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Un-Boying Boys…It’s Not Just a Gender Issue
Wouldn't most boys prefer to be outside playing than sitting in a desk inside a classroom?
A post over at Parenting.com titled “Why Are We Un-Boy-Ing Our Boys?” discussed a typical scenario found in schools all over: A fidgety boy is disinterested in the classroom instruction, and couldn’t care less about the current Phonics lesson. He is soon referred to a specialist who says he may be slightly delayed … or he might simply not be interested.
The author goes on to say:
I do not have a Ph.D. nor one of those satiny Technicolor sashes around my neck, but I know this much: he is not interested. I understand the teacher has a job to do, but the boy turned five in July. He cares about marshmallows and the Fresh Beat Band. He cares about chocolate and Halloween. He doesn’t care about vowel sounds.
She then point out how many girls of the same age will sit down in a desk and follow directions, but asking young boys to do the same is trying to un-boy them.
I agree ….but I disagree, too.
Boys are different, plain and simple and most of them are more aggressive, more hands-on, and more wild than most girls. Like my fellow Strollerderby colleague, Amy Windsor points out in her piece The Recession Of Manhood “I don’t and can’t understand how their little-boy brains work — what seems harsh to me is often exactly what they need to get the message loud and clear.” It’s true, by nature boys act and react differently, find things particular things interesting or boring, and think about the world in a way that is wholly incomparable to how most girls think. I see this with my own son. Although he is a good student, there are so many things about school he finds utterly monotonous and he does his best to sit through them while stifling his pure boy energy. Expecting every preschool boy in any given class to actually want to sit down in a desk and learn grammar lessons might be a tad unrealistic.
Yet to take the debate a step further beyond mere gender differences, I say we need to look at children in general. After all, the same behavior might also be said for a girl. In general, girls might tend to be quieter and better behaved than boys, but it’s certainly not a steadfast rule. I have known many girls who were just as fidgety, just as disinterested, and just as hyperactive.
I understand where the desire to start our children off on the right foot and ahead of the competition comes from. I get it. I live in New York City where if you’re pregnant, you better be holding headphones up to your belly with Mozart turned all the way up because the second that baby is born, he or she needs to be ready for that entrance exam at a good preschool, lest his/her chances at an Ivy League prove nonexistent.
OK, an exaggeration, yes, but not by a whole lot. By age 5, most kids have already been in school for two or three years. The pressure grows with each passing day: standardized tests, near perfect grades so they can make a decent middle school, thinking about college starting on day one of freshman year of high school. And every year, more of our kids are diagnosed with some learning disability, put on anxiety medication, and committing suicide.
Just when can kids actually be kids? I often wonder what exactly we are doing in trying to create the ideal academically gifted, athletically inclined child. We can’t create a perfect child out of sheer will or practice. And every kid should be seen as perfect in themselves, just as they are regardless of academics or athletic performance.
Here’s the honest truth: Not every child likes school or excels at it. Some children who are fabulously intelligent are also wholeheartedly bored by routine, drone-like rhetoric and repetition. Some of these children have a curious mind that will take them to wonderful, innovative careers that will change the world in ways many Ivy League students could only imagine. Some kids will work with their hands, become artists, construction workers, chefs, actors, garbage men, etc…. and have very full lives in which they are loved and make a difference in the world.
So I get it that we are under fierce competition in our global economy where the Chinese are kicking our butts, but in many cases, both boys and girls need to just be kids, get dirty, play, think, imagine, be silly, get in trouble, and yes, along the way learn grammar and math and all those subjects.
Do they need to do it all by age 5? I highly doubt it.
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27 Comments
Bunnytwenty commented on Oct 11 11 at 9:39 am“Expecting every preschool boy in any given class to actually want to sit down in a desk and learn grammar lessons might be a tad unrealistic.”
Expecting the same of girls is also unrealistic. Why are we only talking about how girls somehow handle all this crap better than boys, rather than that it’s an unsuitable situation for any child? (Speaking as a female who was terribly bored all through elementary school and was known for hurting myself falling out of my chair because I couldn’t sit still…)
Diera commented on Oct 11 11 at 9:52 amI have to admit that when I read these articles I get a shiver down my spine, because I picture myself as a kid sentenced to do endless worksheets because I was a girl and ‘good’ at them while the boys got to go do active things. I was constantly in trouble in my elementary school years because I found phonics (and most of the rest of school for that matter) unbearably boring. I was probably easier for the teacher to ignore than a high-energy distracted boy because I mostly sat at my desk staring into space, or reading an interesting book if I could get my hands on one, but I rarely did the work I was supposed to do, adults were always scolding me, and it was miserable. My son, who is nine, loathes school as much as I did then, but he’s actually doing a lot better than I did because he’s pretty competitive (a stereotypical boy trait) so if he’s forced to be there, he wants to do better than everyone else. It’s not as simple as boy vs. girl.
michelle commented on Oct 11 11 at 10:19 amI agree with those who said it’s not as simple as boy vs girl. I will take that a step further and say the reason schools are increasingly not serving our children well (boys OR girls) is because:
1) Our education system is increasingly oriented more around classroom order and standardized testing than around actual learning.
2) On average, our teachers are (sorry) not very good.
So maybe girls are socialized to “behave” better, but how well are they being educated when they’re basically just rewarded for following directions and performing like trained monkeys? The impact on boys may be more visible, but neither gender is well served. For these reasons, we stretched our budget to the absolute limit so we could send our kids to private school. The children do not sit at desks all day, they have PE and recess every day, and there is no homework till 3rd grade, but the intellectual and academic expectations and level of instruction are extremely high, and the teachers are stellar (and BTW, they are unionized — but their contract allows for them to be fired immediately if they don’t perform to expectations). I notice that in this environment, my son and all the other boys are thriving, despite (or perhaps because of) the demanding curriculum.
Linda, t.o.o. commented on Oct 11 11 at 12:29 pm“Here’s the honest truth: Not every child likes school or excels at it. Some children who are fabulously intelligent are also wholeheartedly bored by routine, drone-like rhetoric and repetition.” Exactly, which is why I don’t understand why that is the sort of school program that parents tend to seek out. My kids go to the local (public) alternative school which focuses and experiential learning and my sons and my daughter have loved it. Parents are the consumers for education. If we stopped falling in to the trap of thinking that schools are “good” based solely on standardized test scores and the image of rows of desks with children silently working away, we might be more likely to get hands on education that works for our boys AND our girls.
mama b commented on Oct 11 11 at 1:25 pmI have a daughter and a son, and you know what-it’s my daughter who is the one who can’t sit still, the one who my grandmother said needed ADD meds. She is pure energy and a verbal dynamo. She was speaking in full sentences at 18 months and also couldn’t control her urges to scream in the grocery store. This whole girl, boy, gender role thing gets a bit annoying-trust me, it’s my son who is the mellow, sit down and play by himself child. I am afraid that my daughter may get bored in school, I sure did-school is often boring. I get flack because she doesn’t go to preschool except for 1 day a week, but she has her whole life to be stuck in the monotony. I get really tired of the boys are like this, girls are like this-because my kids really don’t fit into those so-called gender roles. It comes down to personality more than gender, IMO.
Linda, t.o.o. commented on Oct 11 11 at 2:21 pm“I get really tired of the boys are like this, girls are like this-because my kids really don’t fit into those so-called gender roles. It comes down to personality more than gender, IMO.” It’s similar in our family our daughter (the firstborn) had way more trouble with sitting still & impulse control, than my boys. A lot of these conversations are based entirely on stereotypes, to the point that on the other thread, I was hesitant to say that I don’t have any idea what the author is talking about. If you cop to your boys being responsible, well-behaved citizens, they’re almost portrayed as not masculine enough. It’s like people are actually glorifying what, to me, is really undesirable behavior because “boys will be boys.”
Bunnytwenty commented on Oct 11 11 at 3:27 pmAgreed, Linda and Mama B. At what point are the “exceptions to the rule” (mellow boys, wild girls) just going to be acknowledged as normal kids? Why all this insistence that gender is destiny when there’s so much evidence that it isn’t? And that insistence hurts kids that don’t conform – and also hurts kids who mostly conform, too, since they have to restrain their natural impulses and personality in order to appear “normal.”
If your boys and girls fit the stereotype – cool! there’s nothing wrong with that. Just don’t insist that all kids are like them. They’re not, and you’re hurting other kids when you ignore the fact that kids have all kinds of personalities, and they’re all ok.
Andrea commented on Oct 11 11 at 4:26 pmBecause gender traits are are on a bell curve. Most children cluster around the middle – neither aggressive nor laid-back, but the tail ends of the distribution are overwhelmingly boys. And as soon as you head down the slope in either direction, you find more boys on the aggressive end of the curve, and more girls on the compliant and obedient end. But the extremes of both tails are mostly boys. Susan Pinker has an excellent book on this very subject called The Sexual Paradox.
I let my son go to kindergarten for a few weeks to see how he liked it, and one day, while I was in the classroom, three little girls were holding hands, skipping around the room, while another little girl sat on the side watching them, looking crestfallen. My son started to wrestle with another little guy – they were both having a ball, laughing and tumbling around, and the teacher literally screamed at them “NO CONTACT!”. It was beyond ridiculous. It’s okay for girls to have contact (holding hands), but not okay for boys to have contact (wrestling)? WTF?
I will never allow a bunch of liberal feminists who control education of children to beat the boyness out of my son. And I will never allow my daughters to think that their ways of being and doing are automatically better than boys. My little guy is doing just fine with reading and phonics at home, because we run around screaming vowel sounds at the top of our lungs and we throw tennis balls labelled with the alphabet into a clothes hamper and we read comic books and spell out the names of Transformers. In other words, we do it the boy way, and he’s not only interested, he’s a full year ahead of other boys his age.
Schools are badly shortchanging boys, and shortchanging girls in the process, because these are the boys who will grow up to be men who support a wife and children at home, if they can afford to. Gee, I wonder if that wasn’t the point? Destroy men’s ability to acquire credentials and get decent employment so women have no choice but to work and raise their children in institutional care. What a social disaster. Schools have a lot to answer for.
Little Frogs commented on Oct 11 11 at 5:44 pmAndrea,
The structure of school is far less restrictive than it was 60 or 100 years ago. Boys somehow managed to do fine then.
I think the problem is that the data about boys struggling tends to hide WHO amongst the boys are struggling. Lower income, minority boys tend to struggle MUCH more than middle class boys or even lower income, minority girls. I think part of that is because so many lower income (especially minority) girls see their mothers having to make it on their own; they know they have to go to school. But so many lower income, minority boys see the men in their lives without responsibility and know they don’t have to.
Seriously, boys are outperforming girls still in so many areas. It is ridiculous to start blathering about the demanning of men.
Linda, t.o.o. commented on Oct 11 11 at 7:39 pmMore racist sterotypes. What a shock. :/
Andrea commented on Oct 12 11 at 8:43 am@Little Frogs – boys are outperforming girls in science and engineering and that’s about it. And we have no low income or minority students in our neighborhood at all – the boys still struggle. My neighbor was over here just last night talking about this very issue. She can’t get her third grade son interested in reading at all and the school wants to put him in all kinds of remedial programs which will just make him hate it even more. But he is a whiz with anything mechanical – he can build anything from legos and uses graph paper to sketch out his designs before he builds them, extremely articulate, just a great kid. It kills me to watch teachers tell him he’s stupid and behind and something broken that needs fixing. The best thing she could do would be to pull him out of school altogether. Before they destroy the poor kid.
Little Frogs commented on Oct 12 11 at 11:06 amLinda TOO,
Call it a racist stereotype because you don’t like it but my assertions are all based on real data.
Little Frogs commented on Oct 12 11 at 11:10 amAndrea,
What a foolish idea! My kid’s not reading well and needs help so I better pull him from school so he won’t get it? If a teacher is telling him he is stupid, that teacher needs to be disciplined but somehow I am guessing those are your words.
If he is struggling with reading, he probably knows it and tries to avoid it because it is hard for him. He should get the support, get on grade level and his confidence will return.
Linda, t.o.o. commented on Oct 12 11 at 11:46 am“Call it a racist stereotype because you don’t like it but my assertions are all based on real data.” Right. Please provide the data that shows that “so many lower income, minority boys see the men in their lives without responsibility and know they don’t have to.”
Little Frogs commented on Oct 12 11 at 1:05 pmHere are some articles on this:
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2005-10-18-voa55-67369247.html
Linda, t.o.o. commented on Oct 12 11 at 1:28 pm“What a foolish idea! My kid’s not reading well and needs help so I better pull him from school so he won’t get it?” What’s your problem with homeschooling, anyway? I know you don’t care for Andrea, but when your speak so disdainfully about ALL homeschoolers, you’re painting with a pretty broad brush.
Little frogs commented on Oct 12 11 at 2:51 pmWow, Linda. Who said anything about homeschoolers? I’m saying it is an irrational response to remove a child from school just because the school thinks the kid needs extra help (like reading intervention or maybe special ed services) since he is not reading on grade level and they want to help him. To believe that it will ruin a child to help him get on grade level. Here’s Andrea’s quote: “The best thing she could do would be to pull him out of school altogether. Before they destroy the poor kid.”
Linda, t.o.o. commented on Oct 12 11 at 5:12 pm“Wow, Linda. Who said anything about homeschoolers?” ??? Are you saying you haven’t made multiple negative comments about homeschooling on various Strollerderby threads?
Little frogs commented on Oct 12 11 at 5:42 pmyeah, Linda. I am.
Linda, t.o.o. commented on Oct 12 11 at 7:51 pmOkay, I’m not willing to search, so I apologize. Someone makes some snipe about homeschoolers every time Andrea posts something.
Little frogs commented on Oct 12 11 at 8:20 pmLinda,
Every group has its nuts.
Linda, t.o.o. commented on Oct 12 11 at 10:47 pmYes. I’ll look at the articles you posted later and comment. I don’t have time right now, but thanks.
KD commented on Oct 16 11 at 4:44 pmI have a stereotypical boy….except she is a girl! From Kindergarten on (she is in 4th grade) we have struggled with her sitting still, doing her homework, reading what the teacher assigns etc. At home she reads books she enjoys at a much higher reading level than what she tested into, plays with Legos all day long, draws beautifully, and takes hip hop dance classes, at school we have heard the words “holy terror” repeatedly. Unfortunately we have been unable to homeschool as of yet and our private school options are limited in our small town, so we work with the school as best we can. Now our youngest daughter has obvious learning disabilities and we do have her in several special classes to help her succeed, but she also understands the need and wants to catch up with her peers. She is also very much the stereotypical girl, helpful, polite, sweet even when at school and the teachers love her. The funny thing is? She is also very impressionable and truthfully I wish she had some of her sister’s spunkiness.
Joan commented on Nov 11 11 at 2:27 pmEveryone always likes to point out the exceptions — the really hyper girl, the really mellow boy — in an effort to prove stereotypes aren’t true, but when you look at an entire classroom of kids, I hate to say it but the stereotypes GENERALLY hold true. I volunteered in my son’s first grade classroom the other day, and it was ridiculous how different the boys and girls were in general. With the exception of just one super-active girl, all the other girls sat nicely, participated in the conversation, and just didn’t squirm and squiggle at all. The boys, on the other hand, just couldn’t take it…they were wiggling, squirming, blurting things out and touching their classmates (again, there were maybe two or three boys who sat relatively still, but I must say the gender divide was just so clear in that classroom, it blew my mind!)
Amber commented on Nov 13 11 at 11:33 pmI think the point of an advanced curriculum is to keep up in the global community. We need great physicists and cosmologists and geologists and rocket scientists along with an array of other professions to keep up with all that is going on in the world. We need great minds to work together to solve all the problems we are facing. (pollution, famine, etc…)
This shouldn’t be a gender issue.
David Gatti commented on Nov 14 11 at 1:02 amA good start would surely be to have more male teachers.
jennifer commented on Nov 22 11 at 3:13 amI am endlessly thankful to my mom for homeschooling me!! She was able to teach me and my 3 sisters, whenever we wanted to be taught at home she would, when we wanted to enter public school some years, we did. I know its not possible for everyone to do this, but it was pretty amazing because she knew how each of us needed to be taught in order to do our best. I hope to do the same for my son. I just don’t see how one teacher can effectively teach a class of 30 kids who are all so different. It doesn’t seem fair to the teacher OR to the kids.
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