The Trouble With Boys
It was in a January, 2006 edition of Newsweek that we first met Danny Frankhuizen.
Danny Frankhuizen, 16, is thoughtful, articulate, bright, has a good relationship with his mom, goes to church every Sunday, loves the rock band Phish and spends hours each day practicing his guitar. But once he's inside his large public Salt Lake City high school, everything seems to go wrong. He can't stay organized. He finishes his homework and then can't find it in his backpack. He loses focus in class, and his teachers, with 40 kids to wrangle, aren't much help. "If I miss a concept, they tell me, 'Figure it out yourself,'" Danny tells Newsweek's General Editor Peg Tyre. Last year Danny's grades dropped from B's to D's and F's. The sophomore, who once dreamed of Stanford, is pulling his grades up but worries that "I wouldn't even get accepted at community college."
Peg Tyre went on to say that Danny was a "symptom of a larger problem. By almost every benchmark, boys across the nation and in every demongraphic group are falling behind."
- Their standardized test scores were falling.
- Their college enrollment rates were dropping.
- They were more likely to be diagnosed as "learning disabled."
Her article created a stir. Her new book will probably exacerbate that stir.
The Trouble with Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators Must Do (Sep 2008, Crown) is an extension of the Newsweek story. Peg Tyre gives us an overview of the current national debate about why boys are falling behind girls in school. She points out that the emphasis of education in the 1990s was on helping girls succeed, especially in areas of math and science. Boys got left behind.
Tyre points out that while boys tend to be active and noisy, and gain verbal skills later than girls, their first teachers are mostly female. These teachers would rather have less active, less noisy students with large vocabularies and lots of patience. Many boys don't fit that description.
The elementary school classrooms are not "boy friendly" and appear to set boys up for failure that increases with every grade. The lack of male role models only makes the situation worse.
Did you know?
- Boys get expelled from preschool at almost five times the rate of girls. (read more about "Prekindergartners Left Behind")
- Boys are diagnosed with ADHD at twice the rate of girls. (read more about ADHD diagnoses)
- 39% of all first-graders get 20 minutes of recess per day (or less). (read more about recess time)
- 50% of all fourth graders get 20 minutes of recess per day (or less).
Tyre says boys are "genetically designed" to run, throw, and just be physical. We used to provide these activities at school. Recess allowed the boys to burn off that energy. In our current educational environment many schools have either done away with or severely limited the morning and afternoon recesses. "More time for math and reading" they said. Even the opportunity to play at lunch has also been curtailed in many schools. Thus, we have aggravated boys' natural restlessness and caused problems with their ability to pay attention. Our response? Call them ADHD and drug them.
Tyre points out that boys love sports, not school. And they pay the price for this love. Their suicide rate at ages 5 to 14 is three times higher than the suicide rate for girls. Their suicide rate at ages 15 to 19 is four times greater.
Tyre notes that in the l980s we saw a changed attitude about crime and safety. To protect our kids we worked to limit unsupervised play in public spaces. Add to this the proliferation of the "academic preschools" where every effort is made to create "little Einsteins." She gives us a couple of surprising statistics: from 2003 to 2004, sales of "learning" and "exploration" toys jumped 19%, to $510 million; in 2005, "Hooked on Phonics" sales doubled.
Although published only recently (September, 2008) the book is getting quite a few accolades:
- "The Trouble with Boys is a rarity--a page-turner about teaching and learning. It does a brilliant job of demonstrating the mismatch between what many boys need and what education, from preschool through college, gives them."
-David Kirp, Professor, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC-Berkeley - "A new and insightful view of why boys are turning off from school and what parents and educators can do to bring them back - Brims with practical ideas as well as a sophisticated understanding of why boys have become the new underdogs from preschool through college."
-Judith Kleinfeld, Professor of Psychology and Director, Boys Project, University of Alaska Fairbanks
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