Why Boys Are Falling Behind (Newsweek)

Parents Forum
41

<p>
[quote]
I do think feminism, as a movement, made men the enemy, and by default, our boys. Things male always seem to be labeled 'bad.' Natural 'girl behavior' -- sitting quietly, doing pencil work or playing school -- is rewarded while 'boy behavior' -- building, jumping, running, taking things apart -- is usually punished.

[/quote]
Oh dear. SJMom you might not have meant to say that. Actually girls don't necessarily sit quietly. They tend to talk to eachother. And they don't necessarily play school. They play Power Rangers and Let's Rescue Barbie from Kidnapping. And the boy behaviour, building and taking things apart is what wins RSI. And running and jumping are fine - in the playground.</p>

<p>Now, of course, I do understand you are talking in generalities, and as such the fine grain of life is blurred, but still. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool feminist. And I love men. And I love the baby man I gave birth to. This strikes me as the kind of thing where effects are noticed but causes are not quite right. I would say the increased class size might have much more to do with poor boy performance. </p>

<p>I read a great article in Foreign Affairs. The only ways males are statistically significantly different from females in behaviours that they have been able to measure are in 1) aggression 2) hierarchical status-ranking. So I can imagine that large class sizes make aggression more difficult to control.</p>

<p>My two cents.</p>

42

<p>OrangeBlossom - This can happen in bad public schools to girls as well.</p>

43

<p>Thinking about my Ss' school experience, I'd say that sitting quietly was NOT encouraged. Groups were formed and reformed all the time; there was a huge amount of hands-on work and performing. In kindergarten and early grades, it was building blocks, Cuisenaire rods, etc.. in later grades, it was performing As You Like It, building models of various kinds of structures, performing science experiments for the Science Fair (spaghetti and toothpick bridges, anyone?)
I'm with Alumother. Girls whisper non-stop. At least, I did in my all-girls classes while supposedly sitting "quietly." There was also a huge amount of paper passing.</p>

44

<p>Alumother, you make some valid points. However, I do think that at the elementary school level, the behaviours that I categorize as that of a typical girl are what's rewarded. Also, those are the behaviours that I remember from childhood and that I observe in nieces and the daughters of friends -- since I don't have any daughters, my experience is not as complete as yours. For the record, I would have clearly labeled myself as a feminist, until I could see how our culture creates such a zero sum game between the genders. I would also note that I was speaking of stereotypical boy and girl behaviour, and I did note that there will always be individual exceptions -- but the stereotypes can have some basis in reality.</p>

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<p>sjmom:
I think you are right on target in post #37.</p>

46

<p>Alumother you got me thinking. My son who has ADD and learning disabilities survive at school in the early grades because classes were small and there were lots of activities during the day and hands on learning going on. In 4th grade when class size reduction didn't result in extra cash his class size ballooned. He went from classes where movement was okay to one where the teacher just needed them to sit and be quiet. The boys couldn't handle it. When I would work my 1 hour a week in that classroom I would leave and feel real sorry for that teacher and real lucky for myself that I got to leave and she was stuck with them. I don't know how she kept her sanity.
My girls are talkers. They get their work done but they are much more aware of how to work the teacher. My youngest is one of those girls who talks to the boys and the boys are the one who ends up in trouble.</p>

47

<p>mackinaw:</p>

<p>I think what you are asking is, what has changed to make this a new phenomenon?</p>

<p>A few things have changed a lot recently: the strong emphasis on testing; more rigorous, inflexible curricula; a lot of emphasis on improving girls' perfomances in math and science, with little or no similar remediation efforts for boys in reading or writing; more class time in school (as in sitting at a desk); more homework (when, perhaps, boys need to be outside playing).</p>

<p>Also, while a breakdown by ethnicity might be interesting, the overall statistics are worrisome even without it.</p>

48

<p>RobyRM #39: turn off the TV, trash the PlayStation. Amen. For multiple reasons. Fwiw, I don't think TV portrays women much better, just differently bad...from what I gather from the little we watch while the VCR is rewinding. </p>

<p>Masha #26's observations match mine and those of my D regarding boy in high school: the girls participate more and yet are sometimes chided when they do. It's as if the boys should be allowed to set the level of participation at which the girls may not exceed. B/C Calc was heavily male; AP English dominated by girls, fwiw.</p>

<p>SJ (Jesuit?) Mom #16: a complex post. Indisputable that boys and girls are different. I saw it in pre-school and fluke studies aside, I'm convinced there are some innate differences, not just cultural ones. (I'd like to see if a human male raised by spiders on Mars would try to turn any random object into a play "gun," LOL.) </p>

<p>As for books, though, by your paradigm the girls would have to accept all the "male oriented" stuff on its terms while the guys get a pass in reverese. I have an age peer, good friend of my wife's, who got to the point that she would read only books <em>written</em> by women, she got so tired of it. My D in elementary school got to the point where she was only interested in books with female protagonists. Perhaps your sons would not have to have nearly as many "sideways" conversations if they'd picked up the knack otherwise in class. The flip side of things is what girls & young women are taught: I go back to GAMES MY MOTHER NEVER TAUGHT ME and REVIVING OPHELIA and all of that...girls need to be taught to be competitive when required, both individually and with groups, and to deal with hierarchies and other non-consensus driven group situations. Teaching a girl about living in a male-dominated world was alwasy in the back of my mind while bringing up my daughter. </p>

<p>Women are still vastly outnumbered in science and engineering, it's clear that males <em>collectively</em> are having no problem with finding their track to it...females are. The special programs for women are entirely warranted, imo.</p>

49

<p>TheDad:
Why do you think they don't have special programs for boys to go into nursing or teaching or social work? Just something your post made me think about.</p>

50

<p>you use a VCR?</p>

<p>I think sports teams are great for both sexes- value of hard work- exercise, gets out agression, frustration, improves mood, value of working together for a common goal...
Sports teams while growing up can add a lot to either a young mans or young womans character.</p>

<p>I am more concerned about men knowing how to work together, to admit when they are wrong, and to value others opinions more than I am worried about women who aren't "competitive" enough.</p>

51

<p>there are actually programs to attract men into the service/helping professions

[quote]
Bryan Nelson is the founding director of MenTeach, a nonprofit organization that actively recruits men into the teaching profession. His group works to provide men who want to be teachers with mentors, stipends, and special training. According to Nelson, men must overcome several perceived barriers to the teaching profession, not the least of which are concerns about salary, the perception that teaching isn’t a manly career, and even parental fears that male teachers can be a threat to younger children. Nelson believes that increasing the number of male teachers will help add balance to school life for children while showing them that society values education over gender stereotypes. In his seminars and training classes, Nelson stresses the importance of having men in the classroom by appealing to their pride. "I tell them, 'Can you imagine what you're doing for these kids? You're a pioneer. You're teaching kids how to read. You're setting up their future.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Shades of Sydney!
Callme</a> Mister!</p>

52

<p>Thanks, weenie. A couple of comments on the post you addressed to me.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I think what you are asking is, what has changed to make this a new phenomenon?</p>

<p>A few things have changed a lot recently: the strong emphasis on testing; more rigorous, inflexible curricula; a lot of emphasis on improving girls' perfomances in math and science, with little or no similar remediation efforts for boys in reading or writing; more class time in school (as in sitting at a desk); more homework (when, perhaps, boys need to be outside playing).

[/quote]
In my view, these are all good suspected factors, or hypotheses to be tested. But I'd like to see each one tested in a controlled study -- that is based on actual data. I'm not sure all of these are 'sex selective' in impact. We need to bear in mind that there is enormous variation within the girl population and the boy population in learning styles, activity levels, and abilities and talents. And some of the factors you mentioned should affect many girls as well. </p>

<p>We should also bear in mind that the kind of "inconvenient facts" that got Larry Sommers into trouble last year still show that boys "do better" in science and math than girls -- at least in forming the high-end "tail" of the distribution of achievement in these fields (as theDad points out in post #48). I'm not ready to attribute that to genes and heredity, however. And so I suspect that despite the observed problems (drop out rates and underperformance) that are noted in this article, we shouldn't assume too quickly that school curricula, testing, and so forth, are skewed in favor of girls.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Also, while a breakdown by ethnicity might be interesting, the overall statistics are worrisome even without it.

[/quote]
I agree that the overall statistics are worrisome even without it. My interest in ethnic differences (including change in performance over time) is mainly to see if we can tease out how much of the overall change is more societally determined rather than due to the school environment. As I've noted, I don't think we should too readily attribute responsibility (or cause) to the schools when broader social context (through family stability, economic situation, discrimination, values) matters so much to the educational achievements of our kids.</p>

53

<p>To build on some of Mackinaw's comments, when my S was running the math team in his school, the team had one girl on it. There were other girls who had strong math skills but were not interested in joining. His k-8 school launched a science for girls club (which spread to other schools in and outside the district) mainly to combat the feeling that for girls to be interested in math and science was not "cool." It was not the school that produced this attitude, but peer culture.
When I was growing up, it was definitely uncool for a girl to be wearing glasses and thus betraying signs of intellectual interests. </p>

<p>As Mackinaw suggested, the data from CB suggest that boys do both better and worse on standardized tests than girls.</p>

54

<p>

I don't necessarily agree with this -- I'd have to see the supporting references, because I think women are quite well represented in the sciences, although perhaps not as much in engineering. In fact, I recently saw part of a presentation on physics by a woman physicist from Harvard -- clearly, she managed to succeed in a male dominated field. My oldest sister has a B.S.E.E. and an M.S.E.E. and my younger sister has a B.S. in Computer Science and an M.S.E.E. To the best of my knowledge, they were always given a great deal of encouragement both academically and in their careers -- I think they sometimes felt lonely, but I also think that fewer women are INTERESTED in engineering. For the last 15-20 years there has been a concerted effort to encourage girls to pursue science and engineering, and I think that great progress has been made -- in the life sciences, especially. If girls are less interested in the physical sciences, why should they pursue them? Just to satisfy some quota or expectation on the part of some who may have a particular agenda? I think all students, boys and girls, regardless of socio-economic or ethnic background should pursue whatever they are interested in, not just what society at large tells them they should do. If my sons had been interested in nursing or teaching, I would have done whatever I could to support that goal. But, big surprise here!, they are interested in the physical sciences. My first degree was in psychology, and I really believed that socialization was what mattered. Having raised two boys, I lean a little more toward inherited, gender specific attributes, although I believe we can raise both boys and girls to develop all sides of their personalities, which naturally have aspects along a spectrum of male/female attributes.</p>

55

<p>Have you noticed the number of "art projects" our kids get assigned in classes like English, science, and history? I almost took one of my S's out of a history class in high school because he was overwhelmed by the artwork and couldn't keep up with the girls in his class. When we spoke to the teacher he said my S was great at learning the material and taking the tests, but not all the kids could do that. He needed to assign artwork projects so the kids that weren't good test takers could have "another form of assessment." </p>

<p>My other S was the top student in his biology class when it came to learning the material and taking the tests. The teacher then assigned a group lab project. There were only a handful of boys in the class and they decided to be in the same group. The groups of girls did fabulous artwork and their projects were very neat. The boys used photos of their dissected animals instead of drawings and their project was less esthetically appealing. Their group got the lowest grade in the class.</p>

<p>By the way, I have a daughter who does fabulous art work and she gets those fabulous grades. When my oldest S saw her report card he said, "How did she get to be so smart?" I reminded him that she was good at both mastering the material AND drawing pictures.</p>

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<p>Cookiemom, if my kids had classes that were not in the art department, yet which were graded on their artistic skills, I think I'd have to have a meeting with the principal or headmaster. What in the world does pretty art work have to do with mastery of a body of material? For kids who aren't good at taking tests, it's nice to have another method of assessment, but the kids who DO perform well on more standard tests should certainly not be punished! If anything, this is an example of what's wrong with education. JMHO.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I don't necessarily agree with this -- I'd have to see the supporting references, because I think women are quite well represented in the sciences, although perhaps not as much in engineering. In fact, I recently saw part of a presentation on physics by a woman physicist from Harvard -- clearly, she managed to succeed in a male dominated field.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You can't have it both ways, women being "well represented" in a "male-dominated field.' A field that is dominated by one gender lacks, by definition, sufficient representation from the other gender.</p>

<p>For what it's worth, I counted 64 physics profs at Harvard, 5 of which are women. Well represented? Not by my lights. Biology and Chemistry are not any better. Not a single tenured female prof in the math department.</p>

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<p>Just a brief comment on "art" in non-art classes. My daughter was very good in all her subjects, that is she could handle them if she so chose. But because of the legacy of a traumatic experience in a certain "left-brained" school in 4th grade (while we were on sabbatical in Cali), she felt her creative and expressive side was suppressed and she lost interest in reading for years. But by great fortune in 9th grade she had an English teacher who encouraged her to "illustrate" the books she was reading, and she understood instinctively that illustration was part of narrative and not just drawing pictures. She had to read and interpret the books to do this as well as she did. (No student wanted to give their oral presentations after she had given hers.)</p>

<p>It was definitely not the case that all students were forced to illustrate or use art in their other classes (I think that would be bizarre, and the reports above are distressing). But for her, having the option to express herself in that form frankly saved her from being very discouraged about school. She ended up, as I've mentioned before, studying art/design in college. But she's using her whole brain in her work, not just drawing pictures.</p>

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<p>cookiemom- my son's final in his spanish class was a journal of a trip to Spain. His idea of a journal would have been to buy a spiral notebook and write up 7days of entries in whatever pen or pencil he found. Both my D and I pushed him to try to put some effort into the journal. His feeling was that the grammar of the entries was what was important. We agreed but told him that if it looks like you took the time to make it look nice and somewhat creative you will get a better grade. He ended up making a bit of effort in the presentation and his grade reflected it.</p>

<p>Soph. year my older D had her favorite class of high school. World History. There were lots of creative assignments. It made my D love to learn again. Talked to a mother of a boy, I am raving about this teacher and course and she tells me her son hated that class.</p>

60

<p>I think this is a valid topic, and I could post so much, don't even know where to start. I agree, though, that nonconformist girls also have a problem with "school" as much as boys do. I have two older boys who didn't do as well as they could have in school, though the second one did have some areas in which he achieved. Actually the first did too, until he almost completely derailed senior year of high school. Ups and downs for both of them all through their k-12 years pretty much describes it. A roller coaster ride. Then I have two girls who are practically model students. Basically, what that boils down to is the two girls do stuff (like homework!) just because the teacher says to! That often wasn't enough to motivate the boys. The girls also tend to not to challenge authority, so that is another thing that helps when it comes to grades, for sure. And then I have the seven year old girl, my baby, who is a bit more like her brothers than her sisters. Already some have commented, boy she sure isn't like her sisters, is she? Should be interesting.</p>