Why Boys Are Falling Behind (Newsweek)

Parents Forum
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<p>Tsdad,
No kvetch here. My kids got the 'hidden curriculum' early on (with help from mom) and knew that there is more to 'getting it' in school than what was always transparent. Sometimes they delivered, sometimes they didn't- sometimes kids who were 'not as smart as me but just worked harder' seemed to be rewarded...all this just stimulated better insight into what one was good at, how to use what one was good at to overcome any difficulties, and how to understand why things were the way they are. What wasn't accepted was the use of the explanation as an excuse...explanations beg response, excuses beg blame.</p>

<p>For some kids just the insight is enough, for others the explanations must be tied to interventions-</p>

<p>P.S...great teachers, male and female, really helped!!</p>

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<p>Those of you who say, if you don't like the thread, don't read it, may have a point--I vowed not to get sucked in, and yet I did. But what keeps me replying is that I have to send my D, and my S, for that matter, into a world of whining excusiness (to coin a Colbertesque word). That's where I agree with Tsdad--the "conspiracy against boys" becomes just another excuse for why one's over-testosteroned child should be excused, explained, forgiven, etc. and allowed to have the domination back the way it's always been.</p>

<p>Maybe we can discuss why it's "unfair to be white" in this society, as long as we're feeling sorry for ourselves. (tongue firmly in cheek, for the satire-challenged.)</p>

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<p>TsDad -- why does it bother you that others are interested in discussing this topic? Although it has been addressed in other threads, there have been new insights on this one, which I have found interesting. I must admit that I find your comments to be a little harsh, although perhaps you didn't intend them to be. Like Robyrm, I recognized early on that it was up to me to find the right fit for my kids, from preschool on. For others, the 'lost boy' issue only rears its head in HS, when it may be too late. In any case, I think it's fine for people to continue to share thoughts about a significant issue affecting our young people. As the OP's article mentioned, we are not maximizing the educational achievements of young men in this country, and if there's anything we can do to improve it I think we should.</p>

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<p>Garland, I must have been typing at the same time, so I didn't see your post above. I'd like to add that just because I see problems with the way boys are treated in K-12 schools doesn't mean that I baby them at home or let them give me lame excuses for not succeeding at something. My husband affectionately says that I would have made a good Drill Sargeant, but I basically try to instill a rational world view in my kids, along the lines of "Look at the facts, define the problem, develop possible solutions and implement them. Let me know when you've solved your problem."</p>

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<p>sjmom, I have to agree with you. It should no more irritate somebody that this thread has attracted posters than it should that a thread on any other topic has attracted posters. 98% of the topics on this board have been addressed before. But there is quite a lot of turnover in posters, and they can't spend hours digging in the archives looking for keywords and the like. And besides, they may want to put in their own 2 cents.</p>

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<p>So, are garland and tsdad saying that boys are doing fine and this is all much ado about nothing?</p>

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<p>I'm not sure that all of us who are examining this article and its implications are wallowing in a world of excusiness for our sons. I, for one, am wondering how it came to be that after all the hard work, all the good intentions, all the right moves, all the family supportiveness, all the hands-on, all the money spent appropriately and judiciously on helping our son along the right track (not one of unrealistic achievement or pressure, but simply the right track), why the train is leaving the station, and he's not really on it.</p>

<p>Our lives are filled with worry about our children's futures. No, I'm not into excuses; I'm into personal responsibility. But there is a point beyond which where there are other forces at work that contribute to a bad outcome. It does make you wonder, and rerun scenarios in your mind. And that's what responsible parents do...because they care about their kids, and because they know the world's not fair, and they'd like to see them get a fair start.</p>

<p>I know first hand that the amount of effort you put into raising and educating your "lost boy" does not at all assure a positive outcome, but I do know that if I had not given it every bit I had who knows what the outcome would have been. Excuses, no. But I demand equity for him, because he deserves it and understanding. Testosterone be damned!</p>

<p>Not everyone has "easy" kids. And I'd venture to say that mine (and I love him to death) is more challenging all the way around than 99% of those on this board.</p>

<p>"Unfair to be white"? Hmnnn? Ask an unemployed late middle-aged white male?</p>

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<p>Wow, and I thought I was being over the top...ask an unemployed late middle-aged anyone, black, white, purple, male, female, whatever how easy it is to get a job.</p>

<p>And to 1down: Yes.</p>

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<p>garland ~ I don't believe you caught my allusion.</p>

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<p>Okay garland, that helps me understand your point of view.</p>

<p>Now, seeing as how some of us hold a different point of view, is it okay if we discuss amongst ourselves? Or are we done now that you have declared the case to be closed?</p>

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<p>Could it be that those of us that feel there's a problem have seen boys experiencing problems, and those of us that feel there's not haven't?</p>

<p>One must experience pain and suffering to develop compassion. And, compassion isn't whiny excusiness. It's a desire to help another human being who is suffering needlessly and unfairly. Perhaps that's what is wrong with the world today...there are those that care and those that don't. It's the attitude that so long as things are going okay for me, the world is okay. That's not how I see it...and that's not how I raise my son to see it either.</p>

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<p>Cheers has coined a great new phrase to describe our boys, find it at the end of the thread on Guilford College - "academic Lazarus" - yep, that's my boy, Academic Lazarus of the ninth grade.</p>

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<p>Now, I must admit I don't really have any personal experiance with what the article talks about. I am a boy without any learning disabilities (ADHD, etc), and have been entirely self motived and sufficient since elementary school (my parents have had no hand in any of my projects, essays, or assignments since practically the 3rd grade). I was not, in any way, a "difficult child."</p>

<p>But, I still think the entire root of ths issue is how much work is put into a person's education. And maybe this is influenced by society. For example, freshman year, when I had a meeting with my school counselor, he told me, "You are taking the hardest possible schedule offered at this school, but it isn't worth anything without a sport."</p>

<p>So much influence all through a boy's life is put on athletics and things outside of school, and with so much feminism in todays society, girl's are always beeing told how they have to do well in school, go into a good profession, etc.</p>

<p>I simply think girls are more influenced from an early age to dedicate more time to school, and that is what happens. </p>

<p>And, in our school system, paying attention and being diligent in class is what is rewarded. And when a boy learns to hate elementary schools because his teacher makes the squirmy kid sit in his seat for 2 hours between recess and lunch and listen to her lecture, he will learn to hate school before he even gets to a level of education that matters. Boys aren't pressured to "prove themselves" in teh way that young girls are in our feminish society. They don't feel the pressure to quell the desire to stand up and run around the way girls do, to prove they can perform as well as a boy can.</p>

<p>---Conclusion---
Society's pressure on girls to prove their sex is equal to males causes them to try harder throughout school, while the pressure on boys to be manly and perform in outside of school activities (like sports) detracts from performance.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Could it be that those of us that feel there's a problem have seen boys experiencing problems, and those of us that feel there's not haven't?

[/quote]
I am sure there is truth to this. Generally when we feel one of our children has been ill-used by a system we suspect that system is unjust. And when our children seem to have the system in hand, probably we think it's OK. Although we can all I hope acknowlege that it isn't OK for large socio-economic sectors of society....</p>

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<p>Alumother ~ Agreed.</p>

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<p>1down: the reason I speak up, is because I don't think one can argue that one group is being oppressed without its having an effect on the not-that-group. Like a lot of people don 't think white privelege exists, and so want to argue that it's whites who are now the oppressed. I feel that it's detrimental to argue that males are, and that doing so will again, like always, swing all the attention and resources in that direction, where, let's face it, it just about always has been.</p>

<p>So, I'll alter my answer to your other question; I dont doubt that lots of boys have trouble in school--just the conclusion that it's anti-male oppression, which is the theme of this thread. Lots of girls have trouble in school, too, also for a variety of reasons. I think a chance at a real reason is short-circuited by glib theories, and, yes, excuses.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
TsDad -- why does it bother you that others are interested in discussing this topic?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You know why? I have spent almost all of my professional life enforcing civil rights laws. It infuriates and saddens me to see victims be viewed as oppressors by a bunch of ahistorical, overpriveleged, mean-spirited individuals who have no idea what it really means to be discriminated aginst and how that impacts a person's life, and that of their children, and their children's children. Do you think that 300 years of slavery, a 100 years of oppression, and continuing instituional and personal racism has no continuing impact? Do you think 1000s of years of oppression aginst women ended in 1972 with the passage of Title IX and everything is just fine now? Is that what you all think?</p>

<p>I quit the Federal government when this group of Republicans, worse than the Reganuts, turned OCR into the Office for Civil Rights for White People.</p>

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<p>I don't understand why this has turned into a debate about "oppression." I do not for one minute believe that this has anything to do with oppression, and I didn't read many other posts that seem to be leaning that way either. </p>

<p>I think it is about people trying to do the best they can with the information they have available--and succeeding in some areas and failing in others. The more information we have available, the better we can do our jobs--as parents and as educators. </p>

<p>When CPM math was introduced in Palo Alto, it was done as part of a sincere effort to help students learn math. The fact that it was an unmitigated disaster and did more to confused students than help them does not necessarily make me think that some group was conspiring to "oppress" math students in Palo Alto. It makes me think that an idea that might have worked well for, say, a small pilot group of students in rural Mississippi, maybe works less well for upper-income children living and going to school walking distance from Stanford. It's not conspiracy theories or oppression or excuse making. It's recognizing that something can work in one situation but not perhaps in another.</p>

<p>Frankly, all this flap over oppression strikes me as paranoid. Just because I don't think 8th grade boys should be made to sing silly songs while bouncing a popsicle stick puppet up and down doesn't mean I think someone is trying to oppress them as a group. What I think, instead, is that someone is providing what she believes to be a fun activity to her class, a break from the day to day workload, but hasn't spent much time thinking about what it is to be a 12- or 13-year-old boy. And fwiw, my sons weren't the ones making the puppets fight with each other while the class was signing. But they still thought the activity was stupid and humiliating--and for them and most of the other boys, it was. If you're going to train, for example, koala bears, you should learn something about koala bears, I think that just seems obvious.</p>

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<p>Is reluctance to sing silly songs restricted to boys? A sign of masculinity?
In 7th grade, the music teacher wanted to kids to perform a skit she'd written that the kids thought made them look stupid and ignorant. I got tired of hearing complaints about it from my S. Since he claimed she did not listen to their grumbles, I told him to write down his reservations about the skit and hand it to the teacher so there would be a record of his objections. He did. And then he circulated the text to some of his classmates. Soon, half the class, both boys and girls, had signed what had become "the petition." S gave it to the teacher who took umbrage but told the kids who objected that they would not have to perform the skit. Victory! The girls had been just as concerned as the boys about appearing silly.</p>

<p>I should note that some of the teachers who have made the greatest impact on my S have been female teachers.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Is reluctance to sing silly songs restricted to boys? A sign of masculinity?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Good point. Some of the girls looked pretty unhappy as well, but the difference is...the girls did it anyway, however reluctantly, and didn't goof off to hide their embarrassment. Girls tend to be satisfied with a well-timed eye roll...which is much less disruptive to the class. Teachers can even ignore it if it suits them.</p>