be sure there isn't a fact they don't know. My son says his friends care less about a grade for grade's sake. </p>

<p>Science has been dumbed down (my son's words). They actually offer an AP physics class that is not calculus based. Everyone knows physics is math based and more (not all) boys excelled before the tough math was removed. Neither sex child felt this was a good thing. </p>

<p>If women go to college and end up with the best jobs my son says he is happy to marry a highly successful woman and play golf while the kids are at school. Or perhaps write poetry. He points out that breast feeding is short lived and after that his wife is welcome to go be an investment banker. No complaints from him! </p>

<p>What I think? Schools have made great headway at having special classes and getting girls up to speed in math and scence. They should also have special classes to get boys up to speed in writing and reading, using a more "boy centered" approach. This is for boys who need or want it only.</p>

<p>My prediction: There will be more and more affirmative action for men at college because most students want to attend colleges with a good balance between the sexes. Schools that start being under 40 per cent male (and many are) will become unpopular.</p>

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<p>Alumother, thank you, thank you, thank you.</p>

<p>This thread has haunted me since its inception. I understand that there are boys with issues, and that there are things in this world which make these issues occur, and make the world harder for them.</p>

<p>I am not persuaded, though, that the one strand of observation and research that's been touted as the answer here is the correct one. ANd I think that easy reaching for what I think is a doubtful theory short-curcuits other, maybe better, answers.</p>

<p>Some random notes:</p>

<p>I, like many posters here, have a son. And sitting still in school was not easy for him. It wasn't for his father, either, nor, I suspect, for most of the fathers of these sons we are talking about, and probably some of the moms, too. Yet they did learn to do so, and, if our family descriptions are ringing through clearly in these posts, their fathers have thrived, and are successful, despite the fact that the sit-still classroom was even more prevalent in the past.</p>

<p>My S did have to overcome his tendencies to do things at the last moment, forget homework, hurry through things. So did his sister.</p>

<p>Two of his best friends almost sabotaged their hs careers, which undoubtedly affected the colleges they got accepted to. Both had a tendency to forget homework. Both were also addicted to computer/video games. One received a late diagnosis of ADD, the other finally got his act together when his mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Both are very intelligent, kind-hearted boys who just didn't handle schoolwork well. Neither of their families, nor ours, would have tolerated our sons being disruptive. I wonder how much we all--and I definitely include myself--understand how the increase of screen time and randomized interaction with the virtual world may be changing how our children's brains develop.</p>

<p>I think that if a child truly isn't thriving in a situation, rather than blaming it--unless it is factually abusive-- then maybe a change of situation is in order. The first boy I described above has a younger sister who developed much bigger problems in middle school--acting out, running away, threatening suicide in school. I am glad her parents had the courage to see she needed help, and got her placed by the school system in a therapeutic school which is appropriate for her needs. Obviously, her case was extreme.</p>

<p>Each child has a different answer. I don't know why some of your sons needed another year of school, or are unhappy. I guess, though, that if they attended the same school that their successful brothers did, that the answer is more complicated than hostile females.</p>

<p>I don't remember ever reading a woman author when I was in school, but I don't think that scarred me. Both of my kids have had very strong male and female role models as teachers, and both have had horror story teachers, both male and female. I think my sample is probably pretty small to be drawing any big conclusions.</p>

<p>But I know I want both my son and my daughter to thrive in a world where neither sex is considered a threat to the other, and books, skills, subjects, styles, etc, are no longer labeled masculine or feminine.</p>

<p>They are both strong, kind, fearless people, and that's what I want them to find in their friends, their spouses, their world.</p>

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<p>I think it's remarkable that your son has the breast feeding angle figured out.</p>

<p>Seriously, this is a very nice report from the front! Although I still don't buy the "gender content" explanation, and I'm not sure I buy the "boys can't sit still long enough" explanation (what's so new about this that it would predict a "trend" in overall performance -- we had to sit still in the old days), and I'm not even sure that the 15 minute recess does much, for some other yet unproven (to me) reason there has been an increasing difference in performance, and it begs serious analysis.</p>

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<p>Catherine - your son gave me my best laugh today. Maybe he should meet my daughter? She's a little old for him, but when she's 30 and he's 27, it probably won't matter! Although she is making noises as if she wants to stay home with her kids for awhile, she grew up with Dad as often primary caregiver, Mom always primary breadwinner, so it will seem perfectly normal to her ;). She can be very grouchy, though, is he the easy-going sort?</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I don't know why some of your sons needed another year of school, or are unhappy. I guess, though, that if they attended the same school that their successful brothers did, that the answer is more complicated than hostile females.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, to answer that in our case -- my son needed another year of school because for the first two years of high school he'd failed to complete or lost or failed to turn in homework or failed to write the assignment down in the first place or wrote it down and then never looked at it, or he'd left the thing he wrote it on in somebody's car and that guy was at work, or he did the assignment and turned it in but late, or he did the assignment and turned it in on time but he'd failed to pay attention to the detailed instructions and missed something important or answered the wrong question, or...or...or... These things happened less and less as he matured, but the affect on his grades was devastating and neither he nor we felt community college was the best place for him. So he did a post-grad year to clean up his transcript. Also, he needed another year to mature before going off to college. </p>

<p>And the other one was unhappy because, in his words, "there was too much focus on trivia." Trivia is in the eye of the beholder of course, but he loved college from start to finish, went on to get a master's and will be applying to doctoral programs next year.</p>

<p>While one graduated at the top of his class and the other would have been in the bottom half if he'd remained at that high school, they had about the same amount of "screen time" -- although interestingly perhaps, the one who did well in school preferred simulation type games, like Civilization, while the other preferred first-person shooter games like Command & Conquer. </p>

<p>The subject of "hostile females" never came up.</p>

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<p>garland:</p>

<p>Amen to all you wrote.<br>
When he was 4, my older S announced that when he was older, he wanted to marry the then-love-of-his-life. He would be a teacher, he said, and when he got home, he would help his wife with the chores. His dad and I had a good laugh, but I was really proud of him.</p>

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<p>"The subject of "hostile females" never came up."</p>

<p>Great! So let's keep on track with how schools can work better for every kid, rather than the side issue of which gender is winning/hindering the other/ passive/ oppressed, etc.</p>

<p>It starts, I think, with seeing them as individuals.</p>