Boys are checking out of education. Why are males less successful in school than girls?
While girls are accelerating in school and going to college in record numbers, boys are saying, "No, thank you. I’m not interested."
Boys Not Thriving in School
Colleges are seeing a shift in population. A generation ago colleges were male dominated and girls were fighting for equity. Today, it is difficult to find a college that has more males than females attending. Where are the boys? They have decided not to further their education.
Peg Tyre, author of The Trouble With Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School and What Parents and Educators Must Do [Crown, 2008], has been very vocal about the impending disaster with boys and the education system. Her research findings are frightening. Tyre is shouting disturbing facts from the rooftops that many in education are sweeping under the rug and trying to ignore.
Boys do less homework.
Boys get more C’s and D’s than girls.
Boys are more likely to have attention and behavior problems.
Boys are far more likely to be referred to the Resource Room.
Boys are more likely to be suspended from school.
Boys lag in reading writing and are actually doing worse in writing.
Boys are five times more likely to get expelled from preschool.
Boys are less likely to be involved in extracurricular activities.
Girls are more likely to go to college and the gap widens each year by 100,000.
Boys between ages of 15-19 are four times more likely to commit suicide than girls. [1]
Past Educational Practices Were at a Slower Pace
In the 1950s, students rarely attended preschools. The home was preschool and peers were siblings as well as children in the neighborhood. Playtime was unstructured with no adults involved. Play dates didn’t exist and children played from morning until night with neighborhood friends. Games were created out of necessity, the library was often visited out of boredom, and chores were required around the home. Kindergarten was still play and the focus was on learning letters and social skills. Reading was taught in first grade and recesses were long and numerous. Children were constantly moving, using their hands, and running and playing.
Educational Changes in the 21st Century
Preschools are now part of the K-12 curriculum and it is expected that children attend. It is a concern when a child enters kindergarten without having attended preschool. Children are now often fluent readers in kindergarten. Recess times have been greatly cut to allow for more reading time. Why? No Child Left Behind demands testing scores showing proficiency. Teachers and principals are blamed if scores are not on target. More time is spent on testing, testing, testing. Students are expected to sit longer, do more paper and pencil activities, have fewer opportunities to run and play, and boys are not faring well in this environment.
Aggressive recess games like tag, dodge ball, and football are increasingly being banned because of harassment concerns and injuries. Boys no longer have a space to vent. Hugging a child is now frowned upon because of sexual harassment concerns. The walls are closing in on boys.
How to Help Boys
Boys learn differently than girls – period. Males prefer action books and enjoy competition. The longer they sit, the less they learn. Boys often sense the need for action so they ask to go to the bathroom, stand to get a tissue, sharpen a pencil, ask the teacher a question at her desk, or catch a glance out a window. This action is necessary for them but often leads to getting in trouble for moving about the room.
The state of South Carolina decided to provide same gender classrooms in middle schools throughout the state. Boys and girls are separated and taught differently. While this format seems to benefit both boys and girls, the improvements have been greater with boys. Boys are thriving in a male compatible environment.
All male charter schools are opening in larger numbers each year with waiting lists to enter. Schools with only males being taught in ways that males learn best are becoming popular. Schools for girls often follow shortly.
Tyre states, "Before the school year gets any further along, let’s stop blaming the boy. Instead, let’s ask ourselves if the schools are engaging them – and if not, let’s figure out what we can do to create an educational system in which all our children can succeed." [1]
[1] Peg Tyre, "Report card on boys troubling," The Chicago Tribune, October 13, 2008.
The copyright of the article A Nation of Boys At-Risk in Educational Issues is owned by Barbara Pytel. Permission to republish A Nation of Boys At-Risk in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
The problem is
more complex than many think. The Male Crisis is increasing in many
countries. The reason is that our society is now entering a much greater
need for information age skills that require a much different upbringing
for boys. This is the reversal - In the nineteenth century, we lived
in a very physical world and one that required much strength and courage
for boys and later men. This created a form of treatment from a young age
to create this strength. 1. Boy children even less than a year old
were (and are) given more aggressive treatment to make them tough to
compete in the big physical world. 2. Boys were (and are) not given
kind, stabilizing, nurturing, mental, emotional, social, verbal,
interaction and other kind, caring treatment for fear of coddling the Male
child. 3. Boys were (and are) by design not given love, honor,
respect unless they display some form of achievement, status, image,
etc. All of this was designed to make boys tough.
Girls
were (and are) given more protection from that big physical world, because
it was very physical and bad then. Since girls did not have to be tough,
girls could be(and are) given much kind, stabilizing, mental, emotional,
social, verbal, interaction from a young age without regard to need for
strength. Also since girls did not need to be strong, they were (and are)
given love honor, respect simply for being girls. This protective
treatment extended (and extends today) through adulthood.
Now,
we are living in the information age where the needs to make a living have
been "completely reversed". The toughness, aggressive,
neglectful treatment given boys is still in place even from infancy. This
is creating higher average stress that impedes thinking, learning, and
motivation to learn (mental reward received for mental work expended). It
also creates higher activity in working class Males, less stability there -
activity as stress relief –Middle/Upper class kids do not have this problem
and higher muscle tension that inhibits handwriting skills and motivation
to write. The lack of kind, caring mental, emotional, social, verbal
interaction creates a tremendous lag in mental, emotional, social, and
verbal skills. In addition this creates more wariness of social contact
due to lack of accumulated skills and more aggression given to boys from a
young age. This defensiveness also creates the Male Ego or defensive fro
Oct 28, 2009 2:19 PM
Guest :
I have to agree with this article and not so much with the comment above.
There's a nature versus nurture aspect to all of this - boys (men) are
naturally more brut, in mentality and build. For centuries, men are the
hunters, fighters, providers. But now, how many men are missing from the
household? Yes the world is shifting from physical to virtual, however,
there's still something missing from the parental and educational stand
point that is not nurturing the nature of the boy. Not to mention there is
a growing number of children dealing with psychological and nuerological
issues - many children have learning disabilities and with the current
structure of educational facilities, no child will grow into an adult with
the ability to function at a normal level, much less, maintain a home and
family. There's alot of contributing factors, but each child should be
evaluated individually instead of grouped by age expectations. Several
years ago, when structure and stability were on the forefront of home and
school, children were much more successful in school - now expectations of
boys have lowered as they are raised by women and don't have male role
models to look to for standards. I truly believe that schools sould have an
IEP for each child, not just those with "difficulties." Yes,
education needs to be revamped to best serve the future of our children.
But people also need to acknowledge when there's something more wrong with
the child - and reach out for help. There are institutions all over the
country, like Colorado Boys Ranch, that assist and enable children,
especially boys, to develop into successful and productive men. There's so
much denial and not enough accepting responsibility for the determination
of where the issues start. As Americans, we have a responsiblity to this
country to assure that our children will be able to provide our
grandchildren and those after with a country worth living in. We're going
down the drain fast, so face the facts and do what needs to be done to make
sure that children are properly educated and are given the tools to succeed
in life.
