Why do so many boys slack off in class?
I love watching the Olympics. Summer and Winter. I get inspired. Witnessing incredible athletes rise to the occasion and push the limits of what human beings are capable of doing makes me want to work harder and do better in every aspect of my life. Better father. Better husband. Better writer. Better teacher.
One thing I’ve been struck by in this year’s Olympics is that the United States seems to be sharing success in relatively equal fashion among males and females. A tremendous performance by Lindsey Vonn in the downhill is matched by an equally impressive Shani Davis on the speedskating long track. Hannah Kearney tears it up on the moguls. Shaun White does the same on the half-pipe.
Unfortunately, this phenomenon of both sexes sharing equal success doesn’t mirror what’s been happening in my classroom. And, at least if college attendance rates are an accurate reflection of high school achievement, in most other classrooms either. According to a recent article in The New York Times headlined The New Math on Campus, women have represented 57 percent of enrollments at American colleges since at least the year 2000, and the percentage in many schools is now trending higher. At the University of North Carolina, one of the top public universities in the country, females now account for 60 percent of the students. At some private schools like the College of Charleston in South Carolina, two-thirds of the students are women.
I can’t say for sure what accounts for this disparity, but trends at the high school level appear to be pointing toward even greater imbalance in the future. Boys are failing to graduate high school at significantly higher percentages than girls, with recent national studies determining that a full one-third of them don’t make it across the stage. More boys than girls are failing reading and writing proficiency tests as well. What’s going on?
Some people theorize that because we’ve spent much of the past 30 years trying to raise the achievement of girls, we’ve neglected boys. Others point to the notion that girls are hard-wired to do better on word-oriented tasks and that because we’ve been placing more emphasis on reading and writing over the past few decades - even in math and science where word-based problems have grown more frequent - the system has become skewed toward offering girls advantages.
What I see in my classes is that most girls simply work harder.
I don’t have any empirical data to support this claim, but I know what I see. More boys exhibit sporadic attendance and/or shuffle into class after the bell. More boys show up unprepared or appear to have put minimal effort into their assignments. More girls participate in class discussions. More girls take more risks in their writing and push themselves into emotionally vulnerable areas.
Granted, yes, in creative writing, being willing to display vulnerability is a major factor in growth, and it’s rare for high school males to want to go there. I understand that and I try to bring in work by many male writers (including, hopefully some of my own) that demonstrates that emotional vulnerability and masculinity can co-exist. I’m not asking boys to lay down their hockey sticks and write about flowers. We look at poems and stories that talk about street fights and weight-lifting and what it feels like to own a car for the first time. We read pieces about fast breaks in basketball games and the most meaningful way to wear hooded sweatshirts. If anything, the content of what I have us explore is too testosterone-laced.
Yet, year after year, it’s the female writers who push themselves harder in my classes and outshine the males. The results of the Ann Arbor Youth Poetry Slam typically reflect those efforts. In 2005, all six of the writers who made the team representing us at The National Youth Poetry Slam were girls. We’ve never had more than three out of the six team members be boys (2003, 2008) and usually we only have one or two. Last year, it was one.
I certainly don’t want to begrudge females their successes. I love watching any young writer grow. I’m moved by any kid willing to take a risk and stretch past his or her comfort zone. I don’t mean to say that every boy lacks courage either. In the past week, I’ve seen a number of boys put themselves out there with some risky work, one in particular who wrote a stunningly raw piece about making a Valentine’s Day card for a girl he was too shy to hand it to directly, only to see - after he’d surreptitiously dropped it off in her mailbox - another boy take credit for its creation.
Still, my general sense is that girls work a lot harder than boys at their studies, that they care more - or at least are willing to allow their peers to see that they care more - about their intellectual growth. I understand the not-wanting-to-look-like-you-care attitude. I lived it in high school and most of college. I rarely carried books around with me and almost never took notes. Sometimes I put my head down on the desk and slept. But I did care. I didn’t let my friends on the baseball and wrestling teams see me doing my homework, but I did that homework. I pulled all-nighters and I lived to ace a test or hand in an essay and have the teacher say to herself, wow, that kid who didn’t seem to be paying attention actually was doing some serious thinking.
I don’t advocate that style of learning, by the way. I made things harder on myself than they needed to be and sometimes - especially in college - my affectations backfired. But I do understand the temptation to seem like you don’t care, the seductiveness of the nonchalant I’m-too-cool-for-this-nerdy-stuff pose. I understand the attraction of wanting to be the next Ferris Bueller or Jeff Spicoli, the next happy-go-lucky slacker from Growing Pains or Saved by the Bell. The next John Belushi or James Dean.
But maybe what I love most about the Olympics is that nobody pretends. It seems like every athlete with a medal around his or her neck, even the gnarly snowboarders, says something to the effect of, I’m just happy because I’ve worked so hard to get to this moment.
I just want the boys in my classes to step it up. I want to witness them working hard. I want to see what happens when they try.
** NOTE - Beginning next week, I will be cutting back on blog postings from twice to once a week. We are entering crazy time in the youth poetry slam season, and I need to save some time and energy for my wife and kids. Look for new postings on Thursday mornings.**
Jeff Kass teaches creative writing at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor and at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, and directs the literary arts programs at the Neutral Zone, including the VOLUME Youth Poetry Project, which meets every Thursday night at 7 p.m. He will post new blog entries every Thursday morning throughout the school year.
Comments
eCoaster
Tue, Feb 23, 2010 : 11:05 a.m.
Based on my own anecdotal evidence (raising 2 sons and as a longtime tutor), I find that boys respond better when the expectations are clear. They like goal-setting. Boys seem to think in concrete terms, even when approaching more creative work, like poetry or fiction writing. This is not a pitch for standardized tests, a uniform curriculum or the like. Also, I am in no way suggesting that boys are more "rational" than girls. However, I think a majority of boys - especially those without role models or stability at home - would be more motivated to finish school if the expectations and, ultimately, the benefits of graduation were made concrete for them in a real-world way. This is a message that needs to come from teachers who are willing to try to understand how boys think.
Scott Beal
Tue, Feb 23, 2010 : 9:37 a.m.
DagnyJ, I think your statistics support, rather than refute, the point of Jeff's article. If there's no statistically significant difference in ability between boys and girls, but boys' classroom performance and graduation rates lag behind, then what else explains it besides effort?
bunnyabbot
Fri, Feb 19, 2010 : 11:27 p.m.
1. may be lack of male role models as someone said. 2. may also be girls try harder. 3. hormones I think there is something different going on. For the last 30 years you say perhaps it is because there was a greater push to make girls equal that boys were somehow neglected. I think that maybe this was another fallout from the "womens liberation movement" (now, as a woman spare me the panties in a wad). Prior to the movement genders had roles (since the dawning of mankind) men were the providers and women the nurturers. Boys saw their fathers providing, the head of households, the one with a career and their moms as the caregivers. Boys growing up today see plenty of women with careers, their moms as well. But there inner being is on an evolutionary existence that is in contrast with this. Girls on the other had are doing better at school b/c they by nature are pleasers and want to do well for others to praise them, having someone disappointed in them is too upsetting, this doesn't really contrast with their evolutionary being, they try harder to get the praise (as well as an education). while I love for everyone to want to gain knowledge maybe boys don't see a point b/c they won't "have to" provide for someone other than themselves (or at least on a subconscious level they may be thinking this). Think back, thirty, forty, fifty years ago boys would apprentice with someone to learn a trade. Everyone had a similar path, get a job, marry the girl you love and have children. The push on higher education has been getting degrees. Now there are tons of people with degrees that don't earn as much as many men who know a trade...plenty of mechanics, plumbers and heating and cooling guys make $70G or more! Now people are waiting longer to get married. Gender roles are less defined. Mayhaps more boys feel they don't know where they fit in the grand scheme of life. for the record as a liberated woman I can say that I like the "oldfashion" way better.
Aimee Le
Fri, Feb 19, 2010 : 7:24 p.m.
@Kelly, Speaking as someone who has identified as both female and male, gender-segregated classrooms could make queer students' lives living hell. (And could enhance latent sexism--for more on that, read the proposed curricula in the NYT magazine article published sometime last year, in which girls learned about scientific properties of liquids through doing the dishes, while boys read about hunting and fishing.) I agree that students need more male teachers K-12, so their role models can be more evenly balanced by gender. For the same reason, I think that we desperately need more women professors in higher education. But it's pretty obvious why sex ratios have turned out this way: K-12 is "not intellectual"; it's "nurturing"; it's lower-paying, higher stress, disciplinarian. College & graduate education is "challenging"; "complex"; "higher" education. Which one do you think attracts more males? To Kass: Have you ever thought that too many testosterone-irific prompts might actually *intimidate* the guys? In my experience, it often feels exciting and cool to connect with a role model of the opposite sex. Authors too similar to myself sometimes make me trip out, like "what do I have to say that's different from this?" Sometimes men know that they're expected to do better than women (e.g., because most professional, successful poets, page or stage, are men), and if the bar is set too high, they choke.
uawisok
Thu, Feb 18, 2010 : 4:23 p.m.
Hmmm...maybe it's simply biological...at this age being under the influence of testosterone can be overwhelming at times....oh those where the days.. :)
DagnyJ
Thu, Feb 18, 2010 : 2:03 p.m.
Jeff, your article is based almost entirely on your own limited view of the world, and probably fueled by some weird perspective. Let's look at the statewide average MME test scores, 11th grade, for boys and girls Math Boys: 1095.5 Girls: 1093.5 English Boys: 1093.8 Girls: 1103.3 Science Boys: 1100.3 Girls: 1097.8 Writing Boys: 1084.4 Girls: 1096.7 Social Studies Boys: 1130.0 Girls: 1123.1 This doesn't exactly look like boys are failing at tests in relation to girls. The data is available at: http://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,1607,7-140-22709_35150---,00.html What is apparent is the achievement gap between whites and minorities, and affluent versus impoverished students. I do agree that there seems to be a gap in HS graduation, however.
tdw
Thu, Feb 18, 2010 : 1:52 p.m.
Geez....Why do so many boys slack off in class? simple...they're boys
cgerben
Thu, Feb 18, 2010 : 12:46 p.m.
While I can sympathize with this author, I think this article is reckless in its anecdotal generalizations. Making a statement--even qualified by the fact that the author has no empirical evidence--that "most girls simply work harder" seems like the kind of conversation an instructor should have at dinner, or over drinks, but not in published form. To make a correlation between college admittance rates or high school graduate rates and how hard an entire gender "works" at a subject oversimplifies what is (potentially) a very complex situation. I've been an instructor for over seven years, and I've yet to be able to make sweeping generalizations based on things like gender or subject matter. To do so, especially in print, seems to me a dangerous move to see any future situations only in a light previously cast. There could be many reasons why the boys in this author's class don't respond to his teaching the way he thinks they should. Chief among them could be that perhaps the boys in this author's class simply don't relate to his teaching as the girls do, or that the author has come to expect more from girls based on his previous views.
lou81
Thu, Feb 18, 2010 : 12:23 p.m.
Jeff, i got one of those.......was an all A student until this Junior year and just stopped trying. I wish you knew the answer!!
ann_arbor_guy
Thu, Feb 18, 2010 : 11:42 a.m.
I believe peer pressure has a lot to do with the lack of participation and academic achievement in our young men of today. It is socially unacceptable in today's culture to be a smart intelligent man. In several youth oriented movies and on the web, all aspects of being smart/intelligent or pursuing science and math are ridiculed. They are all portrayed as dorks or losers or gay. Just look at how many movies where the lead guy is an overweight idiot that gets the girl and is the hero of the movie. I feel that the male intellect has been under siege for the last decade or so with no end in sight.
Chris Blackstone
Thu, Feb 18, 2010 : 10:33 a.m.
I might suggest it's a lack of true male role models in the lives of these students. True masculinity is strong, yet vulnerable, intelligent, yet wise, nurturing, yet challenging. It's hard for young men to emulate what they have never seen and experienced.
mgnfcntb
Thu, Feb 18, 2010 : 9:50 a.m.
I feel your frustration and would like to offer some possible answers. We can only see from our own unique perspective fueled by our experiences and the choices which created them. " Lies my teacher told me" goes into great detail of the feeling being force fed propaganda and the apathy that logically would accompany. My personal experience was one of ambivalence in one's desire for truth which took years to fully manifest. What could be occurring is they simply don't know what to believe so investing their mental time and energy into study seems moot so they save it for later, much later. Your point regarding sport and their interest being clear support this point as the goals are clear, their energies go toward a transparent goal, social bonds are made thru shared work as well the they get to test themselves on a equal footing without any mysteries. We males tend to like things black and white as you know. Another excellent read is "Shop class as soulcraft" which again goes into great detail about the dismantling of skilled trades in this country and replacing it with cubicles and computers. I highly recommend this read. Males often like things clear cut without politics and minutia, their labors given life, most often visibly, we are more visual. Please understand I have the highest regard for your profession and wish not to sound preachy or offer more work to what must be an exhausting schedule, but you did ask.