HOW THE SCHOOL ACTIVISTS ARE DESTROYING OUR SONS

Since I started teaching several years ago, after 25 years in the movie business, I’ve come to learn firsthand that everything I’d heard about the feminization of our schools is real—and far more pernicious to boys than I had imagined. Christina Hoff Sommers was absolutely accurate in describing, in her 2000 bestseller, The War Against Boys, how feminist complaints that girls were “losing their voice” in a male-oriented classroom have prompted the educational establishment to turn the schools upside down to make them more girl-friendly, to the detriment of males.

As a result, boys have become increasingly disengaged. Only 65 percent earned high school diplomas in the class of 2003, compared with 72 percent of girls, education researcher Jay Greene recently documented. Girls now so outnumber boys on most university campuses across the country that some schools, like Kenyon College, have even begun to practice affirmative action for boys in admissions. And as in high school, girls are getting better grades and graduating at a higher rate.

As Sommers understood, it is boys’ aggressive and rationalist nature—redefined by educators as a behavioral disorder—that’s getting so many of them in trouble in the feminized schools. Their problem: they don’t want to be girls.

Take my tenth-grade student Brandon. I noted that he was on the no-pass list again, after three consecutive days in detention for being disruptive. “Who gave it to you this time?” I asked, passing him on my way out.

“No,” I corrected him. “You said”—and here I mimicked his voice—“ ‘Why do we have to do this crap anyway?’ Right?”

Brandon recalls one of those sweet, ruby-cheeked boys you often see depicted on English porcelain.

He’s smart, precocious, and—according to his special-education profile—has been “behaviorally challenged” since fifth grade. The special-ed classification is the bane of the modern boy. To teachers, it’s a yellow flag that snaps out at you the moment you open a student’s folder. More than any other factor, it has determined Brandon’s and legions of other boys’ troubled tenures as students.

Brandon’s current problem began because Ms. Waverly, his social studies teacher, failed to answer one critical question: What was the point of the lesson she was teaching? One of the first observations I made as a teacher was that boys invariably ask this question, while girls seldom do. When a teacher assigns a paper or a project, girls will obediently flip their notebooks open and jot down the due date. Teachers love them. God loves them. Girls are calm and pleasant. They succeed through cooperation.

Boys will pin you to the wall like a moth. They want a rational explanation for everything. If unconvinced by your reasons—or if you don’t bother to offer any—they slouch contemptuously in their chairs, beat their pencils, or watch the squirrels outside the window. Two days before the paper is due, girls are handing in the finished product in neat vinyl folders with colorful clip-art title pages. It isn’t until the boys notice this that the alarm sounds. “Hey, you never told us ’bout a paper! What paper?! I want to see my fucking counselor!”

A female teacher, especially if she has no male children of her own, I’ve noticed, will tend to view boys’ penchant for challenging classroom assignments as disruptive, disrespectful—rude. In my experience, notes home and parent-teacher conferences almost always concern a boy’s behavior in class, usually centering on this kind of conflict. In today’s feminized classroom, with its “cooperative learning” and “inclusiveness,” a student’s demand for assurance of a worthwhile outcome for his effort isn’t met with a reasonable explanation but is considered inimical to the educational process. Yet it’s this very trait, innate to boys and men, that helps explain male success in the hard sciences, math, and business.

The difference between the male and female predilection for hard proof shows up among the teachers, too. In my second year of teaching, I attended a required seminar on “differentiated instruction,” a teaching model that is the current rage in the fickle world of pop education theory. The method addresses the need to teach all students in a classroom where academic abilities vary greatly—where there is “heterogeneous grouping,” to use the ed-school jargon—meaning kids with IQs of 55 sit side by side with the gifted. The theory goes that the “least restrictive environment” is best for helping the intellectually challenged. The teacher’s job is to figure out how to dice up his daily lessons to address every perceived shortcoming and disability in the classroom.

After the lecture, we broke into groups of five, with instructions to work cooperatively to come up with a model lesson plan for just such a classroom situation. My group had two men and three women. The women immediately set to work; my seasoned male cohort and I reclined sullenly in our chairs.

“Are the women going to do all the work?” one of the women inquired brightly after about ten minutes.

“This is baloney,” my friend declared, yawning, as he chucked the seminar handout into a row of empty plastic juice bottles. “We wouldn’t have this problem if we grouped kids by ability, like we used to.”

The women, all dedicated teachers, understood this, too. But that wasn’t the point. Treating people as equals was a social goal well worth pursuing. And we contentious boys were just too dumb to get it.

Female approval has a powerful effect on the male psyche. Kindness, consideration, and elevated moral purpose have nothing to do with an irreducible proof, of course. Yet we male teachers squirm when women point out our moral failings—and our boy students do, too. This is the virtue that has helped women redefine the mission of education.

The notion of male ethical inferiority first arises in grammar school, where women make up the overwhelming majority of teachers. It’s here that the alphabet soup of supposed male dysfunctions begins. And make no mistake: while girls occasionally exhibit symptoms of male-related disorders in this world, females diagnosed with learning disabilities simply don’t exist.

For a generation now, many well-meaning parents, worn down by their boy’s failure to flourish in school, his poor self-esteem and unhappiness, his discipline problems, decide to accept administration recommendations to have him tested for disabilities. The pitch sounds reasonable: admission into special ed qualifies him for tutoring, modified lessons, extra time on tests (including the SAT), and other supposed benefits. It’s all a hustle, Mom and Dad privately advise their boy. Don’t worry about it. We know there’s nothing wrong with you.

To get into special ed, however, administrators must find something wrong. In my four years of teaching, I’ve never seen them fail. In the first IEP (Individualized Educational Program) meeting, the boy and his parents learn the results of disability testing. When the boy hears from three smiling adults that he does indeed have a learning disability, his young face quivers like Jell-O. For him, it was never a hustle. From then on, however, his expectations of himself—and those of his teachers—plummet.

Special ed is the great spangled elephant in the education parade. Each year, it grows larger and more lumbering, drawing more and more boys into the procession. Since the publication of Sommers’s book, it has grown tenfold. Special ed now is the single largest budget item, outside of basic operations, in most school districts across the country.

Special-ed boosters like to point to the success that boys enjoy after they begin the program. Their grades rise, and the phone calls home cease. Anxious parents feel reassured that progress is happening. In truth, I have rarely seen any real improvement in a student’s performance after he’s become a special-ed kid. On my first day of teaching, I received manila folders for all five of my special-ed students—boys all—with a score of modifications that I had to make in each day’s lesson plan.

I noticed early on that my special-ed boys often sat at their desks with their heads down or casually staring off into space, as if tracking motes in their eyes, while I proceeded with my lesson. A special-ed caseworker would arrive, take their assignments, and disappear with the boys into the resource room. The students would return the next day with completed assignments.

They assured me that they did. I became suspicious, however, when I noticed that they couldn’t perform the same work on their own, away from the resource room. A special-ed caseworker’s job is to keep her charges from failing. A failure invites scrutiny and reams of paperwork. The caseworkers do their jobs.

Brandon has been on the special-ed track since he was nine. He knows his legal rights as well as his caseworkers do. And he plays them ruthlessly. In every debate I have with him about his low performance, Brandon delicately threads his response with the very sinews that bind him. After a particularly easy midterm, I made him stay after class to explain his failure.

“You were supposed to modify that test,” he countered coolly. “I only had to answer nine of the 27 questions. The nine I did are all right.”

His argument is like a piece of fine crystal that he rolls admiringly in his hand. He demands that I appreciate the elegance of his position. I do, particularly because my own is so weak.

Yet while the process of education may be deeply absorbing to Brandon, he long ago came to dismiss the content entirely. For several decades, white Anglo-Saxon males—Brandon’s ancestors—have faced withering assault from feminism- and multiculturalism-inspired education specialists. Armed with a spiteful moral rectitude, their goal is to sever his historical reach, to defame, cover over, dilute . . . and then reconstruct.

In today’s politically correct textbooks, Nikki Giovanni and Toni Morrison stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Mark Twain, William Faulkner, and Charles Dickens, even though both women are second-raters at best. But even in their superficial aspects, the textbooks advertise publishers’ intent to pander to the prevailing PC attitudes. The books feature page after page of healthy, exuberant young girls in winning portraits. Boys (white boys in particular) will more often than not be shunted to the background in photos or be absent entirely or appear sitting in wheelchairs.

The underlying message isn’t lost on Brandon. His keen young mind reads between the lines and perceives the folly of all that he’s told to accept. Because he lacks an adult perspective, however, what he cannot grasp is the ruthlessness of the war that the education reformers have waged. Often when he provokes, it’s simple boyish tit for tat.

A week ago, I dispatched Brandon to the library with directions to choose a book for his novel assignment. He returned minutes later with his choice and a twinkling smile.

“I got a grrreat book, Mr. Garibaldi!” he said, holding up an old, bleary, clothbound item. “Can I read the first page aloud, pahlease?”

“Ah, Joseph Conrad,” he replied, consulting the frontispiece. “Can I? Huh, huh, huh?”

Brandon eagerly stood up before the now-alert class of mostly black and Puerto Rican faces, adjusted his shoulders as if straightening a prep-school blazer, then intoned solemnly: “The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ ”—twinkle, twinkle, twinkle. “Chapter one. . . .”

Boys today feel isolated and outgunned, but many, like Brandon, don’t lack pluck and courage. They often seem to have more of it than their parents, who writhe uncomfortably before a system steeled in the armor of “social conscience.” The game, parents whisper to themselves, is to play along, to maneuver, to outdistance your rival. Brandon’s struggle is an honest one: to preserve truth and his own integrity.

Boys who get a compartment on the special-ed train take the ride to its end without looking out the window. They wait for the moment when they can step out and scorn the rattletrap that took them nowhere. At the end of the line, some, like Brandon, may have forged the resiliency of survival. But that’s not what school is for.

We've always assumed him to be dyslexic, because he twists the words around so much...9K Unti for K9 Unit for example.

But it seemed miraculous how well he did after learning the Jr. Phonics Game with our son...I mean, it was really something! After just playing that little silly kids game, he had much less trouble!

And it was the Look and Say method that was mostly used when we were in grade school in the early 60s...you're right. My mother was a teacher and thought it was crap and she taught me phonics at home. I actually remember her being disdainful of it and sitting with me on the couch teaching me to read.

Your experience sheds light on the problem way better than the example used by the author. The problem seems to be a certain type of indoctrination that has been infiltrating our schools for decades. But I don't think it thwarts only boys. I think it affects all children who are basically told not to think for themselves. They are presented with a monolithic set of values and admonished if they disagree on any count. Your example of the comments made by the teacher about the military are a perfect example!! She is making a direct value judgement (and negative, too) about our proud, brave, and self-sacrificing young men and women fighting to preserve her freedom to say what she wants.

I am very concerned with this type of attitude on the part of educators from K-16 (or 18)!! But, I really do think it affects all students. I do believe that boys and girls should be encouraged to do Physical Education and recess,and that boys are probably more handicapped by the lack of this than girls when it comes to the younger ones. It makes perfect sense that they need this outlet and I, like you, would prefer that teachers make rules and enforce them without stamping their own value judgements all over them.

When asked "why", they must say something, but the last thing they should be doing is dissing our military. They could point to events such as Columbine and relate that it's hard to tell play from reality sometimes, sort of like the jokes about bombs at the airport. I don't know, just brainstorming what I would try to say if I were put in the position of enforcing something like this.

"look-and-say" "whole-word" method is the MAIN reason why Johnny can't read.

I think you're oversimplifying things. The "look and say" method has its advantages. It works for some people, and it doesn't work for others. For those it does work, it results in faster reading. In contrast, people who learn with phonics, develop a habit of sounding out words in their mind, which slows them down and is very difficult to break. I learned to read using phonics, and I had extreme difficulty when taking a speed reading class. My teacher said the vast majority who learned to read with phonics had the same problem, and few of us are ever able to catch up to "whole word" students in terms of reading speed.

I partcularly cursed the fact I was taught with phonics when I was in college; I went to a school with a "great books" program, where we had to read about a book a week. And not just any books; seriously heavy reading, like Plato's Republic and Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov. Some of my collegues who were taugh the "whole language" method finished their reading in about half the time, and had the same level of comprehension. And this was after I had taken a speed reading class!

Another problem with the phonics method is that English isn't a particularly phonetic language. The number of words whose spelling doesn't match the sound is staggering, which then makes spelling more difficult for children learn to read phonetically. In contrast, students who learn via the "look and say/whole word" method tend to memorize peculiar spellings much more quickly and easily.

The problem is that the "whole word" method doesn't work for everyone, but at one time schools implemented it as a as a one-size-fits-all method. Schools and parents should use whichever method works best for their kids.

I homeschooled the 3 younger of my 4 children. The oldest is 13 years older than the next in line. His father was my first husband.

I attest that school was a trail for him, even though a good student. I regret deeply that I didn't know about home schooling then, and, if I did, I wasn't in the position to homeschool.

To the outside observer he is a successful adult, father to five, and a devoted husband, but I see what could have been and isn't now present in the way of confidence and creativity.

There is very little in my life that I would do differently if I had the chance. My oldest son's education would have been homeschool if I could do it over.

The "look and say" method has its advantages. It works for some people, and it doesn't work for others.

The method that works for some and makes others illiterate is insanely stupid!

For those it does work, it results in faster reading.

Yes, and so is with the Chinese ideograms. This is the main limit for the cultural advancement in China. Few people can read more than a thousand of words and to master thousands you need to become a scholar. Anyway the ideograms are better suited for "look-and-say / whole-word" method as they derive from actual pictures. Making ideograms from combinations of letters is inferior.

Some people have better image memory and can read faster but those who could not are often more talented and do not deserve to be crippled.

In contrast, people who learn with phonics, develop a habit of sounding out words in their mind, which slows them down and is very difficult to break.

Well this is the difference between the true alphabet and ideograms. Once you associate letters or group of letters your can read almost EVERY word, even hundreds of thousands of words!

Same way is with musical notation - people who learned to associate notes with sounds can sing EVERY melody, not the few which they memorized by whole look.

True, English is difficult in that aspect but there rules which are less numerous and easier that even basic few hundred Chinese characters. Once you master these rules your reading skill is unlimited. And even if you do not master all rules you still will manage well.

You can notice that foreigners do not have much problems with learning to read in English. Why, it is because they were not damaged or made "dyslexic" by the "look-and-say / whole-word" method. They know that letters stand for sounds from the start.

Some of my collegues who were taugh the "whole language" method finished their reading in about half the time, and had the same level of comprehension. And this was after I had taken a speed reading class!

Well, you can learn speed without regressing to the ancient ideograms. Same is with reading musical notation.

I remember an article written by a teacher. They were recounting a potential problem child they had in their class. The child, a boy, would come up and constantly "bump" up against them. This teach finally had enough and was going to send the boy down the hall then next time. Before that happened someone told them the "bump" meant the boy wanted their attention.

After reading this I realized my two boys did the same thing. they would make small physical contact when they wanted me to focus more on them. I started responding appropiately and things were much happier.

Don't know if girls do this.

I know exactly what you mean. I'm a few years younger than your husband, and had trouble from first grade through junior high school.

In first grade I got in trouble, because I couldn't take a nap in the middle of the day. In junior high school, I got in trouble, because they'd teach a little something, then spend the rest of the class period going over and over the same material. I was bored to death, and found ways to entertain myself.

Of course all my teachers said I was a mediocre student. I got a break in high school. There was an honors program, and somebody got the idea of trying me in it. Once the material got a little more challenging, school became easy, rather than deadly boring.

Later, I got the highest SAT scores ever (to that date) in my high school, and was the first from my high school to go to CalTech. If I had been 20 years younger, they would have just drugged me up, and created another routiner.

I have been convinced for years, that many kids are on ritalin, just because they are too smart. It's easier for the teachers to dumb them down, by pushing drugs, than to deal with the fact that smart kids get bored when they are expected to keep pace with other kids.

This method that works for some and makes others illiterate is insanely stupid!

Actually, it works for the large majority. If it doesn't work for a kid, he can go learn phonics. What's wrong with tayloring the method to the individual?

For those it does work, it results in faster reading. Yes, and so is with the Chinese ideograms. This is the main limit for the cultural advancement in China. Few people can read more than a thousand of words and to master thousands you need to become a scholar. Anyway the ideograms are better suited for "look-and-say / whole-word" method as they derive from actual pictures.

The whole word learning system isn't an ideogram system. It's a kind of a hybrid between that and a phonetic system. It's about recognizing groups of letters that combine into words, rather than literally whole words, except for very simple ones.

Some people have better image memory and can read faster but those who could not are often more talented and do not deserve to be crippled.

The vast majority can learn to read this way, and in the long run it results in faster reading.

Well this is the difference between the true alphabet and ideograms. Once you associate letters or group of letters your can read almost EVERY word, even hundreds of thousands of words!

Yes, but the key is to work in groups of letters & simple root words & endings, rather than sounding out letters. The latter approach, while perhaps making it easier to learn to read quickly, in the long run creates other problems with spelling and reading speed.

This whole educational system will be our nation's undoing. I have one daughter, two sons .. all now, blessedly, well past school age. Girl did just fine. Boys got every label known to God, man, and school administrators!

After 9th grade WE got smart and home schooled the first of our sons, and two years later the second, but that's not an option available to everyone. The principal called after we pulled our first son out of her school and said he'd be welcomed back if I wanted. I laughed .. not in THIS lifetime! This is the principal who suspended that son for leaving school grounds after rescuing another kid from a group assault and fled with him across the street from the school to where they could feel safe. Upon said suspension, she told me how bad leaving school grounds was and how much safer those boys would have been staying on school grounds where there are so many adults (teachers)around. When I asked where those adults (teachers) were during the group assault she had no answer. Yeah, sure, I was about to return my son to THAT.

Many of the really smart boys we knew dropped out of school and got GED's or otherwise took alternative diplomas. But in the meanwhile, they were turned off to education and chose careers that don't require college degrees. My hope is someday they will return to get a real education with some male professors.

The truth is, with the exception of gifted classes, the schools don't really teach that much either to girls or boys. It's 90% fluff. In 10th grade their summer reading assignment report required making a "book ball" showing various aspects of the books they'd read. That's high school!

We as a nation are going to be paying for this educational failure for a long time to come.

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