Posted on 11/18/2006 4:20:51 AM PST by NewHampshireDuo
LEWISTON - School-age boys, whose classroom struggles have recently been the cause of much concern in education circles, are being hurt by an unwritten set of social rules that discourage them from showing their emotions, a Harvard psychologist told a group of teachers Friday.
William Pollack, the author of "Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood," used a mix of anecdotes and statistics to argue that stereotypical images of manhood are detrimental to boys.
"If a boy puts on a football helmet and cleats, then he's a real boy," said Pollack, co-director of the Center for Men at Harvard Medical School. "If he puts on a ballet outfit and tutu, then we say we hope he'll grow out of it."
Pollack's remarks came during a daylong conference at Bates College on how to support the academic success of boys. About 100 people attended, most of them teachers from schools around Maine.
Nationally, a conversation is under way about the academic struggles of boys, their causes and what can be done about them. In Maine, statistics show that boys consistently lag behind their female peers, scoring lower on standardized tests, graduating from high school at lower rates and earning just 38 percent of all bachelor's degrees conferred by the state's public universities.
But even among researchers convinced that those statistics underscore a serious problem, there are differing views about what is to blame. Some researchers are focusing on the biological differences between girls and boys. Some call for more competition in the classroom. Pollack, on the other hand, emphasizes the social messages that boys absorb from their parents, teachers and peers. Pollack calls these lessons the "boy code." He told teachers Friday that the code includes the following messages: Don't show weakness, be independent, and don't show any emotion unless it's anger. He also gave tips on how teachers can connect with male students. Pollack's speech struck a chord with Colleen Madden, an English teacher at Morse High School in Bath. "He's just giving some formal scientific words for what we've been observing for years," Madden said. "He's just giving it a vocabulary."
Jimmy Joe Danala, a science teacher at Mt. Abram High School in rural Franklin County, said he sees male students whose academic success is stifled by social concerns.
As a male teacher, Danala said that he may have an easier time relating to boys than some of his female colleagues, but there are still limits. "If I challenge them too far, they will shut down and they'll go back to the boy code," he said.
The conference was sponsored by Boys To Men, a Portland-based nonprofit organization that brings fathers and sons together with the aim of reinforcing positive images of masculinity.
Executive Director Layne Gregory told attendees that Boys To Men has held focus groups in which it has asked Maine boys what it means to be a man. She said the responses have consistently included the following nine adjectives: athletic, big, cool, daring, hard-drinking, strong, tough, unemotional and violent.
Obviously, Pollack is a sissy.
Ping
And Bates College is just the place to do it.
Executive Director Layne Gregory told attendees that Boys To Men has held focus groups in which it has asked Maine boys what it means to be a man. She said the responses have consistently included the following nine adjectives: athletic, big, cool, daring, hard-drinking, strong, tough, unemotional and violent.
Not a big believer in focus groups because the organizers can hear what they want to hear but some credence needs to be given to some of what the boys believe it means to be a man. Put the prescription presented is not the cure.
Yea, and one of those views is what is being taught and considered legitimate to a well rounded education.
""If he puts on a ballet outfit and tutu, then we say we hope he'll grow out of it." "
Ya' think?
breaking the boy code......fill the boys with enough ritalin to stop an elephant!!!!!
boys are not girls and only when they make them gay ...will they become girls!!!!!
breaking the boy code......fill the boys with enough ritalin to stop an elephant!!!!!
boys are not girls and only when they make them gay ...will they become girls!!!!!
No, he was neutered by falling astride the bar of his bicycle as a kid, and now wants to castrate all the little boys so they can be little eunuchs, like like "him".
The he will feel better.
THIS will fix the bullies who used to throw his bowtie in the urinal.
No charge for that analysis.
The real problem is an educational system that doesn't want boys to be boys, won't teach to masculine learning styles, and puts boys and girls together with not enough adult positive role models in huge schools. Touchy-feely learning is not a positive for most young men's learning styles.
Some people, threatened by male behaviors really want to shape the men of America into the metrosexual mode.
Personally, I am in favor of sex-segregated schools, where boys could be freer to be boys and learn without having all the interference of the feminist agenda. Not a popularly accepted pov in this day and age.
Before you neanderthals go ripping Dr. Pollack, I happen to know him personally, and he's raising a wonderful, well adjusted son... with the help of his loving husband.
Owl_Eagle
If what I just wrote made you sad or angry,
it was probably just a joke.
Bingo. The feminists think they have crushed patriarchy. Now their wisdom dictates turning the raw material of men in women. Too bad they don't study what effects matriarchy (single parent household with a female head) too often has on young males...
I have been a substitue teacher for many years, for every age group, in many different schools. Boys are stereotyped, especially by the female teachers. Oh, if those boys could only be more like the girls.
Therein lies a great deal of the problem. Every effort has been made to accomplish that very goal and it has been going on for over 30 years. While at the same time there has been a massive effort to make girls more like men (though it has had the nasty "side effect" of producing macho-girls, who curse, bully, wise-off, and fight just like those darn boys).
How much effort has there been to push boys towards a college and professional career? How many slots have been ear-marked for boys? How many teachers, consicously or unconsciously, give preferential treatment to the girls, while shunning and even belittling the boys for their "boyish" behavior.
Teachers of old did not try to emasculate the boys. They produced men of character, not metro-sexuals.
I think Mr. Pollack would fall into the latter category. He is kind of like the carpenter, who upon learning he has cut the board too short, keeps on cutting it until he (or she) gets it right.
""If a boy puts on a football helmet and cleats, then he's a real boy," said Pollack, co-director of the Center for Men at Harvard Medical School. "If he puts on a ballet outfit and tutu, then we say we hope he'll grow out of it.""
We hope.
I think the best way to put this in persepctive.
You had Ronald Reagan. Then you had his son.
The attempted feminization of boys in the schools IS the problem along with promiscuous drugging of boys who do not feminize sufficiently. This is explaining that boys are doing worse and worse because they are not being feminized successfully so the feminization process must be aimed at the basic makeup of the boy and be more rigorous and thorough. Surely a new class of drugs can be produced that will make plaid eunuchs of our boys. I think that a pretty good case could be made that those who keep their children in public school, particularly when those children are boys, are prima facie child abusers.
as the rock group the kinks wrote....
"Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world"
A while back, the WSJ had an article about the latest, "New Math" being taught in grade schools. Of course students do worse in math here in the US than most other countries, and their performance has been dropping for years. But this latest discovery type math requires a lot of writing, a lot of paragraphs about how did you solve this problem, why did you get the answer you did, etc. My 2nd grade son even had to write an essay explaining how he knew that a certain set of numbers added up to a third number. It is stupid. According to WSJ, a lot of parents have been complaining that their students do more writing than math problems, which is true for my son. He would do much better if he were just allowed to solve problems, and not explain in detail why. He already is learning writing in another lesson. I do think this is feminizing the teaching of math, so that boys do poorer in a subject that they once excelled. Girls will get better grades because they can express themselves better. Also, the teacher doesn't seem to take off for wrong answers in the few math problems he is allowed to solve.
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