Granted, it is a bit early in the school year….we have only had the brief parent/teacher interviews so far for Caitlyn starting Grade one and Adam in Grade three…but I am very curious about what the mid year report cards will reveal for the kids.
Being that I have an 8 year old boy who has struggled with reading, I read Erica Ehm’s post ‘Why Are Boys Failing School’ with much interest.
Kindergarten, Grade one and two filled us with a bit of angst due to less than thrilling report cards and notices about how much HELP Adam was going to need to reach a grade level of reading.
I attended a workshop by Barry MacDonald and read ‘Mentoring Boys.’ I researched learning disabilities and dealing with ADHD. I dug up reports from child therapists that we had seen when the PRESCHOOL was convinced Adam had ADHD……I called meetings with teachers, resource teachers, and fought to make sure he was in the ‘right’ classroom setting.
And yes..by the end of last year we were getting much more positive reports and now according to the school, his reading is just fine as is the rest of his work apart from some practice in the writing department required.
Basically over the summer his brain appeared to catch up with the rest of his peers….he loves to read and is reading everything.
Phew we say.
Right?
In the meantime, Caitlyn received glowing report cards in Kindergarten. So glowing we cringed at sharing them with Adam for fear of crushing his already faltering confidence.
However, I don’t think they will be QUITE so glowing for Grade one. I am not seeing the ‘exceeding’ student here….just from my own perspective, it looks like she will be working quite hard to learn reading and writing.
The playing field seems to have been leveled.
This leads me to wonder how much of the issues faced by boys and girls in school really depend on the teacher…the teachers gender, age, and biases.
Adam and Caity had the same Kindergarten teacher. Adam unfortunately had the same teacher for a Kindergarten/Grade one split. I honestly feel that this teacher has always favored girls over boys. I think she tends to have low expectations for boys. I also think that her report cards tend to praise the social areas of early academia over learning when it comes to girls.
Basically….girls get better marks because they tend to adjust easier to a classroom setting over the more ‘unruly’ boys.
However, I don’t think this bias favors the girls in her class because I really do think that Caity could have done with more focus on reading and understanding…at least so we as parents would have felt better at preparing for Grade one over the summer.
While we DO like to read with our children….we were much more focused (again) on Adam and really assumed our daughter would be just fine.
Caitlyn’s teacher this year is quite relaxed about letting them figure it all out in their own time. This is a different approach than previous teachers for us and our children. Will this approach work with Caity. I am not sure. Right now there isn’t much I can do except encourage her, read with her and see what the report cards say.
There has been no notices yet about requiring extra help and the teacher herself seems confident in how Caitlyn will adjust over the school year.
How much of our children’s education is dependent of the type of teachers they get? Would Adam perhaps figured it all out at this stage in his life without all the extra help? Maybe, maybe not. The academic lives of our children is entirely based on the opinions of people …..people with their own biases, educational backgrounds and views that could very well differ completely from us the parents and their own colleagues.
So what is the point of all this…..I think the key is to be totally engaged in your children’s academic development from the beginning…BUT…KNOW YOUR CHILD. Take in the information from the “professionals” but base your decisions on your gut and what you know about YOUR child.
And don’t panic.
And Erica….I THANK video games for helping Adam’s reading. His love of games and the need to play more advanced games that required LOTS of reading is what gave him the enthusiasm to push through.
Now he is a Halo expert!
Amber says
My firstborn is a girl, and she has just entered kindergarten. Her birthday is in February, so she is one of the oldest kids in her class. She is also very social and outgoing. I don’t worry so much about her. I think that, in the long run, she’ll be just fine.
My son is only 2, but I honestly worry about him entering school. I think I’ve seen some of the bias against little boys. Also, his birthday is in August, so he’ll be a full 6 months younger than my daughter on his first day of school. I think he’ll be just fine in the long run, too, but I don’t want his early experiences with school to be negative, you know? He’s still too young to really say how he’ll do, but it’s something I definitely think about.
Marilyn (A Lot of Loves) says
My son’s birthday is in November. This means he will always be one of the youngest in the class. He is uber active and a terrible listener. Although I do think he’s bright, I anticipate some issues once he hits regular school. I’ve spoken to teachers who have told me that they don’t like teaching boys in the younger grades. This hasn’t left me very comfortable for next year when K starts school. In fact I’m very worried about what school will bring.
lynn oliver says
lynn oliver
mayfieldga@gmail.com
http://learningtheory.homestead.com
The problem of the male crisis has “not been looked at” in terms of much differential treatment that increases as we go down the socioeconomic ladder and more time in those environments. If we look in those areas, we cannot help but see how the numbers of Male problems diminish greatly as we go up the socioeconomic ladder. Even in higher socioeconomic areas, those Males are also falling behind their female peers. As we go down the socioeconomic ladder, the numbers increase greatly. We need to look at “much differential treatment of boys and girls beginning from infancy through adulthood. It is amazing to me that such differential treatment has not been looked at by the researchers. I imagine there are two reasons:
1. The belief in genetics has blinded researchers to the great social, environmental causes of learning, motivation and academics.
2. The present view of average stress sees stress only as occurring in some present situation, event, or work. We need to see how our average stress is made up many layers of past, present, future – experiences, fears, preparations for defense, needs, values of others, a host of unresolved mental work that remains with us we each carry as individuals as an average that takes up real mental energy from thinking, learning, motivation to learn, and affects our mental/emotional health.
My theory on the Male Crisis that shows how treatment given Males to make them tough is hurting academic growth. To understand this we must redefine average stress as many layers of mental work that take up real mental energy. Picture an upright rectangle showing our full mental energy. Now begin at the bottom drawing in narrowly spaced, horizontal lines to represent many layers of past, present, future -experiences, *aggressions given children (that create mental conflict); values of self/others; anything creating unresolved mental work, needs, or anxiety both past and present. All of those layers are being mentally dealt with as many layers of mental work. Stop about half way. The space leftover shows our leftover ability to think and learn. This shows just how environments and “differential treatment” greatly affect thinking and learning, not genetics. The Figure that shows this will go to all on request.
The problem is more complex than school curriculum or boy chemistry. We need to stop looking at where boys are in life, character, and behavior and begin seeing how boys are treated from infancy very differently from us as girls. We need to see how the more aggressive treatment they are given from infancy by parents, teachers, and peers is creating more learning problems and less than correct behavior or care for authority and school.
To understand this, “we must redefine our average stress as many layers of mental work we carry with us that take away real mental energy leaving less mental energy to think, learn, concentrate, and enjoy the learning process. This differential treatment creates very real differences in learning by individual and by group.
The problem involves two entirely different treatments of Males and Females as early as one year of age and increases in differential treatment. This is creating the growing Male Crisis. The belief Males should be strong allows more aggressive treatment of Males as early as one year, designed to create more layers of agitation, fear, and tension, so they will be prepared to fight, defend, and be tough. This is coupled with much “less” kind, stable, (very little verbal interaction) and less mental/emotional/social support, knowledge, and skills for fear of coddling. It is this more aggressive, less supportive treatment that creates the toughness or maintained, higher average layers of – anger, fear, anxiety, preparation for defense, etc. This remains in the mind as higher average stress that take away real mental energy needed for academics. This increases over time and continued by society from parents, yes teachers, and others in society. This creates more social/emotional distance/distrust of others -parents and other authority figures who have knowledge; lags in communication, lower social vocabulary, poor sentence structure; also higher average stress: more layers of mental agitated conflicts and fears taking away real mental energy that hurt learning and motivation to learn. This also creates more activity due to need for stress relief from their higher average stress. It creates more defensiveness and wariness of others further hindering emotional and social growth. The higher average stress creates higher muscle tension (creating more pressure on the pencil and tighter grip) that hurt writing and motivation to write (hurting form and creating early fatigue). It creates much lag in development due to lack of care creating a learned sense of helplessness in school. This differential treatment continues through adulthood, almost fixing many Males onto roads of failure and escape into more short-term areas of enjoyment. Also society gives Males love and honor (essential needs for self-worth) only on condition of some achievement or status. This was designed to keep Male esteem and feelings of self-worth low to keep them striving and even give their lives in time of war for small measures of love and honor. Males not achieving in school or other are given more ridicule and discipline to make them try harder. Support is not an option for fear of coddling. Many Males thus falling behind in academics then turn their attention toward video games, sports, and yes pornography to receive small measures of love and honor not received in the classroom. The belief boys should be strong and the false belief in genetics creates a mental denial of any connection with differential treatment and the lower academics, lower esteem, and other problems, removing all good sense when it comes to raising boys today. I feel there is an almost emotional cannibalism allowed upon Males by society, even young Males who appear weak, all to make them tough.
Note, it is not just about feelings and more openness that is needed as it is more support and care in general from infancy. Remember it is the aggressive treatment that is increased for any sign of weakness and much wariness they feel for others, especially adults (parents and teachers) who feel it necessary – and more freely allowed to use more aggressive treatment for any sign of weakness or vulnerability.
As for reading, we need high social vocabulary, social experience with sentence structure, and “lower average stress to perform the abstract skill of reading: decoding, visualizing, organizing, reaching back into our social vocabulary to learn new words in print, and enjoying the process. Boys are deprived in these areas due to much less care, interaction, and more aggressive treatment in general. This hurts reading and motivation to read.
I feel the shows of masculinity and misbehavior are pretty much copouts to both show separation from failure in school and to gleam small measures of love and honor from peers. The defensiveness from authority is really pretty straight forward, especially in lower socioeconomic areas where strength, power, and status hold very real currency in those areas. For those students it is not just misbehavior but a real tug of war or fight for minimum feelings of self-worth from a continual fight they feel outside the classroom as well as in.
The suicide epidemic is the result of Males being deprived sufficiently from those essential feelings of self-worth of less love and honor simply for being boys or men. The training they are given from an early age is preventing many of them from competing in the information age and thus losing the means to secure legally – income, status, and power to earn in some way, love and honor from society. This creates over time, psychological suffering that wears down their remaining feelings of self-worth to the point of suicide. There is no net for Males, all designed to make them tough. As girls, we are treated much better and so enjoy more hope and care from society.
Since we as girls by differential treatment are given much more positive, continual, mental, emotional/social support verbal interaction and care from an early age onward this creates quite the opposite outcome for girls compared with boys. We enjoy much more continuous care and support from infancy through adulthood and receive love and honor simply for being girls. This creates all of the good things: lower average stress for more ease of learning. We do enjoy much freedom of expression from much protection that makes us look less stable at times. Of course we can also use that same freedom of expression to give verbal, silent abuse, and hollow kindness/patronization to our Male peers with impunity knowing we are protected. We enjoy lower muscle tension for better handwriting/motivation; higher social vocabulary; lower average stress for reading/motivation; much more positive, trust/communication with adults, teachers, peers; and much more support for perceived weaknesses. We are reaping a bonanza in the information age. The lower the socioeconomic bracket and time in that bracket the more amplified the differential treatment from a young age and increased and more differentiated over time. Now with girls and women taking over many areas of society, we are enjoying even more lavishing of love and honor, while boys and men are still treated to be tough are failing more and so are being given even more ridicule and abuse by society and yes, also by girls and women. My learning theory and article on the Male Crisis will go to all on request or can be read from my home site at http://learningtheory.homestead.com/Theory.html