The Trouble with Boys

We have basic guidelines and rules for all of our children that change as they get older. Each child is different but the boys in our family are more active, impulsive and tactile. The girls are more willing to be still, have better fine motor and are more aware of their environment. Instead of sorting by gender, schools should sort by learning and teaching styles.

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Do I believe there are differences in raising boys and girls-you betcha!. I have 2 of each. The problem with trying to raise them the same is that you discount their inate beings. Boys and girls are wired differently. We weren't going to have toy guns in our house-they picked up sticks and made shooting noises. Instead of celebrating their "boyness" we try to feminize them. We don't give them time to be boys. Take gym class-in our schools, boys and girls are mixed. Let one little girl get hit with the squash ball and all hell breaks loose. Boys and girls have different needs-we should recognize this and celebrate it. Boys need to be active and busy in order to deal with their natural aggressiveness. My girls would sit quitely and play and talk and read. My boys wanted to be outside building forts, playing ball, getting dirty and climbing to high heights from which to jump. Does that make either right or wrong? No it makes them different and something to be celebrated. I'm not necessarily convinced that boys are more likely to be diagnosed with learning disabilities or have more need for special education. I jut think society tries to fit these square pegs into round holes instead of making the holes round. I think we need to recognize the differences and develop teaching methods that addresses them. The older I get, the more I support all boy and all girl classes.

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There is a discussion about this, particularly about teacher's perspectives, going on at:
http://educationwonk.blogspot.com/2006/01/trouble-with-boys.html

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Boys ARE more likely to be diagnosed with learning disabilities: but it may not because they have them more, but because they don't fit as neatly into the "sit-still-listen-and-do-this-worksheet" mode of teaching as little girls are.

My first was a "typical" girl in her physical quietness and her ability to listen. My second was a "typical" boy in his physicality and impulsiveness and emotional oblivion; my third, a girl, is atypical: physical and emotionally acute.

However, all my children played with balls and blocks and dressup and dolls; none of them played with guns. They enjoyed knights and swords play for a while. The boy and the youngest girl were more interested in trucks; the two girls were more interested in sit-and-pretend play. It is my boy who is the most voracious reader.

I think that children do generally fit within the stereotypes of their genders, but that these stereotypes need not become cages. Children will also behave outside the stereotype if we allow it.

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I think what is being overlooked in this whole discussion is the fact that our society is so focused on outcome-based education that we're not taking the individual into consideration. This issue ties into another discussed here a few days ago - the vanishing of recess. Everything ties together. When we start expecting our kids - boys and girls alike - to sit and act like little robots, we run into trouble.

As a society, we need to see and accept that the public education system is a gigantic failure and begin to address the myriad problems. If we don't, our boys will continue to suffer, and the girls will follow closely on their heels.

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So, what did students do in schools 30, 50, 100 years ago? Surely there was structured learning time. I would dare say much more structured towards book reading, writing, and math problems. There were no computer programs, videos to watch, etc. I hear that girls are "wired" towards sitting passively and learning. It's the same type of arguement that boys were "wired" towards aptitude and girls towards "domestic tranquility" in the past and therefore there was little need to educate females beyond a certain point in reading, writing, math, science, etc..

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There's a gender bias in the primary school system, plain and simple.

Males are labeled as "misbehaving" by female educators and administrators. And, some male educators too.

Back 10, 50, or 100 years ago they used to just say, "boys will be boys." But then all this psychobabble about, coupled with equal rights, came about and everyone started saying it's not "normal" for boys to behave differently than girls, because everyone's equal. We're all the same, right?

Add the pharmecuetical companies, who want to medicate you when the wind blows. Boys behaving normally? No, no, no, give them a pill. A pill that we have exclusive rights to and will make us rich in the process. And your boys will behave like girls. No wait, that's not PC of a big drug company to say. The pills correct their "behavior problems." Yeah, that's the ticket!

But aren't men from Mars and women from Venus? The martians are in school, on Venus, and aren't acting like the Venutians. It must be because they have a "problem." Wrong!

We need to rid the gender bias in the schools and accept the natural behaviors of males as what it is, natural.

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Jeff, don't let your own ire about gender bias blind you to the fact that there are many kids (boys and girls) out there who have legitimate neurological differences that impair their ability to function at any sort of reasonable level.

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I think that girls and boys should be given different citizenship rubrics in schools to correspond with their natural personalities. This does not mean that boys should be able to run around all day while the girls sit down and read. However, if a teacher notices a male student talking to a friend sitting next to him when he is supposed to be quiet, I think that the teacher should give him a warning instead of punishing him as soon as possible. I also believe that both boys and girls should be educated according to their personalities. If the boy is into war, I think that the parents should show him war movies and explain to him what war is like. Let him play war games with his friends because if he wants to be in the military, the parents have no right to stop him and cut his dreams short. Just because boys may want to learn different things and act differently then girls, it doesnt mean that there is some thing wrong with them and vice versa. I have also made some motifications to the old saying "Boys will be boy, and they should be treated and boys."

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I think that this train of thought is what caused folks to believe in separating the genders in some schools. As a teacher, I tell you when someone tell me they have 18 boys and 4 girls in their class, I roll my eyes in empathy. I have two boys and I tell you, having 18 of them at one times is much scarier to me than thinking ov having 18 girls...no really it is.

Obviously they are different and that is why it pays the parents to know what kind of child they have and seek out educators who can work with their childs needs.

My boys are only 1 and 3 but I can tell you, one of them is much louder, much more rambuctious, much more uneven temptered and much more difficult than the other and I will seek out a teacher who believes in the "get up and get active to learn" for this son more so than I will the other.

There are colleges out there teaching our teachers how to help these little boys who need to moving and shaking to learn and most schools will help you get the help you need by allowing your child to be placed in the classroom with such a teacher if it is possible at all. It is just important for parents to be able to do this without pointing blame at anyone.

There's no debate that the boys vs the girls and that the differences are monumental......the trick is to say there is a difference without indicating that one is better than the other.

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I think the whole notion of drawing gender lines is harmful to all children. If a child's gender automatically sets up certain expectations from the adults around, how can the adults truly see and interact with that specific child? Children take their cues from the people around them. If you have expectations that boys will be assertive and girls will be passive, then that is what they will become. You then behave in subtle and not so subtle ways, such as this article and forum, to reinforce that stereotype. It'll be that much harder for a child to break free from the stereo type and discover who they really are and the wonderful talents they have. It's easier to treat boys and girls, men and women, as equals if you purge you life of gender stereo types. Though its mighty easy to just generalize, you will always find girls and boys who don't fit the stereotype and you do such harm to them.

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One more comment: If racial stereotypes are a bad idea, shouldn't gender stereotypes be bad also? On the subject of single sex education: When in the history of people has it ever been a good idea to keep certain groups of people separate from each other? Its a coed world.

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If there are certain places in school where advanced students get advanced work and slower students get slower work, I don't feel like its a bad idea to teach in a masculine and feminine manner. Genderless, its not a matter of sperating boys and girls, its a matter of recognizing the role that testosterone and estrogen play in development. I am fascinated by this topic. I grew up in a house full of girls and now that I have son, sometimes I wonder what I'll do with him!

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