Educators And Researchers, Here’s An Assignment For You

Periodically, I go through the pile of school board reading material that accumulates like sales catalogs, and I resolve to read at least some of it. So it was that I read a fascinating article in the May 1994 issue of The American School Board Journal with the provocative title, “Turning Our Backs On Boys.”

This article makes the heretical argument that despite perceptions to the contrary, it is the boys in our educational system who are struggling and, far more frequently than the girls, failing to succeed in school. Dropout rates, time spent in detention, grades repeated, lower marks and the makeup of special-education classes - twice as many boys as girls nationally - all support this view.

Further, and more troubling, a number of education officials quoted in the article say no one wants to talk about this subject. In the educational establishment’s sometimes ingrown manner of looking at itself, the politically incorrect implications of this article are hot potatoes.

Nothing draws my attention like political proscription, so I decided to discuss the article with our district superintendent.

The issues raised surprised her. Even though she receives much information concerning inequities in the teaching of girls and minorities, she’d only once seen anything come across her desk having to do with boys. And that time, the issue concerned minority boys.

But is there any substance to the article’s implications? I looked back on my own experience and recalled that, as a child, I perceived that girls were smarter than boys and were almost always favored by teachers.

The girls might have thought it was the other way around. Nobody, however, would have argued the fact that the boys were in trouble more often than the girls or that almost all of the teachers were women.

I had my first male teacher in the sixth grade. I felt he understood me and related to me better than my previous teachers had.

I also remembered how hard it was for me to sit still in class, especially in the early grades. I had great difficulty concentrating on my lessons because my body wanted so badly to get outside and move around.

Ironically, the punishment for not being able to sit still was usually to miss recess. The cruelest punishment! Brain research suggests boys have a greater need for physical activity than girls do.

Of course, my memories were vintage 1955. Classrooms today are often more active and hands-on than they were then.

And our culture is different today. Kids come to school with personal problems unique to these times, problems that shadow them throughout the day and obstruct their success in school. So it’s difficult to be sure of the school’s role in all this.

Still, is the contemporary classroom, especially in the early grades, as responsive to the style of learning and the needs of boys as it is to that of girls?

Arguing over who are the bigger victims in education, boys or girls, is a waste of time. The fact is, there may be two distinct problems that must be addressed in specific ways. And, I suspect, at different grade levels.

I suggest it’s important that a profession that seems untroubled by a nine-to-one ratio of women to men teachers at the elementary level be open to the possibility that such lopsided numbers could have an impact on young boys. Many of these same boys are being raised in fatherless households.

If it’s true after all that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, then what are the possible effects of ignoring those differences in the classroom?

I am also concerned that boys, being more prone to hyperactivity and aggressiveness, may be falsely identified as having learning problems, and may find themselves in special-education classes because schools sometimes treat such behaviors as handicaps. Once they’re labeled, their future academic potential is jeopardized.

As tempting as it is to use recess as the carrot or stick to keep kids on task and quiet, does that really make sense when the child has too much pent-up energy? It’s like making students miss lunch to catch up on the work they didn’t get done because they were hungry, and expecting them to do better in the afternoon.

These and other questions are not mine alone to ask, nor, gratefully, mine alone to solve.

We school board members look to educational researchers to pose the relevant questions, research them and make workable recommendations. We look to educators to be aware of possible problems and open to their resolution. Our obligation is to facilitate the successful education of all kids. Even the boys.

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