Understanding Boys 's Failing Education

As discussed in a recent essay by Saul Kaplan “The Plight of Young Males”, there is a serious academic gender achievement gap in the United States and as I will discuss, around the world. Young women are doing significantly better than young men, and the results are shocking. In the latest census, males make up 51 percent of the total U.S. population between the ages of 18-24. Yet only 40 percent of today’s college students are men. Since 1982, more American women than men have received bachelor’s degrees. In the last ten years, two million more women graduated from college than men. As Kaplan reveals, the average eleventh-grade boy writes at the level of the average eighth-grade girl. He also states that women dominate high school honor rolls and now make up more than 70 percent of class valedictorians. Kaplan says, “I am happy to see women succeeding. But can we really afford for our country’s young men to fall so far behind,” (733)?

There are multiple reasons why Kelley King, Michael Gurian and Kathy Stevens are on the pro side. For one reason, they believe that the differences exist due to boys being more interactive with certain topics and methods that don’t usually interest girls or vice versa. For example, the Wamsley Elementary School in Rifle, Colorado has both boy and girl students. However, in the past, the girl students over accomplished the boy students due to the school staff being more experienced in understanding how to teach girls than understanding how to teach boys. So, the school focused on teaching the boys with their own learning styles that are also girl friendly such as online courses. The result of this was successful as boys became more accomplished than they were from before. (Pages 147 – 148).

As I read the article on Boys’ anti-school culture, I learned that boys perform worse in school. Boys may try to incorporate their social status as risk-takers. I also learned that there are some stereotypes among boys and girls. It doesn’t matter where you live, it starts early in age. Preteen kids tend to believe that males and females should think a certain way. To understand the meaning of stereotype, it is any thought about specific types of individuals or certain ways of behaving which represents the entire group as a whole. Studies were made about how stereotype inspect what people think of others, rather than the reasons and methods involved in stereotyping. Just as (Griffin, 2000), stated that debates on boys and their schooling are

When it comes to the classroom, there are several differences between girls and boys. There are physical differences in the way their brains work, differences in the room temperature that is best for boys and girls, and differences in how girls and boys respond to various tones of speech (Sax, 2006). While girls prefer soft-spoken teachers, Sax (2006) notes that boys prefer to be spoken to “loudly and in short, direct sentences with clear instructions” (p. 195). According to Sax (2006), “the ideal ambient temperature for boys is about 69 degrees and about 75 degrees for girls” (p. 193-194). Further differences involve how boys and girls learn. McNeil states that “boys may learn better under pressure and when allowed to move around...while girls may perform better in group situations and with a lot of encouragement” (McNeil, 2008). Because of these many differences, it would stand to reason that boys and girls would benefit from being in separate classrooms. According to Hughes (2007), “the teacher would be able to concentrate on the learning-styles of each sex and use the styles to bring out the academic best in each students. Lessons and activities could be designed with a single-sex in mind” (p. 11). As Principal John Fox states, “the single-sex environment enables you to actually focus on the particular needs of each gender, and those needs socially and

The article “How Boys Become Men” written by Jon Katz, gives a positive statement on how boys still haven’t change and are still growing up the same. Jon Katz, shares with us while walking his dog one day, he saw a boy get beaten by a group of older boys. While walking towards him, Katz asked if he was okay; the boy said yes and begun to swing like nothing happened. I believe that what Jon Katz states is true, because the fact is; boys are always going to think they’re the Alpha Male in every situation. For example: who can climb the highest Rock, who can make a bigger splash in the pool or who can maybe get a girlfriend first.

It is easy to point the finger but harder to find a solution as to why the black male child is failing in school. There are several crucial factors that contribute to this epidemic including, parents are not communicating with the teachers, the socioeconomic status of the child 's family, and the father 's absence in the child 's life. Each of these topics intertwine with one another and is preventing a race of young men who will not be given the chance to excel in life.

Lately this “boy code” increases a problem of the gender gap between boys and girls in terms of academic, social, and work performance.

The authors of two articles aim to discuss about gender difference that exist between the boys and the girls in depth, of course, from their own perspectives. Similarly, Orenstein and Stabiner both explore the norms and beliefs that exist in classroom through subjects, like math. Stabiner indicated in her article, brain research has shown us that girls and boys develop and process information in different ways, and they do not even use the same region of the brain when they do their math homework (Stabiner 328). According to the observations of Orenstein, the performance in math class between Amy and other people is very distinct. Boys often lead and dominate classroom discussions. They raise their hands more often to answer questions than girls. However, though Amy is a bold and brassy when getting along with her peers, she performs quite nervous in the class. In

Second, boys are being confronted with challenges that arise from a society and educational system that are increasingly biased towards them. A boy today finds himself caught up in the social crime of "shortchanging" girls. Yet the supposedly silenced and neglected girl sitting next to him is likely to be a better student. She is not only more expressive, she is probably a more mature, engaged, and well-balanced person. He may be uncomfortably aware that girls are more likely to go on to

Even little boys are more prone to help the subject mentioned above than little girls. With findings of 80% of the samples taken favor and supported this theory.

An experiment at the University of California, Los Angeles proved interesting when a machine taught both boys and girls. The boys ended up scoring higher than when a woman taught them. I am wondering if girls scored higher than the boys did when male teachers teach them? I also wonder how the girls scored when taught by a machine; maybe they scored higher, too. At the secondary school level boys do perform better on technical or scientific subjects. Now this goes back to the first assumption that our brains work differently, or is it because more male teachers may teach these subjects? According to Mooney, teacher of the similar sex may have the "instinctive understanding that an adult will enjoy with a child who is going through a process which he or she went through too" (122). In other words, they can relate better with a child of the same sex. I am a female kindergarten teacher and also have a daughter who is six years old. I have no problem relating to the boys in my class. I think I can relate to any child who is five or six years old.

Deborah M. Roffman, a teacher and author on human sexuality claims that “You can hear and see evidence of this longstanding folk ‘wisdom’ about boys almost everywhere, from the gender-typed assumptions people make about young boys to the resigned attitude or blind eye adults so often turn to disrespectful or insensitive male behavior.” Boys are taught from a young age that their actions are justified by the statement “boys will be boys”, and when they do something disrespectful, it is not their fault because of their gender stereotype being perceived to be animalistic in nature and to not have manners. By teaching this to them at a young age, it is carried with them for their entire lives, including high school. With this stereotype in mind, school officials will allow boys to cat-call and verbally harass a girl because ‘boys will be boys’. What they do not understand is what they are enforcing by allowing boys to get away with such things. They are enforcing a sexist stereotype that will cause men to objectify women as though we were all to be living in a power-hungry patriarchal society. Roffman goes on to illustrate what the phrase really implies “Consider, though, what ‘boys will be boys’ thinking implies about the true nature of boys. I often ask...what inherent traits or characteristics the expression implies. The answers typically are astonishingly negative: Boys

We all know the obvious difference in boys and girls. Typically, we associate boys with being rougher than girls and spending much of their time playing rambunctiously and getting dirty while most girls prefer to be subdued and tidy. But is that the only dissimilarity in gender? What about school work and academic performance along with academic success? Can gender be a predominating factor in determining a child’s IQ level? Is there a legitimate difference in boys and girls when determining academic ability? And, does gender help determine any level of academic success? Some might say that these are some pretty absurd questions but others who have taught both boys and girls in

The class I was in when observing had boys and girls raging from ages of 3 to 5 with two female teachers. Ages 3, 4 and 5 are years with huge growth in developmental milestones for kids. They go through many physical, cognitive, emotional/social and language changes from the time the become young children instead of toddlers. Observing a room full of girls and boys I got to compare and contrast the differences in the way each gender develops. It is said girls and boys usually develop at different rates. During my observations I saw that girls and boys not necessarily developed at different rates, but develop in different areas quicker than the other gender. Physically yes, boys were slightly taller and more filled out than girls. Both genders were very high energy,

Teachers also play a crucial role in the development of children’s lives. The way they run their classroom has a huge impact on how girls see themselves and how they perform in school. The way the teacher interacts with his/her female students is often different than interactions with male