Are boys really falling behind in school, or is it just overreaction? (your opinion, please.)?

Question

Recent studies have found that boys are "falling behind" in school. This is a direct contrast with the former idea that girls were being "shortchanged" in the '90s. The country seems to be very concerned with this issue, and studies have been done to try to figure out how to "close the gap." Some studies or reports, such as the recent "Raising Cain", claim that boys genetically need to learn in a more active and athletic way, and that learning in schools has been designed more for girls than boys. I personally think the deal about boys having to learn in a more active way is pretty stupid. I myself am a middle school student, and I experience some sort of gender-bias almost every day. I personally think these studies and reports are the country's way of saying that it is uncomfortable with the fact that women and girls are being allowed more power than ever before. Tell me what you think, from experience or just in your opinion.

Answer 1

To be honest, I think there's more than a modicum of truth to the notion. There was a time, traditionally speaking, when boys were honestly favored academically. About the time I was born, or slightly thereafter, that stopped being the case, so when I got to grade school, the teachers spent a lot of time favoring the girls in just about every way possible.

Oh, they didn't SAY they were favoring the girls. They said they were being perfectly fair, yet somehow whenever boys asked questions the answer was "stop wasting the class's time, that answer is in the book!" or "how many times do I have to explain this to you?"

Girls asking similar questions always got a kind and patient response.

If a boy needed help with something after class, we were told to ask our parents when we got home. If a girl in the class needed help, the teacher would stay behind and help her with what she was having a problem with.

Every teacher I had in every grade had a study group on the weekend, in their house, to help all the girls with their homework. When I asked why teachers didn't help the boys on the weekend, i was told having boys in a female teacher's home wouldn't be appropriate. When I asked why they couldn't simply do it at school so we could all get help since quite a few boys needed it, I was sent to the office for causing trouble.

Whenever it came to things like discipline, boys were frowned on, too... and when I say that, I do mean there was a bias against them. One day, while I was wearing my cub scout uniform, a girl thought it would be funny to pour her milk all over me. I don't know why she did. I didn't even know her. Hadn't said so much as a word to her in my life, but, she marched up and upended her chocolate milk over my head, at which point I gasped, screamed "what's the matter with you", and chucked her milk carton back at her... which splattered some milk on her brownie uniform.

My teacher summarily marched me to the principal's office and explained what happened, whereupon the principal began yelling at me because they would have to dismiss the girl from school and I was paddled for getting her uniform dirty. She was let off scot free to go home, bathe, and change her clothes. Me... not so much. I had to just sit there with chocolate milk drying all over every part of me, including my rather sore butt, for the rest of the day.

I could go on all day with stories like that. They weren't unusual for boys in my schools, they were par for the course.

So, yeah, I think the studies coming out with boys complaining teachers ignore them in favor of girls, that teachers reward girls for what they do and don't recognize the achievements of boys, that they are much less strict on girls than they are on boys and let girls get away with far more when it comes to breaking the rules, might just have some truth to them.

That was certainly my experience all through school... and now I think people are starting to realize that it's not enough to assume the basic effort you put out for everyone constitutes special attention for one group just because you haven't been paying special attention to the others.

When the focus was on boys and striving to get them to achieve academically, they were ahead. Now that the focus has largely shifted to putting special effort into helping girls achieve (and I think the effort should definitely be made) they're pulling ahead of where they used to be, but since they're currently shifting their attention away from boys to give attention to girls in the educational system instead of realizing both sexes are going to need special attention of their own to help them through the learning process, boys are naturally falling behind.

Hopefully this time around we won't just shift attention from one to the other, but wake up and start paying attention to all our students to make sure as few of them fall behind what they can achieve as possible.

Answer 2

they are