School Boys

[astra_nomer]

So, apparently, a student at a New England high school is claiming gender discrimination. The interesting thing is, the student is a boy. A white, middle-class male, suing for discrimination.

Certainly it's true that more women are entering college these days than men. But shouldn't we be saying, "You Go Girl!" instead of "ZOMG!! Save the boys!!!"

I cannot believe that education has changed so dramatically in this country over the last 10 or even 20 years that it's suddenly become biased toward girls. The educational system in this country was originally just for white males. Just 40 years ago, Harvard University did not allow women in some of its libraries. At the same time, the majority of elementary school teachers over the last century or more have been women, and while I won't rant about that issue now, it didn't seem to have hurt the legions of boys who were educated by them and went on to become successful men within the patriarchy.

Yes, it's true that boys have more behavioral issues than girls, and that will affect their educational opportunities. But is this really more of an issue today than in the past? Has boyhood really changed that much?

I recall being one of just a handful of girls in my high school science and math classes. I recall that when my calculus teacher handed out M&Ms to highest achievers in her class, that my candy was sometimes stolen when I turned my back, and at least one student complained that the girls always got the awards, even though we were vastly outnumbered by the boys.

Now I'm the mother of two boys myself. But I expect them to exert self-discipline in school. I expect them to do their best with their studies. I will help find opportunities within the educational system for them to get ahead. I will not tolerate them making excuses for themselves by saying they were discriminated against. If I've managed to succeed against the odds, they can too.

Comments

[mama-pipa.livejournal.com]

hear hear!

I too agree that you make the most of the situation, and you worry about your own self and I hope to be able to communicate to my two children that its is very important for them to do their best with their studies, and its up to them for success, and I am willing to help them the best that I can.

IMHO, many people who scream discrimination are just unable to accept the fact that some of their problems may be their own damned fault, and those who are really discriminated against are not taken seriously as a result.

[coraline]

*headdesk*

[lokiect.livejournal.com]

you know, just scanning the article, that's one of the funniest things I've heard in a while. I mean, it's like it's saying boys can't control themselves and can't find ways of putting in extra effort (equivalent to decorating their notebooks).
Though for the hall pass part, I think it is possible that the specific school is being unfairly harsh to the boys. And some part of me also takes it as a message that we also need to teach boys that art and drama are ok for them and their manliness, too.
clearly, boyscouts should need to learn how to knit and cook. ;9

[unclenomer.livejournal.com]

boyscouts should need to learn how to knit and cook.

Hey, we at least learn how to cook. Well, I learned from my mom, but I've taught many scouts how to cook on camping trips. And I've learned that when you teach a scout to cook, be the last to eat because the first attempts can be really bad. :-)

[lokiect.livejournal.com]

well, bake then. it seems so random that baking is a "girl activity"
and I'm sorry to say, but I think you are an outlier. I want to see boys being encouraged to do some of the "girl activities" at a young enough age to matter.

(this coming from the POV of a girl who was picked on for playing with action figures as a kid. The florida kids were way better than the california ones that way.)

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I really hate the "boys will be boys" excuses people put forth. And I equally hate the fact that "girly-man" is used as an insult.

And Boy Scouts should learn to accept homosexuals, while they're at it!

[lokiect.livejournal.com]

yeah, I think I'm kind of similarly pissed off that my art classes had maybe one boy in them and my science classes had me as the girl. I could rant a while, but I think what I'd get to in the end is that I don't feel like we can really make much of an equality breakthrough if we only pay attention to the female empowerment part and don't deal with, well, "freeing" the boys, too.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Strangely enough, all-boys schools seem to be very helpful on the "art and drama are OK" front.

Because, well, everyone knows that schools have art and drama. And at a boys' school, you can't say "well, that is for the girls to do", because if you do there will not be an art or drama program. Also, there are not any girls around that you might embarrass yourself in front of ;).

One of our faculty, whose son is a ninth grader, was trying to encourage sixth grade parents to keep their sons here for seventh grade. He said that his son had not only been in the plays, but had cross-dressed to play women's roles, and asked them to imagine the odds that he would have done that at a coed school. Point taken.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

I feel like my high school did a good job of getting guys into art & drama, but I'm not sure as I didn't really do either. It might be who they chose, or it might be that we were all desparate to have as much as possible on our resumes college apps.

My high school did have trouble keeping girls in the upper level math classes, though. This was not the sort of thing that bothered me. Well, it bothered me that the other girls were fleeing, but it never bothered me to be the only girl in a class.

[ilai]

Not directly to the point, but the complaint is filed against the public Milton High School, rather than the preparatory school Milton Academy. That said, the article seems to be focused only on Milton High, and does not provide any useful data on the situation in the rest of the country, which is kind of disappointing.

I recall that a while back, there was a controversial article in the Atlantic Monthly by Christina Hoff Sommers called "The War Against Boys" aimed at refuting Carol Gilligan's research into girls getting shortchanged in schools. It was apparently the subject of much heated debate, but I don't know if any useful (or real) research came out of it--that would be interesting to find out.

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

the complaint is filed against the public Milton High School, rather than the preparatory school Milton Academy

Oops! My mistake. I've edited things accordingly.

So I haven't read that article. But I have heard that since boys have higher energy levels, they raise their hands in class more, get called on more, and so benefit more from participating in class. I have also heard that since boys have higher energy levels, they get diagnosed with ADD more often, get disciplined more, and miss out on participating in class more. There's some truth in each story, I think.

(remcat pointed me - and others - this way :)

[mijven.livejournal.com]

Well assuming he's right, that particular boy has a point. Two of his three bones of contention are "verified" by a girl later in the article (that girls wander the hallway without passes whereas boys are stopped and that "one teacher expects students to type up class notes and decorate their notebooks with glitter and feathers" which would drive me crazy - actually did drive me crazy back in high school, and I'm a girl!) His third argument, that girls are naturally more orderly whereas boys are rambunctious is also something that I (generically, not specifically) believe and I think schools need to address, but isn't quite worthy of a suit. (In fact I think Newsweek is doing an article on this topic right now.) Another valid point he makes is the lack of male role models for the younger crowd. (I've actuallyl gone out of my way to try and make sure my guys see male instructors, although mostly this is done via music classes.)

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Yes, boys get diagnosed with AD(H)D radically more often than girls do. I think, though I cannot remember or cite statistics to this effect, that boys are actually more prone to it than girls are. I definitely remember from somewhere that boys are more prone to the ADHD version and girls to the AD-notH-D version, so boys are much more likely to be diagnosed (on the one hand possibly stigmatizing them, but on the other hand making boys more likely than girls to get help they need).

I've heard that about boys but I think individual variations swamp it. Certainly the boys I teach vary enormously in how much they want to raise their hand, and sometimes it has nothing to do with how energetic they are in the halls (even the really hyper ones can be subdued in class if they don't understand). When I was teaching coed SAT prep, girls participated a lot more -- again, because I think they tend to be more conformist, authority-oriented, and desirous to please.

Really I think you can find examples to support almost any gender-based hypothesis in education, which is why Very Large Studies are important, but they're pretty rare; the quality of most educational research is execrable.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

I just went and read the article, and it sounds like the bulk of the complaints are that the boys are categorically doing less well in school because they
tend to rebel, dislike following rules, not want to do extra work, might decide to punt the community service requirement because of a tendency to rebel and therefore not graduate, and so on.

I admit to being a girl, so perhaps my viewpoint is skewed, but how is it bias to have a system that says "do your schoolwork and follow the rules and you will do well, break the rules and skip your homework and you won't"?
I admit to thinking it's absurd that teachers give extra credit for "decorating" notebooks by gluing on glitter and feathers, but that is my limited academic rigor speaking, for both boys and girls.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

So, on the one hand, yes, follow rules, do work, do well, seems basic and fair for everyone.

But there's a whole world of things subsumed in that. If "follow rules" involves, say, "sit still for six hours"...a lot of boys are really not good at that at all. If "follow rules" includes, tacitly, "learn according to only one particular learning style", that's going to suck for a lot of students, and potentially boys more than girls depending on the learning style.

I teach all boys and I expect them to work hard and follow rules, and I try to make sure they will do well if they do that. But I also try to recognize that they need to move around, compete with one another, occasionally be a little loud and crazy, do projects, make things with their hands, and not sit still and listen for more than ten to fifteen minutes at a time. I haven't taught girls at this age group (above and below, though), or as extensively, but I think a lot of these things come more from the fact that they are boys than from the fact that they are middle schoolers. And I say all of this as someone who has thrived in male-dominated classes and really, really fails to fit a number of the female learning stereotypes (I am female).

[remcat.livejournal.com]

Thank you -- I think this sums up the problem well.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Just 40 years ago, Harvard University did not allow women in some of its libraries.

I think it was a recent as 30 years ago, but I would have to check.

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

Really? Phooey!

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

I have two different lines of thought about this.

First, this lawsuit has nothing do with reality. It has to do with doing whatever it takes for your kids to get ahead. That's what parents do these days, from parents in Manhattan getting their toddlers in Manhattan falsely diagnosed with learning disabilities to make them eligible for intensive interventions that will help them get into the best preschools, to parents paying people to ghostwrite college admissions essays.

Secondly, I believe that it is possible for an environment to discriminate against boys, that some schools may do so, and that this is more likely to be going on now than it was several decades ago (I have no real arguments to support my third point, though.). I believe that there are personalities that are more common among females and personalities that are more common among males. (For the purposes of the rest of this discussion I will call those personalities "how men behave" and "how women behave". I am not arguing that all men behave this way, nor that no woman behave this way. Think of it as a "women are likely to be shorter than men, but not every woman is shorter than every man, nor is the woman guaranteed to be shorter than the man in any given pairing." sort of thing.) I'm not going to bother to make lists of such personality differences, but think about the sorts of communication differences that are frequently described (women talk to strengthen relationships, men talk to give each other information.)

I think we can all agree that most corporate workplaces benefit people who behave like men. You get paid more if you aggressively negotiate for your salary. You are respected more if you never say "I don't know". Etc.

There exist environments where you are penalized for behaving like a man. Disagreement with the consensus is considered "being disruptive". Direct talk is considered confrontational. (My father's point of view is that his current employer is one such place; this isn't the voice of bitterness, but one of anthropological interest.) I agree that those environments aren't common, but I think it would be short-sighted to claim no such environments exists solely because the powerful environments are male-supportive.

It seems entirely possible to me that some high schools are the latter sort of environment. And that increased focus on reducing the discrimination against girls has changed the effects of those environments.

Are the boys hurt by a school culture that discriminates against them? I think this is the thing that is changing most quickly. People think that college admissions are based on tiny differences between applicants. In such an environment I can see where someone could reach the conclusion that a male-intolerant culture would be causing serious harm. I'm not sure there is a harm, since I'm not sure that any of the things mentioned by the student actually interfere with someone's ability to get an education.

Keep in mind that when I was in eighth grade I went on a tirade against my school because the girls were allowed to wear miniskirts of any length while boys were required to where long pants. No girls ever got in trouble for wearing shorts, either. But boys got sent home (the obnoxious boys who liked to point out they weren't following the rules.) I considered this discriminatory and proposed a length above the knee policy instead which was rejected by the principal. (And then after I left that school system my exact language was adopted by the school board without attribution.) So yes, I do think it's possible for an educational environment to discriminate against boys.

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

I agree with your first point, that this is a lawsuit brought about because of overparenting. It's the get-your-kid-into-college-or-sue mentality.

And I see your point that some school environments can be discriminatory toward boys in a behaviorally and disciplinary sense. But how does that translate into academic achievement?

So here's something I haven't really heard talked about much -- what efforts have schools been putting forth to promote girls ahead of boys since I went to school? I'd like to hear specifics. When I was in high school, we were given points for every time we raised our hands in class and contributed to discussion. So if you're energetic and full of ideas you're sure that everyone wants to hear, you get lots of points. But if you aren't so sure of yourself and believe modesty is a virtue, you don't always raise your hand. I posit that this sort of thing favors boys over girls. Does this sort of thing not happen in classrooms anymore? Aside from glitter and feathers, what specific teaching practices favor girls?

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

I'm having trouble if you're discussing this because you're interested in the topic or because you feel personally attacked; in case it's the latter let me make myself absolutely clear that I consider the sort of college campuses we hang out on to be a whole different kettle of fish.

But how does that translate into academic achievement?
We're agreeing here; I said that I saw no connection between those complaints and academic achievement.

But if you aren't so sure of yourself and believe modesty is a virtue, you don't always raise your hand. I posit that this sort of thing favors boys over girls. Does this sort of thing not happen in classrooms anymore?
I think that it is not consider a cool part of girl culture to be modest anymore, but I don't hang out with enough elementary school students to know if that carries over into classroom participation. So in that afraid to answer was a culture artifact I think it's gone. In that it's a personality difference based on energy level I'm sure it still applies. (If you really don't think there's been a cultural change just watch some TV from the 1980s sometime.)

what specific teaching practices favor girls?
I can speculate that the following practices would benefit girls (using the "average gender differences" meaning). I have no idea if they are more in favor in classrooms now than 20 or 40 years ago.
- group projects
- emphasis on understanding viewpoints
- in history a focus on daily life rather than on war
- emphasis on test-taking skills (this one is just a guess.)

what efforts have schools been putting forth to promote girls ahead of boys since I went to school? I'd like to hear specifics.
I just have speculation -- the possibility that the encouragement of girls has come at the expense of boys may have lead to a culture where teachers do not value the contributions of boys.

Specific discrimination against girls was acceptable when I was in elementary and middle school. (My high school was sufficiently different from the public school I attended up until then that it's not useful to compare.) Certain extracircular activities were open only to boys, other only to girls. Most sports were not available to girls. Boys were still expected to be the leaders of things. Girls who wanted to be in charged of things were discouraged. It is my belief that these things are much less in effect now.

Am I saying it was bad that they went away? No, absolutely not.
But at the same time there has not been an increase in broadening what it's acceptable for guys to do. Homophobia is less in some progressive places, but I get the feeling it's still a large motivator in middle school. So girls can do almost anything, but boys are still limited.

In other words, the discrimination against girls in the past was artificially providing a way for boys to seem worthwhile. The absence of that discrimination

I think that the combination of all of these factors could lead to an situation where the teachers do not expect as much from the boys. High expectations are an important component of academic achievement.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

So I found the Globe article on this very interesting because a lot of what the boy was saying matched perfectly with what a guest speaker we had earlier in the year -- an expert on gender differences in the brain -- said. (And, yes, before either of us gets too carried away, she was happy to admit that these are average gender differences and need not hold for any particular person. I actually found her very credible, which surprised me.) Anyway, yes, she said exactly what he said about school rewarding the sort of sitting-still, rule-following, conformist behavior that girls are much more suited to (on average) than boys. It made me wonder whether he is in any way up on educational research or whether these were his own observations.

Of course, then they quoted his lawyer dad saying that appropriate redress was retroactively awarding all boys higher GPAs because they really wanted to go to college. Gag me with a spoon.

I think it works both ways; there are elements of standard education that discriminate, on average, against boys, and others that discriminate, on average, against girls. Individual self-discipline and aptitude is generally much more important.

[desireearmfeldt]

Yeah, the group-mind here seems to have concluded so far that school favors a) sitting still and behaving (quiet/shy/calm/obedient people) and b) speaking up a lot (loud/energetic/confident/aggressive people). Put a gender on those profiles or not as you like, but if a is favored over b and b over a... I don't know what that means in terms of 'discrimnation.' :)

I agree that school *does* favor both sets of behaviors. Which you get shafted for not doing undoubtedly depends on the particular school and teacher, as well as on the rest of your personality/behavior.

(Me, I went to a co-ed school with much less sitting still and following orders than probably most of you. And with a lot of personal attention--though also with enough license that I think the people who potentially got screwed there were the ones who were not sufficiently self-disciplined and/or interested in learning.)

[shumashi.livejournal.com]

I actually found her very credible

Oooo, references?

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

A bit off-topic perhaps, but my post so I'm allowed to do that, right?

...rewarding the sort of sitting-still, rule-following, conformist behavior that girls are much more suited to (on average) than boys

Isn't the military all about rule-following and conformist behavior? Not so much the sitting-still, I suppose, but anyway... And yet the military is very much male-dominated....