Monday, July 24, 2006

ANOTHER COMMENT ON THE BOY PROBLEM

Boys are falling behind in school and getting in trouble outside of it. Many seem to have a blank spot where their ambition should be. What's gone wrong?

Who says there's a boy crisis?

Nearly everyone involved in education-and the statistics bear them out. Girls have opened a big gap over boys in reading and writing skills, and that gap grows wider the longer they are in school. In many high school honors and advanced-placement courses, girls outnumber boys five to one. Boys' share of college admissions has dropped to 42 percent and is declining steadily. Boys also are responsible for 80 percent of school discipline problems. They are almost twice as likely as girls to be suspended from school, while four out of five high school dropouts are male. And their problems extend far beyond the classroom. Boys are considerably more likely to commit violent crimes and go to prison. The suicide rate for boys has tripled since the 1970s, and is now four to six times the rate for girls.

Does the trend hold for boys of all races?

Yes, but the disparities are most dramatic among blacks and Hispanics. They bring up the rear in academic performance, and they have a much greater chance of being held back than either white boys, or girls of any racial or ethnic group. The achievement gap turns into a gulf as minority children grow older. Less than half of black and Hispanic boys graduate from high school, compared to nearly 60 percent of black and Hispanic girls and more than 70 percent of whites and Asians of either sex.

What's behind the gender gap?

There is no single explanation. Some experts say teachers often fail to take into account differences between boys' and girls' brains. Studies have shown that because of the way male brains are structured, boys prefer more kinetic, hands-on learning. Girls develop their verbal abilities earlier, so they generally learn to read younger and faster. Others blame feminism. Christina Hoff Sommers, author of The War Against Boys, argues that a feminist ethic has taken over education-to the detriment of boys. Boys are naturally boisterous and competitive, Sommers says, but mainstream education stresses decorum and obedience, making boys feel like outsiders. She also says reading lists are dominated by female-oriented literature that turns boys off to reading, which seems "girlish." Still other experts blame the broader culture.

What does culture have to do with it?

Author William Pollack argues in Real Boys that popular culture teaches boys to suppress all emotions except rage. This "boy code," Pollack says, prizes toughness and rebellion, and denigrates studiousness and traditional achievement. "The message does not come across that being smart is being cool," says University of Washington administrator Thomas Calhoun. This problem appears to be particularly acute among urban blacks. More than 50 percent of young black males grow up without fathers, and their role models are hip-hop stars who rap about financing their gaudy lifestyles through drugs or prostitution. Black youngsters who do try to stick to their studies often find themselves taunted for "acting white." In recent years, these attitudes have been adopted by middle-class white kids for whom hip-hop is the very definition of cool-and who assume they can succeed in life even if they don't get good grades. "The men don't seem to hustle as much," Jen Smyers, a dean's-list student at American University in Washington, D.C., recently told The New York Times. "They seem to think that if they have a firm handshake and speak properly, they'll be fine."

Why do they think that?

Partly, because it used to be true. Until recently, a college degree had little affect on the average earning power of men, because men dominated high-paying trades like plumbing, electrical work, and construction. And even for those going into white-collar professions, family and personal connections could often make up for a poor academic record. But in the new service- and technology-based economy, men must now compete directly with large numbers of highly educated, ambitious women and immigrants. Boys whose "educational attainment is not keeping up with the demands of the economy," says educator Tom Mortenson, are headed for trouble.

Can anything be done?

Yes-and some of the most promising solutions are the simplest. School psychologist Michael Thompson favors recruiting more male teachers, who now are outnumbered by female teachers by almost nine to one. One school principal reported that fights at his school dropped by 40 percent in one year after he recruited more male teachers. Other educators favor single-sex education, so curricula can be more finely tailored to boys' learning styles. Some parents have even begun to hold their sons out of kindergarten for a year, to give them a chance to catch up with the girls developmentally. "There is a still huge resistance to the idea that boys need help," says Lisen Stromberg, president of the nonprofit advocacy group Supporting Our Sons. "It flies in the face of our ideals of manhood in America." But the best way to make stronger men, Stromberg says, "is by having emotionally resilient boys who do well in the classroom."

The `Boomerang Kids'

Parents are paying the price for boys' failure to achieve. The Census Bureau reports that almost 14 percent of 25- to 34-year-old American men still live with their parents. (Only 8 percent of women in that age group live at home.) The trend holds for all races, ethnic groups, and economic classes, and has become so widespread that it has entered the popular culture. The recent film Failure to Launch centers on a 35-year-old man who still lives with his exasperated mom and dad. A similar premise underlies a new Fox sitcom, Free Ride. Housing developers, meanwhile, are starting to design homes to accommodate these so-called boomerang kids, adding separate entrances, bedrooms, and bathrooms to new single-family homes. Simple economics helps explain why so many young men are returning to the nest. Recent college graduates are carrying 85 percent more debt than graduates of a decade ago, while pay for entry-level jobs has not kept pace with inflation. "Him living here is not a problem for us," said Harry Hartshorne, a suburban Detroit retiree whose 42-year-son, Neal, a stained-glass craftsman, has been living at home since his early 20s. "It may be a problem for him, but he's not anxious to solve it."

Source






GOVERNMENT AND EDUCATION

A view from the inside

If you believe that Government provides the solutions, then you have to believe in me. As a member of an elected board of education I have been granted the power to mandate solutions to local education and health issues, real or perceived. My qualifications: I was elected to my position by receiving sufficient votes to beat enough of the other candidates. I was not elected by a majority, more like a plurality of the 25% or so residents who chose to vote in that election. Not much of a mandate, but I will take what I can get.

You see, once ensconced on the board, the fact that close to 85% of the residents in my district of voting age either voted against me, or decided my election was not worth their time, carries no weight. The power vested in my position, and now in me, by Ohio state law does not depend on unanimity of support. It does not even depend on majority support. All I needed was to be the marginal vote-getter in an off-year election and the board seat was mine.

Interestingly, the same folks who would never accept my omniscience as a friend, neighbor, or community member, accept my omniscience as an elected official. Of course these folks don't consciously acknowledge my omniscience, but they do subscribe to the omniscience of the governmental body, the school board in this instance. It is as if the board as a whole attains a higher plane of reason where the whole is multiples of the sum of the parts. In reality, most board members are simply parents trying to make the best decisions for their own children. Certainly they pray that they are right, but they do not subscribe to their omniscience at home, just in the board room.

Based on lots of research and agonizing internal reasoning, or simply the result of my then-current whim and fancy, I get to make decisions that affect the lives and future of other’s children. All it takes is for an article in an education periodical or posting on a web site to catch my attention and I could be advocating the next nuttiness in your life. Should someone suggest that children today are overfed and under-exercised, I could be writing the new policies, procedures, and guidelines that mandate each child eat nothing but organic carrots at lunch and perform sets of jumping-jacks at their desks on the hour, every hour.

Sound far-fetched? Well, it’s not. Every crazy idea has both advocates and enablers. The advocates push the issue while the enablers nod their collective heads in approval. It really does not matter if the enablers truly agree with the advocates since the enablers will never call the advocates into question. The lovers of Liberty try to make a stand but find their voices lost in the sea of feel-good, collective consensus-building. The crazy idea then ends up before the board and I get to decide. Will whim and fancy, or research and reason, be my guide? You never can really tell.

So I get to decide on the issue while you get to fear the results as the occasional band of roaming morons spray paint SUVs, demand that KFC play Mozart in their slaughterhouses – yes, the chicken we eat must be slaughtered somewhere, and protest McDonalds and Wal-Mart as evil incarnate. These are products of a system that I get to run based on my world-view, or the world-view that piques my interest at any given time.

And I get to change with the winds, not so much based on political pressures, but based on the ideas or ideals that I believe today that all children must believe tomorrow. As my views flutter in the wind, new advocates arrive on the scene and the increase of crazy ideas reaches hurricane speeds while the enablers bob their heads in accelerating unison.

The problem is that local government is simply comprised of friends, neighbors, community members, who you generally appreciate but whose views on very personal matters, such as parenting, are not always the same as yours; just as you do not always agree with the parental decisions of those closest to you – your parents and siblings. In fact, one of the easiest ways to end a family reunion in anger is to begin telling siblings how to raise their children.

In addition, even if I possessed the latest research on education and had advanced reasoning skills, as an elected official, a member of government, the best I can offer is my opinions and beliefs, and I am wrong more often than right. Education research is based on standards that can never match consumer desires, and all opinions and beliefs of that research are nothing more than an individual’s bias. Without a free market and real consumers driving the education system, expect waste and inefficiencies; failures. But give us, your school boards, power and we will decide; we will indoctrinate as we see fit, based on our own biases or those biases fed to us by educationist organizations.

But society must allow parents to raise and indoctrinate their children as they see fit, not as the unionized wing of government sees fit. Thomas Jefferson believed that it was far better to suffer the occasional fool than to create a school system that offends fathers, and mothers. I assume that the majority of parents would opt for their own decision-making skills if pushed to decide, but I may be wrong.

Why do so many people have such little faith in their own parenting, and their neighbors' parenting, that they truly believe that without a unionized labor force inculcating children, nothing of value will ever be learned? Are we really at the point where the future of civilization is in the hands of the public school education monopoly? Maybe preschool should start right after birth so that parents have no adverse influence on their children. And, why do residents feel that I can make the decisions for their children that they would not allow to be made by members of their own family?

The answer is that they have accepted collectivism in the form of government as the solution. Whereas our forebears rebelled against such paternalism – or do-gooder nanny-ism – the current generations have come to accept government in all facets of their lives. We allow the schools to dictate our children’s future and simply assume that the schools are always rights. We allow the local health department and schools to decide what goes in our children’s lunch boxes and accept that mandate as correct.

How in the world did my election to the board cloak me in the cape of omniscience and allow me to be more enlightened than regular folks? Karl Marx and the other socialists and communists saw little need for the family and other institutions; they believed that they knew better. Gramsci, the Italian socialist, believed that socialism would win in the end if it based its means on a strategy of long-term goals; a Fabian approach. Why fight in the streets when the damage can be done by destroying families and institutions?

In many ways, we have allowed socialist collectivism to be the main outcome of public education. The schools create the environment that nurtures the advocate and encourages the complacency of the enabler. It is really no wonder that the collective body, the school board, is assumed to be omniscient while the individual board member, in his non-board role, is simply considered one in the crowd.

Don't simply sit back and be a silent enabler, stand for freedom against the aggressions of the advocator. And remember, if this is so, that the schools and all other local governments are always right, that simply means that I am always right. And even I do not agree with that.

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here. My home page is here

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1 comment:

Airborn Press / Gordon Long said...

One simple reason that boys are doing less well in school is that school is basically a feminine environment. As you mention in your posting, the abilities which allow for success in school, such as sitting still, cooperating, and reading fictional material, are those that girls mature at earlier. The only thing that used to keep boys ahead was that they were better at Math and Science, which are spatially-oriented, hands-on subjects.

So, when there is a big furor about how girls can't do Math and Science, and the teachers put their efforts into changing this situation, and they are successful, this reduces the one main advantage that boys have traditionally had.

It is quite a compliment to the education system, actually, to realize that, given the proper political and social motivation, the course of education can be changed noticeably in less than a generation.

Now we just have to turn the same attention towards creating learning environments that help boys excell as well. This would be a benefit to all, because active, hands-on learning is effective for all students.

Another factor where boys have difficulty is in reading. I think you exaggerate the amount of girl-friendly literature, because there is plenty of adventure and action literature available. However, the real problem is that a certain percentage of students, and I suggest that the majority of them are boys, are simply not interested in fiction. Give them an instruction manual, or an article from Popular Mechanics or a sports magazine, and they will read with interest and skill.