Why Boys Are Falling Behind (Newsweek)

Parents Forum
101

<p>I think both my D and S would ridicule the concept of singing finger puppets or finding their "inner mother." Bad teaching is bad teaching.</p>

<p>My S had a Physics AP teacher-male-who made it clear he didn't really understand it and didn't think the students would, either.</p>

<p>A male chemistry teacher in our school gave extra points to Key Club kids who sold a lot of stuff (guess who was Key Club Advisor?).</p>

<p>OTOH, S's favorite teachers were tenth grade math and history (wrote his recs for him, both female), twelfth grade English (male) and band director (male). There was no pattern of who taught which subject, who was male or female, in whom he thought were the better teachers.</p>

102

<p>Not sure how germaine this is at this point, but it still makes me laugh so I have to share it.</p>

<p>For the 5th grade science fair, held in the hallways of our politically-correct elementary school, my son built a trebuchet and for 2 hours shot Hershey's kisses 30 feet down the narrow hallway. The parents are always trying to limit sweets, particulary chocolate, which has even been outlawed in some classes, but here they were dodging the flying silver bullets while their kids scrambled around on the floor literally fighting over the kisses. It was a riot and the clear favorite of the kids. H and I were dying laughing. We're a regular family of trouble-makers!</p>

103

<p>Garland, I think competence (or lack thereof)--teacher's knowing the material, being capable of teaching it, grading scales, etc.--is spread out equally among genders. Some of my kids' best teachers were female. And some of their best teachers were male. And the worst one was male and the next-worst one was female...etc. </p>

<p>What I'm talking about is a tendency on the part of some female teachers, especially in middle school, to--figuratively speaking--paint the classroom with a pink paintbrush. Now, having said that, the male teachers were so few and far between that they pretty much get a free pass: there just weren't enough of them to say whether they used too much blue in their classrooms or not and most girls made it all the way through all 3 middle school years without ever having a male teacher, so the men just didn't have that much impact for anyone to want to spend much time thinking about Ophelia issues or whatever.</p>

104

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=95559&page=1&pp=40&highlight=boys+falling%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=95559&page=1&pp=40&highlight=boys+falling&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Post 36.</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=121988&highlight=boys%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=121988&highlight=boys&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>post 33 and 34.</p>

<p>This subject is so tiresome.</p>

105

<p>Thank you Tsdad! You are right; enough is enough.</p>

106

<p>umm if you don't like the program can't you turn it off or change the channel?
I think it is very interesting, and helps me formulate some thoughts that our district is attempting to solve right now
If you don't want to participate- I don't notice anyone dragging you in here :)
or is the thread title too tempting?</p>

107

<p>Wow, I am amazed by the opinions that are in this thread, both good and bad. First of all, my D, who is very good at math and science, would be amazed by the assertion of those girls being more masculine. Since she is 5'3" and all of 90 lbs and very feminine, she works hard against that stereotype. One thing that she has going for her is a father who recognized her innate spatial abilities and capitalized on them. We have also worked hard to have the admistration aware of her abilities and I've felt that we have also experienced subtle discrimination because she is a girl.</p>

<p>Anyways, I hope that I will be able to get my point across. I wonder if some of the problem that we have educating our boys is the tracking system that is in place in HS at this time. Like that person who asserted that we are pushing our children to achieve younger and younger, many of our schools are tracking kids as early as 5th or 6th grade. It puts those who haven't matured at a great disadvantage.</p>

<p>My H always says that you rise to the ability around you. I think that tracking is great for those at the higher end. But I also think that it's hard for those in the middle. By the time you are in JH, all positive role models are taken away into the Honors courses. I think that schools, by the basis of who they are make it hard to jump up onto the Honors track. Math tracking is a prime example of this. By the virtue of a test in the 5th or 6th grade they have decided which path a child will take for the rest of their school career. What if a child is not mature enough for Pre-Algebra or Algebra in 7th grade? At my children's school, the only way you can get into Honors is to take two Math classes sophomore year. Or summer school, which is not recommended because you are placed with remedial students. In my S's class, this path was chose by 2, in my D's 1.</p>

<p>Another example of how tracking hurts those in the middle. My D is in an Honors Algebra II class. The teacher has a style of teaching. She assigns homework, the students are supposed to read the book, do the example problems and she will answer questions on the homework the next day. This is intentional; she wants the kids to learn how to read a Math book and is preparing them for how Math is taught in college. It works great for my D. She doesn't need a lot of help and if she doesn't understand she'll ask questions. But, this style of teaching only works if the kids are engaged and ask questions the next day, which my D says happens in her Honors class. But in the non-honors class, no one asks questions and the teacher assumed that the class understands the material. Of course, the kids do not understand. </p>

<p>The same thing happens in English and History. The kids in Honors are having engaging discussions and the kids not in Honors have virtually no discussion. </p>

<p>What I don't know is how you change this. I don't think that it's fair for the kids who want to move faster to have to move to the slowest. But it hurts those in the middle. I just know that when my kids are in Honors classes, they do better; they are more engaged and happier. They are happier by the basis of being with more positive role models.</p>

108

<p>Well, you could always ignore the subject when it comes up if you're tired of it. Frankly, I think the subject of falling male numbers in college, although probably related, is a different subject than, for example, how at least in our small city boys enter middle school somewhat equally engaged in the educational process as girls and yet they come out three years later less so. Something is going on during this period, probably many things, but the problem is getting worse, not better, so I'm not quite understanding why it's bad to talk about it.</p>

109

<p>
[quote]
Just read something in the paper--a study on male/female brains and revenge. The "reward/pleasure center" in male brains lit up in response to revenge--shooting/killing a character who'd hurt yours in a video game, for example. Female brains did not find revenge pleasurable. Females were more compassionate/merciful toward those who'd hurt them. Anyone else see this?

[/quote]
No, and I don't believe it, either. "Female brains did not find revenge pleasurable?" Where did they find these "females?" We are talking human females, right? No, I'm not buying that one for a minute.</p>

110

<p>talk about revenge, I just had an email from my D school that said students from her high school and the one across the street have been assaulted recently.
That makes me mad enough to abandon my no violence position
( I dobut it is high school students- the area has a crime problem)</p>

111

<p>I have a boy and I think this topic is very interesting and very relevant.</p>

<p>I think many boys fall behind because the system is not set up to serve an ever-growing number of them very well. That being the case, these kids become discouraged learners, reluctant learners, and eventually fall away from higher education (it feels so good to stop banging your head against the wall, doesn't it?). </p>

<p>I don't believe for a moment that it's because they can get decent jobs on the outside and girls can't. It's because there are no choices. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the bars are being set so high that more boys can't successfully make the transition from secondary school into college. While they may want to get into college and be successful there, the transitional, nurturing environment they need (at least initially) to make that happen isn't readily available. And community college isn't, in my opinion, a great option for them...for while a student can take a class or two, the whole independent living, rich college experience is lost. The boys are in essence penalized for being boys. And, rather than live an experience they understand is in someway flawed and marks them as "failures" (and in their eyes, many feel they are), they fade into the background and give up.</p>

<p>Many very good minds and good futures are lost this way.</p>

112

<p>So much has transpired on this thread since I last intervened on it that I hardly know where to start. I think I should reiterate a fundamental point, however, that tends to get overlooked whenever we get into comparing one class ("boys") with another ("girls"). Within both classes one will find enormous variation in quantitative, spatio-temporal, interpretive, and other skills. While as a long-time teacher, I think that roughly 90% of the time I can figure out just from handwriting whether the author of a bluebook essay is male or female, I wouldn't dare begin to characterize mental faculties from observing the "products," whether this be what the student writes in an essay, which problems he or she can solve, or how well he or she has designed something. While there may be "tendencies" associated with sex, I would make a whole lot more errors of inference about the sex of the student if I had to go by their work rather than their handwriting.</p>

<p>Many many things go into such work outcomes. My son, as bright as he may be solving logical and mathematical problems, just has very poor small motor skills -- and his large motor skills aren't so hot either. Though he's a great "fan" of baseball and its logical and mathematical analysis, I wouldn't pick him for my team if what I needed were players. There are plenty of klutzes among the male population of the world, and, BTW, these aren't necessarily "effeminate" guys.</p>

<p>On the other hand, you would be amazed at the logical and visual acuity of my daughter, who nobody would ever remotely describe as "masculine." An ability to anticipate multiple "folds" needed in clay to produce an image of a character (say "Big Bird") was something she showed at a rather young age. Imagine inventing origami in clay -- that's what she taught herself to do. And she had the hand-eye coordination, both small motor and large motor, to do what she "thought through."</p>

<p>I wouldn't dare impute some underlying "hormonal" basis of either of their abilities or disabilities, nor would I quickly assert any such generalization about "men's" and "women's" success in constructing things, designing things, using language, solving problems, or, for that matter, keeping the crayon colors within the lines. </p>

<p>Further, because there are so many factors that are external to the "organism" that affect how that individual develops interests and performs various tasks, I would strongly prefer not to jump to stereotyping or to assuming that behavior is all determined by genetics. In this connection, some very interesting research has been conducted on the concept of "stereotype threat," in which anxiety about being stigmatized can impede performance -- whether mathematical, athletic, or "tests" in general. Much of this has been authored by the psychologist Claude Steele and his students and desciples. (For a link to his CV, go here: <a href="http://psychology.stanford.edu/%7Esteele/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://psychology.stanford.edu/~steele/&lt;/a> ). One reason women in women's colleges seem to do better than they perform in "mixed" settings is not the "boys don't make passes as girls who wear glasses" phenomenon (or the estrogen theory endorsed on a previous thread), but rather that they are not as likely to suffer anxiety from arguing aggressively or energetically or being put on the spot in a class discussion. Change the social situation, the expectations of the context, and women suddenly get smarter? No, their performance, and perhaps over time their ability to learn, is affected by social expectations. A similar phenomenon seems to be at play in accounting for differences in performance in standardized tests. In experiments, "white guys" who according to independent pretests may be just as capable in math as "Asian guys," can be induced in some situations to underperform when told that they aren't "expected" to do as well as the Asian guys.</p>

<p>When I intervened early on this thread (long after posting the link to Newsweek story), my concern was that we were attributing too much of the performance differences in school to the curriculum or to the biases of teachers, and not enough to the broader social context. Now, it seems, some are advocating a kind of biological determinism that is belied by observations of the great variety of performances within the male and female sexes and by the ability to train or induce better or worse performance through the application of social or societal stigmata or sanctions.</p>

113

<p>The best post so far was by the student who said it wasn't cool in his school for boys to do well in anything but sports. Maybe it's time to change the culture of our schools (our society) to de-emphasize sports hero worship.</p>

<p>In regard to tracking, the bigest problem at the pre-high school level is tracking by age. Why should students be grouped by age rather than their ability, interest, preparation and willingness to tackle a subject at a certain level. Putting all students of the same age in the same math class is educational malpractice.</p>

114

<p>I have an adopted child whose birth mom, oblivious to her pregnancy did drugs and alcohol. DS has significant ADD, some LD, etc. Bottom line, though DS is an intelligent child, learning is never pleasurable for him. He is very distracted and has very slow processing speed not related to cognitive ability. However, he is always happiest around children who are gifted. It's as if he channels through them, and derives energy and understanding from them. Interestingly, they too enjoy his presence.</p>

<p>First, I hate to hear peers of students being referred to as "positive role models" as if people who aren't naturally intellectually endowed chose their lot and are somehow tainted...thus by default becoming "negative role models". And, too, I wonder who is hurt more the higher achieving kids who do not move forward at the earliest opportunity, or the currently lower achieving ones who are permanently left behind and stigmatized...often with no further enrichment made available to them. I have seen this issue from both sides, and I see it a lot more clearly now.</p>

<p>Second, if all bright children are removed from a learning environment, then children like my son would be deprived of whatever sparkle might remain in the classroom. Believe it or not, a number of these kids really are interesting, vibrant personalities, not just: trouble-makers, slackers, with disinterested families from poor socio-economic backgrounds who exhibit little interest in their education. To categorize the ones left behind in this manner is just too simplistic and wrong.</p>

115

<p>
[quote]
Girls are much more likely to take notes in class, obey the teacher, follow instructions, and adhere to class guidelines and homework deadlines.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, here the problem lies. My school only offers AP physics every two years. This year we had 40 kids sign up. Out of these 40, 8 were female.</p>

<p>However, if I break up the sexes in such advanced classes, such as Calc BC and AP Physics C, you will see a HUGE difference in how boys and girls do it.</p>

<p>There is a strong tendency for girls in these classes to work ridiculously hard to keep up with the material. Girls are much more likely to take notes, more likely to study for exams, and more likely to do the assigned homework. The boys generally don't do any of these things (and if they do, at a much lower level).</p>

<p>You notice this just by sitting in the class. The girls are MUCH more stressed out than the boys, they do much more work, and they worry much more about college and their grades.</p>

<p>And THIS is why girls are doing better in school than boys. They are more concerned about it. It has nothing to do with ability or the way anybody learns. It's simply that girls work hard at high school and boys don't. </p>

<p>Girls seem to have a stronger tendency to over achieve, fret about classes, and study diligently into the wee hours of the night worrying about them. Boy's don't. That's the difference.</p>

116

<p>Maybe, girls aren't smarter, they are just more compulsive overacheivers?</p>

<p>Two experiences/comments related to this. I was once observing an 8th grade Algebra-Geometry 1 class (The faster math option at our school) on the day the teacher suggested their next math class to individual students. To the girl sitting in the front row madly working on homework she said, "I know you have been getting an A, but you have to work so hard to do so, I think you should consider taking the 'progressive math" (an interim step to AG 2). To the boy several rows behind her (who was the focus of my observation) she said..."Now, you have a C+ but you really are so able in math, take the AG-2 and challenge yourself." I kid you not, this was the exchange. </p>

<p>Mother of the girl, my good friend, got a quick phone call. Daughter ended up in AG-2- ended up with a 790 on her math SAT, in fact...Teacher is no longer at our school. The boy....actually I don;'t know!</p>

<p>Second experience- discussing college placement results with the school activity director. Asked her why she thought 2 girls, who had been the kids my son identified in 8th/9th grade as the top grade getters, had not been more successful in the college acceptance process. Comment to me was, "You know, they are like a lot of girls who work really hard and get good grades in the early years of HS, but then as the expectations change (In IB math/science/history courses) just are not able to use overworking to compensate."</p>

<p>I suppose this begs the key question...what is the appropriate ratio of inspiration and perspiration at any given time in life??? And do boys and girls just not figure it out at the same time??</p>

<p>Caveat- all these are gross overgeneralizations....of course.</p>

117

<p>
[quote]
For the 5th grade science fair, held in the hallways of our politically-correct elementary school, my son built a trebuchet and for 2 hours shot Hershey's kisses 30 feet down the narrow hallway. The parents are always trying to limit sweets, particulary chocolate, which has even been outlawed in some classes, but here they were dodging the flying silver bullets while their kids scrambled around on the floor literally fighting over the kisses. It was a riot and the clear favorite of the kids. H and I were dying laughing. We're a regular family of trouble-makers!

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Bad, bad Baseballmom - bad girl, bad son, bad influence - did he get elected class prez the next year?</p>

118

<p>Here's my private wholly unvalidated theory on why girls study more in school.</p>

<p>I have this idea that human bodies and biologies haven't caught on to the developments in society that allow us now to occasionally transcend gender responsibilities. So imagine we all still live in villages - hunter/gatherer or early agragrian. The women are, let's face it, mostly pregnant. The impact of being pregnant is that it's hard to be a good warrior or a good hunger. You just aren't too mobile. So the men develop better upper body strength, more height, etc. </p>

<p>Men take on hunting, fight, women by default hold together the village social structure while men are absent.</p>

<p>Therefore, men need to hone in on skills, master skills by learning from those who demonstrate extreme skill, and specialize and try to be better than everyone else. Otherwise the tribe dies. So boys mostly want to learn topics with a high measurable skills component and only from people they respect. Girls, however, want to keep the tribe together. So they study the social anthropology of their school, and work to succeed in it. And they pass notes.</p>

<p>It's amusing to pretend I know anything about this.</p>

119

<p>Alumother,
NOt so surprisingly, this same hunter/gatherer dichotomy explanation has made it's way into the -boys being misdiagnosed with ADD when it may not really exist-literature...so it is in fact, 'science'! </p>

<p>It's all one big mosh-pit until we understand more about the brain, perhaps. But in the meantime maybe there is a relevant distinction:</p>

<p>"those who feel projectiles make the best science fair projects" vs. "those who are upset when the chocolate/waterballoon/etc land on their science fair project" </p>

<p>Daughter is 3/3 with projectiles in the category "most notations in her log book that her experiment was fun to do!". High excitement need that girl...</p>

<p>I love the book "Essential Differences" for what it tells about the brain and gender...and believe these differences are essential...</p>

120

<p>All this kvetching; these anecdotal tales of woe and grief. It's just another version of "it's not fair." If it isn't minorities it’s the athletes, or legacies, or bad teachers, or uncaring guidance counselors, or the ETS. On this thread it’s the girls and their allies’, THE DREADED FEMALE TEACHERS who are part of a feminist conspiracy to destroy boys. My, my it's a wonder anyone's child on this board manages to ever to get into any college with everything that’s stack against them. </p>

<p>As to the topic I urge you go back and read Northstarmom's contribution at: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=95559&page=1&pp=40&highlight=boys+falling%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=95559&page=1&pp=40&highlight=boys+falling&lt;/a>, Number 36.</p>