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All the 'getting in touch with feelings' is feminizing men. The boys who can't fit the mold of feminization are falling behind. That's my opinion...no studies or scientific research...just my observation.
I think (also my opinion, no scientific backing) that the entire school world has been feminized to such an extent that anything that boys latch onto has been removed.
When I was in elementary school we had competitions where people won and lost. Competition is discouraged in schools these days. It is considered a negative, but boys LOVE competition. Some girls enjoy it as well, but as a group boys are much more enthusiastic about it. You can get my oldest son to do ANYTHING if it means he wins something. No matter how inconsequential the prize, he wants to win. This is a behavior that is much more typically male (although it appeals to some females as well). This is not part of school any more. We might hurt someone's feelings. Boo hoo for boys.
In addition, curriculum choices are decidedly feminine. My oldest son has required summer reading (for 10th grade English). He is reading Pride and Prejudice and The Joy Luck Club. FOR REAL? He loves to read but he will be miserable getting through a love story and a book about Chinese women. Why can't there be at least ONE book that appeals to boys?
In the book "The Trouble With Boys", written by the same author as the Newsweek article I linked to above the author makes the point that "Boys are treated like defective girls." Obviously, this is not good for their development.
There are also factors outside school that affect boys. With so many single mothers raising children without a male in the home, there are many boys who are growing up without a "roadmap" to manhood. This is not something the schools can do much to counter.
I am sorry this got long, but this is a subject that gets me going. Just a note-I am not anti-female. I do not advocate doing anything to reverse the gains made by girls. I would like to see BOTH boys and girls doing better in school.
Interesting discussion. I read the book Boys Adrift and found it fascinating and right on the money. One of the things it talked about was young men in college and recently graduated that were unmotivated compared to young women. I see it with my older kids and their friends, all in their early twenties. The boys are going through the motions at college or recently graduated and in jobs that are something that HS kids should be doing. The girls, OTOH, are in grad school or working in their field. While a lot of this is the economy, they just don't seem to have the drive of the women.
I'm not sure about the competition thing, because I don't see it in my family. The guys are all pretty laid back.
I teach in an urban high school. Our top ten consisted of 2 boys, 8 girls. In our school, the culture is that it is "uncool" to be smart if you are a boy. The girls do not have the same pressure to play dumb. We teachers wish that we could change this, but it is difficult to change a mentality of an entire student body.
I think culture has a lot to do with it. Also, in times past, girls were not expected to do as well, and lived down to those expectations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stanman13
I think boys did better before because there was a social bias against girls learning. Many parents didn't even think it was necessary for a girl to be educated. Now that those tides have changed, we are seeing the poorly designed system.
I think that is true. And in times past, guys got away with basically "goofing off" a lot and still getting good grades. Now that the girls have knuckled down, the guys don't do as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by toobusytoday
Interesting discussion. I read the book Boys Adrift and found it fascinating and right on the money. One of the things it talked about was young men in college and recently graduated that were unmotivated compared to young women. I see it with my older kids and their friends, all in their early twenties. The boys are going through the motions at college or recently graduated and in jobs that are something that HS kids should be doing. The girls, OTOH, are in grad school or working in their field. While a lot of this is the economy, they just don't seem to have the drive of the women.
I'm not sure about the competition thing, because I don't see it in my family. The guys are all pretty laid back.
I see this with my daughters and their friends too. Both of my DDs have dated guys who were reallly just floating along, sort of waiting to get inspired. Meanwhile, the girls, again, are in grad school or working professional jobs. I have even seen some marriages among these 20somethings like that. Woman is a newly graduated physical therapist, DH is a security guard at the library.
My son graduated high school this past week. The school presents awards to the top 10 students in the class. In this case, they were all females, except for 1. There were also numerous awards and scholarships given by various organizations. Winners were chosen by teachers, administrators and counselors, and most of the criteria called for not just grades, but also school involvement. Every single one was won by a female.
This has been the case for years and it is not limited to liberal school districts. Public Education neglects boys learning styles. College enrollment is about 60% female. Sucks for us, we have to settle for an uneducated male. What's funny is Obama completely ignores the problem, a long with the Dept. of Education.. (I contend they want boys to fail.)
My son graduated high school this past week. The school presents awards to the top 10 students in the class. In this case, they were all females, except for 1. There were also numerous awards and scholarships given by various organizations. Winners were chosen by teachers, administrators and counselors, and most of the criteria called for not just grades, but also school involvement. Every single one was won by a female.
When I graduated in the 80's, the opposite seemed true. The boys were all the class officers, valedictorians, math and science stars, etc.
We are in an upper middle class area, and all the kids have loads of opportunities. I'm wondering why the boys seem to be losing ground here. Is it happening elsewhere?
I'm now an educator, but I was initially an education journalist, and covered the ed beat for the newspaper in my hometown, so, several years after graduating from my high school, I spent quite a few years reporting on what was going on at said high school. I saw an ebb and flow in who the top ten students were...some years, female-dominated, some years, male dominated. Some years, students were highly competitive with one another and there were half a dozen tied for the valedictorian spot. Other years, not so much. In any case, neither gender seemed to be losing ground, it was pretty equally distributed...some years girl-heavy, some years boy-heavy, some years an even split.
The top ten at my alma mater was and is purely GPA-based. It was and is the students with the ten highest grade point averages, plain and simple. There were other departmental awards given out, various scholarships focused on different content areas, and lots of civic awards based on things other than purely academics were given out. I did notice that most of the awards that required "a well-rounded student" did go to females quite often, because it's the type of high school environment where it's culturally sanctioned for the boys to be highly participative on the athletic field or court, but other types of involvement (academic clubs, art, music, drama, student government) were seen as not cool, not manly. The girls got the awards that called for a variety of school involvement, because the girls were the ones who were most heavily participating in a variety of activities. The average guy at my high school did and still does sports and maybe FFA (it's a rural school), and that's really about it, for the majority of them. I blame the culture in which they are being raised.
Last edited by TabulaRasa; 05-27-2009 at 03:35 PM..
This has been the case for years and it is not limited to liberal school districts. Public Education neglects boys learning styles. College enrollment is about 60% female. Sucks for us, we have to settle for an uneducated male. What's funny is Obama completely ignores the problem, a long with the Dept. of Education.. (I contend they want boys to fail.)
Wouldn't parents really have the utmost responsibility in this? We can foster and encourage achivement in our daughters, but not in our sons? Somebody's falling down, but but it's not necessarily all on the federal government.
In addition, curriculum choices are decidedly feminine. My oldest son has required summer reading (for 10th grade English). He is reading Pride and Prejudice and The Joy Luck Club. FOR REAL? He loves to read but he will be miserable getting through a love story and a book about Chinese women. Why can't there be at least ONE book that appeals to boys?
This is funny. My sons have had to read books that both sexes hated. Last summer it was Atlas Shrugged, Candide, and one other I forget. We haven't downloaded this summer's list yet, DS can hardly wait.
I get why boys have difficulty in elementary school. Much less recess time, and much more academics. But, my son takes all the AP math and science courses now in high school, as do many of his friends. These are strong students I'm talking about, yet still the girls are showing them up.
On the other hand, GA Tech is 68% male. So, what happens to these girls with all the math and science credits after high school?
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