The Trouble With Boys

They're kinetic, maddening and failing at school. Now educators are trying new ways to help them succeed.

By Peg Tyre | NEWSWEEK

From the magazine issue dated Jan 30, 2006

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Posted By: mayfieldga @ 11/03/2008 2:13:24 PM

Comment: Neglect and aggression hurts Males, pulling up by bootstraps. It creates higher average stress that inhibits learning and motivation. It creates the Male ego or defensive cushion Males develop to protect them from aggressions they receive. This defensive cushion alienates the Male from social and academic supports. High average stress and defensive cushion accumulates in harm over time. Men are given love, honor, and respect on the condition of achievement, money, power, and status. They must fight through confrontations from an early age to achieve feelings of self-worth. Society has created through prejudice and stereotyping, a Gender Cast System of Males and over support of Females. This is creating early training for Males to perform more menial tasks while women are being prepared for white-collar positions.

1. I fear followers of the genetic models will try to build a case for genetic learning differences or body mass requiring more activity or tactile learning. Note that nice middle class Males do not have this problem. Also the view of differences in brain activity are more due to large differences in differential mental, emotional, social, physical, and educational reinforcement over time, not organic differences.

2. I also fear the use of Male classrooms with more discipline and more time on task will only lead to more stern and even more harsh treatment and stereotyping of Males to perform more physical or menial labor to match the growing cast system being portrayed in the media against Males today.

We must learn to realize that our current, single/multiple intelligence models were simply accepted out of hand years ago and held on to by many who were in control and apparently felt satisfied enough with their own life. Such ones could not see the tremendous disadvantage and damage such narrow, short-sighted beliefs would have on others, even among some persons who are closely related to them.

I tell those who would still cling to the myth of permanence in ability they are killing their students whereas my learning theory offers two large, cognitive tools to continually improve ability and hope for children and adults. They are free to choose the myth of permanence in ability or my theory that provides hope and improvement.

The Male Crisis is one application of my Learning Theory. My Learning Theory provides two large tools we can teach to students and adults to continually improve thinking, learning, motivation to learn, and most importantly, mental/emotional health for all students and adults. My complete Learning Theory and its Cognitive tools are free to all by e-mail ??? mayfieldga@bellsouth.net Feel free to make copies of all files.
Posted By: economicwrestler @ 09/05/2008 1:39:23 PM

Comment: Our public school education system is a disaster. This came about for many reasons. Society: parents aren't allowed to discipline their own child without fear that child services is going to knock on the door. A good parent knows what their own child needs, whether it is a spanking or time out. Also, single family homes aren't suited to put the child first. The single parent is working all the time and has their own life to worry about. Instead of reading to the child, playing with the child or showing the child how something is done, the single parent puts in a DVD so the child will be entertained and stay out of the parents way while she catches up on work, email, etc. Then when the child starts acting out or becomes restless, our society says we have to medicate the child because it has to be ADHD. Our society thinks everything can be fixed with a pill. I own pharmacies and I know very few children to be ADHD that truly needs the medicine. The others are an inconvenience so they get the medics. Society, in general, has allowed our educations system to flounder because we don't discipline our children, we tell our children that if they fail at something it is the systems fault not the failing child's fault, and way to many parents are unconcerned about the schools and the children in them. Except, of course, their own child. And sometimes he/she really doesn't matter. It also fails politically. Everything teachers do nowadays is watched over to make sure it isn't somehow biased. Making sure that woman had the same opportunity is an awesome idea in theory, but in practice some girls mom will feel that her daughter isn't given something so it must be sexism. She complains to the school and eventually all the boys start to suffer because all the resources are spent on the girls. If we could take a huge step politically and allow or mandate that all schools have subjects where the sexes are separate so that it enables both sexes to learn the material by using the best method for the different sexes. Some subjects should be coed, but the majority and the important subjects should be separate. Also, allow for recess and gym class. Oh, and uniforms. The government should make uniforms mandatory. Finally, pay our teachers more. They get into the profession to give back to the children. I know, there are some teachers out there that just plain stink at what they do and couldn't teach anybody. The school will find this out and fire her. But the majority of teachers are good people that are trying their best to educate America's future. Give the more resources, better pay, and children willing to learn and they will succeed. The child that is ready to learn will be disciplined at home, read to, worked with and taught manners at home. This would go a long way in helping our poor public school system
Posted By: mjkittredge @ 04/11/2008 3:50:39 AM

Comment: Ok, I couldn't ignore THIS: quote " If your child is not taking interest in studies it means teen are struggling from learning disability." That is BS. Not taking an interest in studies could come from a variety of reasons, foremost among them the classes being boring, and the material not relevant to the students lives.

The problem as I see it, is that teachers and the subjects they teach, and the way they teach them, the work they assign is given a free pass. It faces little if any scrutiny. Sure, teachers submit their lesson plans to the school board, but they get a free pass from them too. Parents just assume that what and how the teachers are teaching is the right thing, without having a clue.

The downside to this lack of scrutiny, is that huge amounts of young peoples lives are wasted, sitting bored in pointless classes learning material and subject matter that they will never put to use. Sure, they spend hours and hours copying notes until their fingers are sore. Sure, they listen to hours and hours each day of long rambling lectures. And they diligently fill in either (A)(B)(C) with their number 2 pencil. Unfortunately, when this information isn't put to any practical use on a regular basis, students will eventually forget most of it.

Not only is their time wasted, they become frustrated and distrusting of a school that forces these things upon them, and clueless parents with rose colored glasses who figure it's great learning preparing kids for their future lives.

The only useful things I got out of school, 1-12, was basic math, and touch typing. Things I could have learned on my own, without any schooling. The other subjects, I have had no use for other than a few questions in Trivial Pursuit games.

The classes and their coursework need a comprehensive review, and more relevant subjects need to be taught instead.
Posted By: Elistra @ 03/25/2008 7:30:19 PM

Comment: The problem, as I see it, is discipline.

Generally speaking, mothers tend to come down hard on their daughters, but nowhere near hard enough on their sons. Fathers usually operate in reverse, functioning as a disciplinarian to their sons, while giving the daughters the benefit of the doubt.

These days, a mother is often the only parent that a child has.

Because of this, the usual rearing environment forces girls to abandon most of the negative behavioral traits they might otherwise have. Even if the daughter can't stand her mom, that very dislike encourages her to hustle up and get with the program. After all, acheiving financial independence means that contact with her mother in adulthood is purely elective, not compulsory.

However, this same rearing environment is acting against the long-term interests of boys, because mothers tend to enable poor behavior in their sons... behavior that a father would never tolerate. It's not just role-modeling... it's having a parent willing to draw a line in the sand and demand better behavior from the boy, and most mother's simply don't.
Posted By: piisnotforsquares @ 03/17/2008 10:35:57 PM

Comment: I enjoyed the article but was left without much more information than when I started. I strongly agree with single gender classes in core subjects but that choice is not mine to make. As a middle school math/science teacher, in a school of students facing multi-faceted challenges, more suggestions of what I can do or try would have been helpful.
Posted By: jessica18 @ 03/12/2008 2:28:12 AM

Comment: Teens struggling in academics must be treated with care. Dyslexic child may have extraordinary abilities. Several sites are available which are providing information to parents of <A HREF=http://www.troubledteensearch.com/>defiant youths</A>. If your child is not taking interest in studies it means teen are struggling from learning disability.
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Posted By: dewcooper @ 02/21/2008 12:20:44 PM

Comment: "his teachers, with 40 kids to wrangle, aren't much help. "If I miss a concept, they tell me, 'Figure it out yourself'," says Danny" Not a whole lot of teaching\learning going on there...

Like any problem, there is not one silver bullet solution, but several 'causes' are evident: feminism and single-family homes. This article shows that in an 'attempt for equality', what feminists really wanted was superioty. We don't see boys and girls getting an EQUAL chance, but boys being treated in the same wrong, negative manner that girls were 20yrs ago. Instead of finding common ground, they simple swapped their 'roles'. In the article, instead of giving the children a choice between a 'boy' book and a 'girl' book, boys were asked to choose from two female-dominant books. No wonder they had no interest! And what kind of self-image are feminist creating in boys, as they tear them down in order to build girls up?

And the article did hit our biggest societal ill square on the head: women cannot make men. Women have no frame of reference when it comes to trying to teach a boy what it means to be a man, husband and father. And so the boy is ill-prepared to go off into the world, often time carrying the baggage of their mother's many failed relationship and negative views of the opposite sex. And look at the single-mothers who want to medicate their sons, just because the boy is being a boy, because it will make the MOTHER's life easier!

Of course, what the article doesn't address, which is the quote I started with, is that many teachers are not taught HOW to teach. Colleges are to busy creating social engineers and not educators. Teachers are more focussed on pushing politics and agendas than the 3 Rs. Ever wonder why children were smarter in the 1700s than they are now? With all of this money and technology being thrown at education today, how come a college graduate today couldn't pass the entrance exam from 1780?
Posted By: just_a_concerned_mom @ 01/14/2008 3:05:36 PM

Comment: This is a great article. I feel it needs to be sent to every school in the nation. I have a very bright an energetic 4yo boy. He is more advanced than the other students in his class. But because of his age...2weeks past the cut off to begin Pre-K, he is stuck in his 3-4yo class room for another school year. His teachers don't know what to do with him. They tell me all the time he irritates the other kids. They tell me that they can't teach him anymore than they can for the other kids...she tells me, "I'm trying to teach these kids how to recognize there letters, your son can spell his 9 letter first name, and can read simple sentences." "I am trying to teach these kids how to recognize their numbers, your's knows simple math." She also tells me, "I try to give him something that could engage him, but he is not receptive." He doesn't want to be singled out, unless the other kids are doing it...he is an only child at home and anywhere else he goes, at school he's in a group, unless he is being a leader or the 'teacher' he doesn't want to be 'different'. When he occasionally gets put in the older class, the Pre-K class, the teacher says he does fine, that he knows more than some of her students, but he wants to help not make fun of the other kids.
So to sum it up.......boys do need to be given the same treatment as girls...help them learn the way they need to learn. Boys are more physical, girls are more thought filled. My son has been speaking in sentences since about 15months. He needs someone on his cognitive level. He plays well with girls, as long as there isn't a boy there that wants to rough house. Boys and girls are different. They need to be treated as such. I think if the boys are allowed to learn in the way their brains process, they will fill the gaps intelligence wise and maybe sex will be less of a focus at such an early age.