Grades and test scores don’t impress the girls. In fact, grades and test scores are in direct competition with girls. Add to that boys’ average lower conscientiousness. It’s quite demotivating.
From the era where all we could watch was Gunsmoke and High Noon... (however did they ever get a next generation, with no Women?)... to now is a looooong time to know you have something to offer. Perhaps it is just too soon to feel like the Oppressor--
I thought I was uniquely stupid when I was in school. I struggled intensely and failed most of my classes. Reading your work has brought home two revelations: first, that I’m not alone, and second, that boys are academically in crisis.
This seems pretty consistent with the longstanding psychology research that finds more variance in male IQ than female (more very smart and very dumb men whereas women cluster a bit more around the mean) as well as greater conscientiousness, especially as teenagers, among girls than boys. Since conscientiousness has as much to do with grades as intelligence.
In the late 1980s they switched from 100% test evaluation to 20% grading up to teacher discretion.
This resulted in a bunch of soft quizzes and a lot of time dependant projects.
I speak up because I was born in 1991, so I lived through this changed, while I was in school. I am what you would call undereducated. I know own where I stand on the cognitive scale, there are tests for that. I didn't pursue higher education for reasons similar to those listed in your article.
What education transform into after this change was a effort contest. You could only get 75% on midterm and final, but if you worked like a dog on your projects you could.still get 80% in the course.
The inverse of that is, if you knew you'd ace the final and midterm, you didn't really have to do any work at all. You would get 80% too. That was my experience.
The results of that are group think and mass compliance in our academics.
We don't like to tell people they are stupid, as a society. Unfortunately, that's what the education system has to do. You need to weed out people who can't think so you're left with people who can.
When confronted as a nation with a problem like covid or ww3, you want to know who can think. That's important.
The ugly part about that is: knowing who can think is the exact same thing as knowing who can't.
The father role model is the biggest missing piece in most discussions.
It's the top 5% of men who dominate the top positions. So men can equally be oppressed in our culture and often are. I get there are a lot of alpha males out there not helping, but most of the men I know are great fathers and working overtime to provide.
Research shows that boys who live with single dads do about the same as boys who live with both parents. Boys who live with single moms do much worse than both of the other situations. Does NOT mean all women do bad raising boys, but the lack of a father model hurts boys seriously.
This leads to poor performance at school and not knowing a man's role is providing for a family. Single mom boys may see the dad paying but not connected and say that is not the life for me. Do you blame them?
I know single men who do not have families so they work just enough to provide well for themselves and that is about it. They hear the word commitment and understand it means to them "sacrifice" and say no thank you... not for what they get in return.
Interesting to note the difference in GPA is much larger than the difference in SAT scores. Maybe more low GPA boys opt out of testing.
Girls do get more focus today. Teachers still have bias that hurts boys - even male teachers.
Never mentioned or studied enough. More boys lack a male role model in their life... girls almost always have many. It has a huge effect in my opinion. Courts need to give custody of boys over 10 to their dads unless there is a good reason not to.
Really? No role models? What's the bias that hurts boys? Everywhere you look men are in leadership positions in numbers that far exceed those of women--granted, they are not men of color except in the sports world and there not often in leadership roles, not many owners, not many coaches. Default they should get custody because . . . what would be a good reason not to give custody? Neglect? Abuse?
Evidence suggests that whenever women begin to be represented in historically male professions, that men leave the profession. Women couldn't even get a bank loan or have their own account until the mid 1970's, but somehow the lack of academic performance by men is their fault? These numbers reflect that we have a profoundly anti-intellectual society and culture. Academic performance for boys is not emphasized; women realize if they don't have credentials, they aren't going anywhere. Boys don't need credentials--none of that dumb book larnin' for me. I don't like school. I'm good with my hands. I'm going to learn to actually do something. I don't want to be an egghead. The worst thing you can call a boy is a girl, so it makes sense if you're in a girl's profession, say nursing, that as a boy you wouldn't want to be associated with that for fear of being labeled a girl or worse a faggot. Look at the recent stuff out of the military, where it's not women that are lowering military standards, it's men who cannot measure up to those standards. Recruitment of women staying steady, recruitment of men falling because the candidate cannot meet the basic requirements. Too dumb to even be cannon fodder. Thank God we've got drones and women to fly them.
I'm not sure you are worth replying to. But I will add some points:
The father role model is the biggest missing piece in most discussions.
It's the top 5% of men who dominate the top positions. So men can equally be oppressed in our culture and often are. I get there are a lot of alpha males out there not helping, but most of the men I know are great fathers and working overtime to provide.
Not all women are sugar and spice. I will not go into the issues of child abuse and spousal abuse from women. I will say that boys who live with single dads do about the same as boys who live with both parents. Boys who live with single moms do much worse than both of the other situations. Does not mean all women do bad raising boys, but the lack of a father model hurts boys seriously.
This leads to poor performance at school and not knowing a man's role is providing for a family. Single mom boys may see the dad paying but not connected and say that is not the life for me. Do you blame them?
I know single men who do not have families so they work just enough to provide well for themselves and that is about it. The hear the word commitment and hear "sacrifice" and say no thank you.
I think you're correct, but I'll add some points. Why is it the man's role to provide for a family? Ahhh, the patriarchy--do you think that the fact that women make less than a man for the same work, might impact why they "do worse" as you say? Though I'm not sure what "do worse" even means. I seriously don't understand how the fact that men dominate the top 5% of positions (a statement that comes from?) means that other men are oppressed.
Let's be honest, much of my previous post was facetious, but doing worse at school stems from many factors, poverty, abuse, violence, a simple lack of emphasis on the importance of academics, not being read to as a child, not learning to read, video games, poor schools, poor teachers--if it was one factor, e.g., the father role model is missing from the discussions, that would be nice. But their exists no empirical evidence that strengthening the father role model will improve the academic performance of boys. I think it's hypocritical for all these "Christian" men to talk about family values when we have a president elect who has five children from three different women and he cheated on all of them; we have a nominee for Secretary of Defense who has 7 children by 3 different women; Musk I think has like 12 children by a bunch of different women--I'd agree those role models are part of the problem, because when they say their vows, there's an addendum, because they love and cherish and honor until it's inconvenient and they'd rather have sex with someone else. That's why boys say that marriage thing is meaningless.
Fair points. But there is research but is suppressed as often is the case when it does not fit the chosen narratives.
I've read, observed, talked about, and pondered many of these issues for awhile. It opened up to me because we homeschooled 3 boys and I needed to think about what exactly is an education about.
Why should men have to provide? and not women? It's in our DNA because the roles of men as protector and provider and women as nurturer and also less dangerous provider meant children had a better chance of survival. Women have always provided, but that is not their primary role.
95% of awards for civilian heroes go to men. It's in their DNA to protect family and community. Obviously not all men. Women's DNA is to fight to the death for their kids but otherwise run with the kids and let the men protect. It's a survival thing. It's a DNA thing. You can not erase it with modern culture where women are now earning MORE THAN MEN.
The inequality in wages is not men vs women, it is dads vs mothers. Single women are making as much as single men today. BOOM! It's when the babies come, women work less hours and guess what, men work more hours and take on second jobs knowing the women can not work full-time. We are talking the working class here.
The inequality in wages in Dads vs Moms. Period.
But let's not let that fact enter the mainstream discussion.
My issues is the courts for decades gave women the kids and dads visitation rights if the women did not move away. But the courts also made dads ATMs and broke if they paid.
Imagine the dynamics if both men and women knew the kids would be transferred to dad at some preteen age and end child support. Women would have to prepare and men too. Oh, I know the problems. But the courts enforced a matriarchal system to the detriment of boys and men.
You "forgot" to consider that men and boys account for 80% of suicides. Have you thought about applying for a leadership position with the Los Angeles Fire Department? It seems that they like lesbians that tell men unable to be rescued by female firefighters that "they should not have been there".
The "males at the tails" pattern is "interesting" only if you are unfamiliar with the testing literature. The pattern has consistently been observed as far back as standardized testing has existed. It exists in lots of other areas. And the further out on the tails you go, the larger the effect. What would have been surprising and "interesting" would be if you had not found this pattern. Of course, that did not keep Larry Summers from losing his job as president of Harvard for observing that it existed.
You cannot understand the discrepancies in school outcomes between boys and girls until you understand the discrepancies in the ways they are treated. Boys are literally under siege in a school system that has been specifically tailored to meet the needs of girls. Worse still, the boys are called toxic and blamed for the ills of the world. How can expect anyone to excel under such conditions. Boys are under siege https://menaregood.substack.com/p/boys-under-siege
Seems to me, it likely comes down to maturity level. Girls mature faster on all levels. With a level playing field, girls are surpassing boys AT THAT AGE. Do we slow school down, so young people aren't graduating until 20? Would that make a difference? I do think that mature, more focused boys are competetive with the top girls. How do we get our boys to focus on school more?
I am curious if boys in all boys schools do better, do you have the stats on that?
I still believe that part of the problem is boys being led to think they are better than girls...then when they get beat by a girl, they don't know how to deal with it. We need to be teaching boys that girls are just as capable and that it comes down to individualism and dedication. If they get beat by a girl, it's because the girl is better than them, or they didn't try hard enough. To expect boys/men to be better than women in pretty much all things, is setting them up for failure. Stop raising boys to think they are better than women. I really think that's at the core of the problem. The more mature girls do better than the boys, so the boys begin to quit at a young age. They start to focus on other things than being good in school. If they could be told, hey, just wait, you'll be fine in the long run if you just stay focused. But then again, why do we feel the need to compare the sexes. Can't we just say, hey, that person, male or female, beat you. Try harder if you want to beat them.
Hi, Nancy - thanks for your input! (And I am glad that you are here - so that these comments sections do not turn into echo-chambers.)
I believe the point you seem to miss is the discrepancy when it comes to boys' scores in SAT's and GPA's.
If one is to look at SAT scores as "objective measures" of aptitude and skill, and GPA as a score that is more dependant on one or more teachers subjective opinions of a persons skill and aptitude, this discrepancy is troubling since it implies that girls recieve a "halo" effect, just by being girls, while boys suffer from the opposite?
So you're saying that girls GPAs are higher, while boys SAT scores are higher? I can get that. I do think that some girls are more apt to like being a teachers pet...ie. care about pleasing the teacher, excel at focusing on the school assignment and how to get good grades. My oldest son would fall into the other category. He definitely did not want to please the teacher, he prefered to challenge them. He's grades ended up ok, but not competetive enough for top schools. However, he passed all his AP tests and even past some that he challenged, ie. didn't take the class. His SAT score was higher than his grades would've indicated. So I guess the question is why? To be honest, he didn't challenge the teachers he respected....When there was mutual respect, and that happened with both male teachers and strong female teachers, he did better. He wasn't willing to suffer fools, ie. weak teachers who he had no respect for. Of course that just hurt himself, but I get it, I probably would've been the same. He did 2 years at a JC and 2 years at a UC, getting his degree in Physics and ended up in Silicon valley as a software engineer, which had been his goal.
I will say, in 5th grade, my son had a female teacher that was horrible, he started having behavioural issues. Doing some research, I learned that this teacher was hard on boys and those who didn't have high self esteem struggled with her. I attempted to take this to the school, as you might assume, it didn't get me anywhere, but I was able to talk to my son, to try to get him to understand it wasn't him. That this was a teacher to just get through the year with and look forward to next year. In high school, he found his niche and had some great female teachers that challenged him.
My middle son fell even more into this category, of boys not caring about grades as much as girls did. He willfully ignored his teachers, slept in class, etc. He got good enough grades to get into college, where he excelled.
Is it simply maturity? I don't think I can agree with that, although it's part of it. There is something in our communities, that makes our boys think it's unmanly to excel in school. Like it makes you the teachers pet or something. How do we get to the root of that?
My third son, unfortunately, decided he wasn't smart like his brothers and completely gave up on school. I'll blame his peer group for that one. He was extremely well liked and the teachers plain just let him do whatever he wanted. But, thankfully there are options for boys who aren't interested in school. He's done many years in the construction field and is becoming a plumber. You can't outsource plumbing...LOL
One last comment, although girls are excelling at high school, in all my son's classes, the top top students were boys. There's still those few boys who are competetive and want to challenge to be the top student. And they do just fine. Maybe we need to compare those boys/men to the others to try to find the difference.
I recognize your sons from my years of teaching, and from my own two sons and my daughter. And I agree to a lot of what you are saying. Some of it boils down to maturity, But not all. And I don't think it is about it being unmanly to excel in school, (maybe a little, but that was never an issue for my boys or other boys I have thought - they all took great pride in their efforts and results while still being more than masculine enough. But here we are talking about small-town Norway, all white, almost all academic parents, low divorce-rates and lots of male rolemodels.Maybe inner-city/rural US is different - it may very well be!)
Still I believe that school is less suited for boys than for girls these days. The reason this is happening is complex, and may have to do with a host of issues, from lack of rough-and-tumble play in kindergarden, lack of male rolemodels and teachers in school, to how we as a society talks about boys.
To circle back to our initial exchange - boys are not (given the SAT scores) less smart than girls, but there is something in the way we evaluate their effort and understanding that is detrimental to boys. My further argument is that when we saw this happening with girls, we tweaked (changed) the systems. I don't think it is to much of an ask that we do the same for our boys?
I am not anti helping boys at all. I just don't think we've figured out the problem yet. The system systematically degraded girls for generations. The issue with boys is fairly new, in comparison, and people are jumping to conlcusions as to the 'cause'. As you can see from a lot of comments here, some of it is just pure hate towards women by some men and they want to blame those women.
I want to see real discourse and scientifc analysis of the issue, not propaganda spewing. I think it's a complex, multi-faceted issue. I went to elementary school in the 70s. My boys were in elementary school in the late 90s. I didn't not see much difference in how schools operated.
What I did see, and didn't like, was all the special accomodations that have to be made for special needs kids. Huge recourses being spent on some children who will never be capable of living on their own, etc. I know, it's a tough row to hoe, but in america we've let the pendulum swing way to far forward. Kids who are disruptive in the classroom, due to attention deficit or autism spectrum, etc. are allowed to continue to be disruptive because 'their rights'. I think everyone should be given a chance, but at some point, not every kid should be a regular classroom. One year, my son made no progress in reading, as there were so many non-english speaking kids in the classroom, that reading was geared toward teaching english....ie reading books for kindergardeners instead of 4th graders. There's got to be a better way to deal with that.
Some argue that boys can't sit still, how has that changed since the 50's etc when they had to sit still even more than now? I think we owe it to boys to have high expectations for them and not make excuses. Now, should we change how we teach in america??? I imagine we should, but how the heck can we make that happen? We seem to teach some stupid shit that no-one really needs to know. I'd love to see a major revamping or our educational system, but with people who want to teach the bible in school, I don't see how we could successfully navigate that change. Church is for the bible, school is for objective education!
I should add the caveat, that I don't live in a metropolitan area, we are a small town of 8,000 people with the next nearest town being 45 miles away with 10,000 people. Then it's hours further to a city. We live in an area with great outdoor recreation and almost all kids do at least one sport, skiing being huge here. We even have ski PE, where all students get to go skiing for PE once a week. Both boys and girls have lots of opportunity to build self esteem. We have no crime, no traffic, no good jobs, but the different races get along. We have no private schools, all kids in the community go to the same schools K-12. People are very healthy here, with almost no obesity (that's a rarity in america!)
Oh, one last thing, when we do decide on a good plan to help boys, we should make sure it's not detrimental to girls, as you seem to be implying that when the schools made change to help the girls, it was detrimental to the boys. I hope we can move away from it's them or us mentality. Let's figure out how to improve schools so that both sexes excel.
Oh, and next time I get to talk to my paramedic son, I'm going to ask him if he thinks the schools were catering to girls success. I'll let you know what he thinks. Of course, he was smart in another way, he learned that it was cool and fun to hang with the girls. I'd come home to him and 6 girls, baking in my kitchen. And no, he's not gay...lol
What year and what state did you go to Highschool that you absorbed the message that boys were better than girls? I was in Highschool about 15 years ago in Florida, and every message I absorbed was that girls were better than boys. I don’t think that’s why this issue exists, but I don’t think that the message needs to be hammered in more than it already is.
agreed, and I'm hopeful that with time, this attitude is less and less prevalent. I do see it more in men that are older than me. They REALLY struggle with it. But it's still there, but I agree, it's tapering away. I think young men today don't get so butt hurt when women excel. I've had to purposely let men when games....and I don't get it. Why would they get upset because they lose to a woman? That attitude is so detrimental. Those men are typically 50 and older. I'm hopeful that younger men are better at that. But I've seen it in some of them too.
There are loads of focus and money thrown at women's/girls' issues - you say top stop comparing the sexes?
You have to compare demographics of different races, different economic strata, etc. - and look at the different outcomes to identify disparity.
The majority of programs exist for women only.
Sounds like you are misandrist - WHY are you even here?
Boys aren't taught that they're "better" - the entire school system in the west promotes the message of female empowerment, with female only scholarships and programs....
You think that sends to boys the message that they are "better"?
I focus on men's issues because only the minority of people do.
Sounds like you don't have empathy for men or boys.
Also, girls maturing faster than boys is a total gynocentric crock of rubbish. If that were even true, I could also claim that men mature FURTHER than women and that girls only temporarily surpass same-age males in "maturity" (which you need to DEFINE and MEASURE, by the way) - only for most men to surpass women. Even that may not be true. But, when you don't have loads of safety nets, scholarships, affirmative action hiring, divorce money (lol), etc. - like WOMEN have....then men are FORCED to mature FURTHER.
I love how misandrists like you try to paint men like dumb bumbling idiots - that just proves that you think crappy American sitcoms with dumb dads and their "too good for them wives" are reality to you....
come on guys, don't be the typical closed minded dude, afraid to have true discourse. How are you helping young men today? Spewing hatred and parroting talking points? Have you rasised any children? I don't know how you can question the females maturing 'faster' comment. It's just science. Oh, I know, some of you don't like that word. It doesn't mean that either one is better than the other, it's just a recognition that women's and men's bodies are different.
I am actually wanting discourse on what I've seen an experienced in this world while raising 3 sons, and what I observed with my 3 brothers. Not to mention, my 32 years in a male dominated field. I've always gotten along with men, had many male friends , and many male work friends. I have a lot of life experiences that have shown me how men and women are treated differently.
No one is trying to emasculate men. I know, that statement will freak you out. My brothers were raised by a dad who didn't teach them any more about cars or handyman skills than me, meaning they aren't good at that stuff. My boys, mostly raised by me, a single mother, made sure my boys learned early on to do things around the house and learned handyman skills, auto mechanic skills and to help their mom with heavy things etc. I think they are great men.
I have encrouaged other mothers, my friend;s, to start treating their son's like men as they near their teenage years. Even if you can carry something, ask them to. Ask them to fix something, etc. Let them know you appreciate their male attributes.
Anyway, I think my non-dogmatic input is much more valuable than your rote, thoughtless comments. Parroting is the worst thing in the world.
Thank you, Nancy. The victim mindset doesn’t look good on anyone, men or women. I think we men do have an expectation that we’re better than women, and a deep seated fear that we’re not, otherwise what’s so bad about raising your hand and being wrong. And the answer is simple. Men compete for women. Women choose the winners. Everyone knows this but acts like it doesn’t exist. In a man’s deep seated fear of being wrong is a fear of not being loved, of being expelled from the tribe, of being alone. In the not too distant past it was a valid fear that still upholds today. If you read all the pro GOP comments here, you will see over and over that they believe women hate them for being male, while having no comprehension that their attitude makes them undesirable, not their gender. I like the idea of all boys schools and all girl schools. It gives boys a chance to cross that wide gap between boyhood and manhood while being supported.
This research is vitally important for the future of academia as well as for the social implications inherent in gaining unwanted educational gaps at the upper and lower end of the scale. Due to gender differences it has always been the case that on the whole girls are better than boys at self expression, especially verbally. There has always been this predominance particularly in emotional self expression. Boys and girls do not respond identically to the same teaching methods. In what we call in Britain ‘Public Schools’, that are generally paid for by wealthy parents and are very far from public, the problem of under achieving males as compared to females does not seem to exist. Why, because most of these schools are single sex with the boys schools mostly employing male teachers and the girls female teachers. Why does this make a difference? Because of a naturally occurring method of teaching and requirements as to anticipated results. Not a conscious bias at all. Females want to see active participants in class and a good understanding of what is being taught, facilitated by the pupils. Girls answer verbal questions mostly readily, boys do not as a rule.
Male teachers tend to have to force or coax answers from their adolescent classes to teach them to respond so as to engage them more readily in future teaching. The methods of teaching are different. Boys are taught to be tough at these public schools and to participate in the sort of sports that most females don’t join into. They are also taught that participation is essential in all aspects of school life.
There are vast differences in the psychology that is useful in teaching male and female students and this should be addressed if any improvement in male rates of college attendance is to become equal in numbers to female attendees.
I have taught both male and female students together in a non academic setting. Boys don’t participate easily for two reasons. One. Usually a girl had her hand up first to answer anyhow and secondly, boys don’t want to look foolish if their answer is wrong. Again, different types of reactions in mixed sex classrooms amongst adolescent students. At the stage when it all seems to start going wrong.So, more male teachers would be a good start.
This is interesting. When you say high schools are not boy-friendly enough, what can be done to allow boys to achieve success?
I wonder what the rise of female success can be attributed to—(correct me if I’m wrong, but) there have been no drastic changes in education policy to uplift women specifically. The way I see it, these issues are pointing to broader social changes and possibly men’s focuses shifting from academics to other areas (physical fitness, making money, etc).
I would love to know how I can support the men in my life.
Moving topics down to lower grades probably makes it harder for boys to keep up with girls. Moving algebra to 7th grade or moving foreign language to 7th grade to IB probably does not help boys.
First, thank you for being thoughtful in your question, and not attacking. In general, females are more likely to seek safety and structure than males. Males are more likely to seek risk and danger than females. Within safety and structure is the confines of "do this and you get a good grade." This plays more to the female psyche. If you tell a boy, "do this", he will think, "well what happens if I do that instead of this?" I don't know the actual solution but I will liken it to something that was suggested recently concerning creative people.
We tell creative people that they have ADHD and need to medicate instead of giving them a creative base from which to learn and allowing the creativity to work in their favor instead of feeling the stigma of taking numbing medication, as if something is wrong. I'll drop the link. https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity
It is clear that boys are doing terribly in school and I believe it relates to something similar. They often think outside the box and current education is still very much inside a box. I'm not suggesting that females don't think outside the box. I'm suggesting that females follow directions well because there is a safety there. When males are given directions, they begin to think of all of the other possibilities, regardless of the risk.
My best guess is conscientiousness is why girl GPA is higher. The drastic change to education policy to lift up women was likely making homework and project based work I higher percentage of a grade than tests. Girls spend an average of 21 minutes more on homework a day, and that’s likely driven by a lot of boys not doing homework at all, lowering their grades.
Grades and test scores don’t impress the girls. In fact, grades and test scores are in direct competition with girls. Add to that boys’ average lower conscientiousness. It’s quite demotivating.
You protest that this is NOT about Women doing better.. and more power to them--
Then you proceed to compare Males to Females on every Chart!
Find a different Constant. Perhaps PREVIOUS Scores/Successes.
Is it different than before???
LEAVE THE FEMALES OUT of your Study.
You have a point, though there’s no need to shout. I suggest that you _italicize_ for emphasis.
I am howling uselessly into the wind.
From the era where all we could watch was Gunsmoke and High Noon... (however did they ever get a next generation, with no Women?)... to now is a looooong time to know you have something to offer. Perhaps it is just too soon to feel like the Oppressor--
You can verify your assertion about women in the show Gunsmoke.
https://pluto.tv/on-demand/series/gunsmoke-bw
And Miss Kitty goes upstairs…. [stage directions]
She did much more than that over the years.
I thought I was uniquely stupid when I was in school. I struggled intensely and failed most of my classes. Reading your work has brought home two revelations: first, that I’m not alone, and second, that boys are academically in crisis.
This seems pretty consistent with the longstanding psychology research that finds more variance in male IQ than female (more very smart and very dumb men whereas women cluster a bit more around the mean) as well as greater conscientiousness, especially as teenagers, among girls than boys. Since conscientiousness has as much to do with grades as intelligence.
Most teachers are women, so it's obvious there's a bias toward girls. That, and they need to start school one year later.
We need segregated sex schools. Co education was a feminist idea that has proven terrible results for boys and men. We need to stop stoping men.
#StopStopingMen
Or get them Spelling Lessons?
In the late 1980s they switched from 100% test evaluation to 20% grading up to teacher discretion.
This resulted in a bunch of soft quizzes and a lot of time dependant projects.
I speak up because I was born in 1991, so I lived through this changed, while I was in school. I am what you would call undereducated. I know own where I stand on the cognitive scale, there are tests for that. I didn't pursue higher education for reasons similar to those listed in your article.
What education transform into after this change was a effort contest. You could only get 75% on midterm and final, but if you worked like a dog on your projects you could.still get 80% in the course.
The inverse of that is, if you knew you'd ace the final and midterm, you didn't really have to do any work at all. You would get 80% too. That was my experience.
The results of that are group think and mass compliance in our academics.
We don't like to tell people they are stupid, as a society. Unfortunately, that's what the education system has to do. You need to weed out people who can't think so you're left with people who can.
When confronted as a nation with a problem like covid or ww3, you want to know who can think. That's important.
The ugly part about that is: knowing who can think is the exact same thing as knowing who can't.
The father role model is the biggest missing piece in most discussions.
It's the top 5% of men who dominate the top positions. So men can equally be oppressed in our culture and often are. I get there are a lot of alpha males out there not helping, but most of the men I know are great fathers and working overtime to provide.
Research shows that boys who live with single dads do about the same as boys who live with both parents. Boys who live with single moms do much worse than both of the other situations. Does NOT mean all women do bad raising boys, but the lack of a father model hurts boys seriously.
This leads to poor performance at school and not knowing a man's role is providing for a family. Single mom boys may see the dad paying but not connected and say that is not the life for me. Do you blame them?
I know single men who do not have families so they work just enough to provide well for themselves and that is about it. They hear the word commitment and understand it means to them "sacrifice" and say no thank you... not for what they get in return.
Interesting to note the difference in GPA is much larger than the difference in SAT scores. Maybe more low GPA boys opt out of testing.
Girls do get more focus today. Teachers still have bias that hurts boys - even male teachers.
Never mentioned or studied enough. More boys lack a male role model in their life... girls almost always have many. It has a huge effect in my opinion. Courts need to give custody of boys over 10 to their dads unless there is a good reason not to.
Really? No role models? What's the bias that hurts boys? Everywhere you look men are in leadership positions in numbers that far exceed those of women--granted, they are not men of color except in the sports world and there not often in leadership roles, not many owners, not many coaches. Default they should get custody because . . . what would be a good reason not to give custody? Neglect? Abuse?
Evidence suggests that whenever women begin to be represented in historically male professions, that men leave the profession. Women couldn't even get a bank loan or have their own account until the mid 1970's, but somehow the lack of academic performance by men is their fault? These numbers reflect that we have a profoundly anti-intellectual society and culture. Academic performance for boys is not emphasized; women realize if they don't have credentials, they aren't going anywhere. Boys don't need credentials--none of that dumb book larnin' for me. I don't like school. I'm good with my hands. I'm going to learn to actually do something. I don't want to be an egghead. The worst thing you can call a boy is a girl, so it makes sense if you're in a girl's profession, say nursing, that as a boy you wouldn't want to be associated with that for fear of being labeled a girl or worse a faggot. Look at the recent stuff out of the military, where it's not women that are lowering military standards, it's men who cannot measure up to those standards. Recruitment of women staying steady, recruitment of men falling because the candidate cannot meet the basic requirements. Too dumb to even be cannon fodder. Thank God we've got drones and women to fly them.
I'm not sure you are worth replying to. But I will add some points:
The father role model is the biggest missing piece in most discussions.
It's the top 5% of men who dominate the top positions. So men can equally be oppressed in our culture and often are. I get there are a lot of alpha males out there not helping, but most of the men I know are great fathers and working overtime to provide.
Not all women are sugar and spice. I will not go into the issues of child abuse and spousal abuse from women. I will say that boys who live with single dads do about the same as boys who live with both parents. Boys who live with single moms do much worse than both of the other situations. Does not mean all women do bad raising boys, but the lack of a father model hurts boys seriously.
This leads to poor performance at school and not knowing a man's role is providing for a family. Single mom boys may see the dad paying but not connected and say that is not the life for me. Do you blame them?
I know single men who do not have families so they work just enough to provide well for themselves and that is about it. The hear the word commitment and hear "sacrifice" and say no thank you.
I think you're correct, but I'll add some points. Why is it the man's role to provide for a family? Ahhh, the patriarchy--do you think that the fact that women make less than a man for the same work, might impact why they "do worse" as you say? Though I'm not sure what "do worse" even means. I seriously don't understand how the fact that men dominate the top 5% of positions (a statement that comes from?) means that other men are oppressed.
Let's be honest, much of my previous post was facetious, but doing worse at school stems from many factors, poverty, abuse, violence, a simple lack of emphasis on the importance of academics, not being read to as a child, not learning to read, video games, poor schools, poor teachers--if it was one factor, e.g., the father role model is missing from the discussions, that would be nice. But their exists no empirical evidence that strengthening the father role model will improve the academic performance of boys. I think it's hypocritical for all these "Christian" men to talk about family values when we have a president elect who has five children from three different women and he cheated on all of them; we have a nominee for Secretary of Defense who has 7 children by 3 different women; Musk I think has like 12 children by a bunch of different women--I'd agree those role models are part of the problem, because when they say their vows, there's an addendum, because they love and cherish and honor until it's inconvenient and they'd rather have sex with someone else. That's why boys say that marriage thing is meaningless.
Fair points. But there is research but is suppressed as often is the case when it does not fit the chosen narratives.
I've read, observed, talked about, and pondered many of these issues for awhile. It opened up to me because we homeschooled 3 boys and I needed to think about what exactly is an education about.
Why should men have to provide? and not women? It's in our DNA because the roles of men as protector and provider and women as nurturer and also less dangerous provider meant children had a better chance of survival. Women have always provided, but that is not their primary role.
95% of awards for civilian heroes go to men. It's in their DNA to protect family and community. Obviously not all men. Women's DNA is to fight to the death for their kids but otherwise run with the kids and let the men protect. It's a survival thing. It's a DNA thing. You can not erase it with modern culture where women are now earning MORE THAN MEN.
The inequality in wages is not men vs women, it is dads vs mothers. Single women are making as much as single men today. BOOM! It's when the babies come, women work less hours and guess what, men work more hours and take on second jobs knowing the women can not work full-time. We are talking the working class here.
The inequality in wages in Dads vs Moms. Period.
But let's not let that fact enter the mainstream discussion.
My issues is the courts for decades gave women the kids and dads visitation rights if the women did not move away. But the courts also made dads ATMs and broke if they paid.
Imagine the dynamics if both men and women knew the kids would be transferred to dad at some preteen age and end child support. Women would have to prepare and men too. Oh, I know the problems. But the courts enforced a matriarchal system to the detriment of boys and men.
Men need equality as much as women.
And how would Dad's new Younger Wife like that arrangement?
Hell of a sexist assumption you are making there
You also "forgot" to consider that there are 100,000 men driving trucks for every man in the C-suite.
You "forgot" to consider that men and boys account for 80% of suicides. Have you thought about applying for a leadership position with the Los Angeles Fire Department? It seems that they like lesbians that tell men unable to be rescued by female firefighters that "they should not have been there".
The "males at the tails" pattern is "interesting" only if you are unfamiliar with the testing literature. The pattern has consistently been observed as far back as standardized testing has existed. It exists in lots of other areas. And the further out on the tails you go, the larger the effect. What would have been surprising and "interesting" would be if you had not found this pattern. Of course, that did not keep Larry Summers from losing his job as president of Harvard for observing that it existed.
You cannot understand the discrepancies in school outcomes between boys and girls until you understand the discrepancies in the ways they are treated. Boys are literally under siege in a school system that has been specifically tailored to meet the needs of girls. Worse still, the boys are called toxic and blamed for the ills of the world. How can expect anyone to excel under such conditions. Boys are under siege https://menaregood.substack.com/p/boys-under-siege
What part of expecting boys to turn in their homework is the sexist part? Has one read the book?
The value of education as typically offered by schools has peaked and is in decline. What you see is boys and men ahead of the curve, as usual
Boys and men account for 80% of suicides. Care to explain that to me?
If you think I was saying that boys and men are having a great time you’ve misunderstood
Seems to me, it likely comes down to maturity level. Girls mature faster on all levels. With a level playing field, girls are surpassing boys AT THAT AGE. Do we slow school down, so young people aren't graduating until 20? Would that make a difference? I do think that mature, more focused boys are competetive with the top girls. How do we get our boys to focus on school more?
I am curious if boys in all boys schools do better, do you have the stats on that?
I still believe that part of the problem is boys being led to think they are better than girls...then when they get beat by a girl, they don't know how to deal with it. We need to be teaching boys that girls are just as capable and that it comes down to individualism and dedication. If they get beat by a girl, it's because the girl is better than them, or they didn't try hard enough. To expect boys/men to be better than women in pretty much all things, is setting them up for failure. Stop raising boys to think they are better than women. I really think that's at the core of the problem. The more mature girls do better than the boys, so the boys begin to quit at a young age. They start to focus on other things than being good in school. If they could be told, hey, just wait, you'll be fine in the long run if you just stay focused. But then again, why do we feel the need to compare the sexes. Can't we just say, hey, that person, male or female, beat you. Try harder if you want to beat them.
Feminists are the ones setting boys and men up for failure. Which is why feminists will grow old alone.
come on dude, is that all you can do, regurgitate stuff? How about some real discourse. You know this is at minimum a multifaceted issue.
Given that the resident man-hating feminists here regularly regurgitate their misandry. my reply was appropriate.
Hi, Nancy - thanks for your input! (And I am glad that you are here - so that these comments sections do not turn into echo-chambers.)
I believe the point you seem to miss is the discrepancy when it comes to boys' scores in SAT's and GPA's.
If one is to look at SAT scores as "objective measures" of aptitude and skill, and GPA as a score that is more dependant on one or more teachers subjective opinions of a persons skill and aptitude, this discrepancy is troubling since it implies that girls recieve a "halo" effect, just by being girls, while boys suffer from the opposite?
So you're saying that girls GPAs are higher, while boys SAT scores are higher? I can get that. I do think that some girls are more apt to like being a teachers pet...ie. care about pleasing the teacher, excel at focusing on the school assignment and how to get good grades. My oldest son would fall into the other category. He definitely did not want to please the teacher, he prefered to challenge them. He's grades ended up ok, but not competetive enough for top schools. However, he passed all his AP tests and even past some that he challenged, ie. didn't take the class. His SAT score was higher than his grades would've indicated. So I guess the question is why? To be honest, he didn't challenge the teachers he respected....When there was mutual respect, and that happened with both male teachers and strong female teachers, he did better. He wasn't willing to suffer fools, ie. weak teachers who he had no respect for. Of course that just hurt himself, but I get it, I probably would've been the same. He did 2 years at a JC and 2 years at a UC, getting his degree in Physics and ended up in Silicon valley as a software engineer, which had been his goal.
I will say, in 5th grade, my son had a female teacher that was horrible, he started having behavioural issues. Doing some research, I learned that this teacher was hard on boys and those who didn't have high self esteem struggled with her. I attempted to take this to the school, as you might assume, it didn't get me anywhere, but I was able to talk to my son, to try to get him to understand it wasn't him. That this was a teacher to just get through the year with and look forward to next year. In high school, he found his niche and had some great female teachers that challenged him.
My middle son fell even more into this category, of boys not caring about grades as much as girls did. He willfully ignored his teachers, slept in class, etc. He got good enough grades to get into college, where he excelled.
Is it simply maturity? I don't think I can agree with that, although it's part of it. There is something in our communities, that makes our boys think it's unmanly to excel in school. Like it makes you the teachers pet or something. How do we get to the root of that?
My third son, unfortunately, decided he wasn't smart like his brothers and completely gave up on school. I'll blame his peer group for that one. He was extremely well liked and the teachers plain just let him do whatever he wanted. But, thankfully there are options for boys who aren't interested in school. He's done many years in the construction field and is becoming a plumber. You can't outsource plumbing...LOL
One last comment, although girls are excelling at high school, in all my son's classes, the top top students were boys. There's still those few boys who are competetive and want to challenge to be the top student. And they do just fine. Maybe we need to compare those boys/men to the others to try to find the difference.
I recognize your sons from my years of teaching, and from my own two sons and my daughter. And I agree to a lot of what you are saying. Some of it boils down to maturity, But not all. And I don't think it is about it being unmanly to excel in school, (maybe a little, but that was never an issue for my boys or other boys I have thought - they all took great pride in their efforts and results while still being more than masculine enough. But here we are talking about small-town Norway, all white, almost all academic parents, low divorce-rates and lots of male rolemodels.Maybe inner-city/rural US is different - it may very well be!)
Still I believe that school is less suited for boys than for girls these days. The reason this is happening is complex, and may have to do with a host of issues, from lack of rough-and-tumble play in kindergarden, lack of male rolemodels and teachers in school, to how we as a society talks about boys.
To circle back to our initial exchange - boys are not (given the SAT scores) less smart than girls, but there is something in the way we evaluate their effort and understanding that is detrimental to boys. My further argument is that when we saw this happening with girls, we tweaked (changed) the systems. I don't think it is to much of an ask that we do the same for our boys?
I am not anti helping boys at all. I just don't think we've figured out the problem yet. The system systematically degraded girls for generations. The issue with boys is fairly new, in comparison, and people are jumping to conlcusions as to the 'cause'. As you can see from a lot of comments here, some of it is just pure hate towards women by some men and they want to blame those women.
I want to see real discourse and scientifc analysis of the issue, not propaganda spewing. I think it's a complex, multi-faceted issue. I went to elementary school in the 70s. My boys were in elementary school in the late 90s. I didn't not see much difference in how schools operated.
What I did see, and didn't like, was all the special accomodations that have to be made for special needs kids. Huge recourses being spent on some children who will never be capable of living on their own, etc. I know, it's a tough row to hoe, but in america we've let the pendulum swing way to far forward. Kids who are disruptive in the classroom, due to attention deficit or autism spectrum, etc. are allowed to continue to be disruptive because 'their rights'. I think everyone should be given a chance, but at some point, not every kid should be a regular classroom. One year, my son made no progress in reading, as there were so many non-english speaking kids in the classroom, that reading was geared toward teaching english....ie reading books for kindergardeners instead of 4th graders. There's got to be a better way to deal with that.
Some argue that boys can't sit still, how has that changed since the 50's etc when they had to sit still even more than now? I think we owe it to boys to have high expectations for them and not make excuses. Now, should we change how we teach in america??? I imagine we should, but how the heck can we make that happen? We seem to teach some stupid shit that no-one really needs to know. I'd love to see a major revamping or our educational system, but with people who want to teach the bible in school, I don't see how we could successfully navigate that change. Church is for the bible, school is for objective education!
I should add the caveat, that I don't live in a metropolitan area, we are a small town of 8,000 people with the next nearest town being 45 miles away with 10,000 people. Then it's hours further to a city. We live in an area with great outdoor recreation and almost all kids do at least one sport, skiing being huge here. We even have ski PE, where all students get to go skiing for PE once a week. Both boys and girls have lots of opportunity to build self esteem. We have no crime, no traffic, no good jobs, but the different races get along. We have no private schools, all kids in the community go to the same schools K-12. People are very healthy here, with almost no obesity (that's a rarity in america!)
Oh, one last thing, when we do decide on a good plan to help boys, we should make sure it's not detrimental to girls, as you seem to be implying that when the schools made change to help the girls, it was detrimental to the boys. I hope we can move away from it's them or us mentality. Let's figure out how to improve schools so that both sexes excel.
Oh, and next time I get to talk to my paramedic son, I'm going to ask him if he thinks the schools were catering to girls success. I'll let you know what he thinks. Of course, he was smart in another way, he learned that it was cool and fun to hang with the girls. I'd come home to him and 6 girls, baking in my kitchen. And no, he's not gay...lol
What year and what state did you go to Highschool that you absorbed the message that boys were better than girls? I was in Highschool about 15 years ago in Florida, and every message I absorbed was that girls were better than boys. I don’t think that’s why this issue exists, but I don’t think that the message needs to be hammered in more than it already is.
agreed, and I'm hopeful that with time, this attitude is less and less prevalent. I do see it more in men that are older than me. They REALLY struggle with it. But it's still there, but I agree, it's tapering away. I think young men today don't get so butt hurt when women excel. I've had to purposely let men when games....and I don't get it. Why would they get upset because they lose to a woman? That attitude is so detrimental. Those men are typically 50 and older. I'm hopeful that younger men are better at that. But I've seen it in some of them too.
You missed the point entirely.
There are loads of focus and money thrown at women's/girls' issues - you say top stop comparing the sexes?
You have to compare demographics of different races, different economic strata, etc. - and look at the different outcomes to identify disparity.
The majority of programs exist for women only.
Sounds like you are misandrist - WHY are you even here?
Boys aren't taught that they're "better" - the entire school system in the west promotes the message of female empowerment, with female only scholarships and programs....
You think that sends to boys the message that they are "better"?
I focus on men's issues because only the minority of people do.
Sounds like you don't have empathy for men or boys.
Also, girls maturing faster than boys is a total gynocentric crock of rubbish. If that were even true, I could also claim that men mature FURTHER than women and that girls only temporarily surpass same-age males in "maturity" (which you need to DEFINE and MEASURE, by the way) - only for most men to surpass women. Even that may not be true. But, when you don't have loads of safety nets, scholarships, affirmative action hiring, divorce money (lol), etc. - like WOMEN have....then men are FORCED to mature FURTHER.
I love how misandrists like you try to paint men like dumb bumbling idiots - that just proves that you think crappy American sitcoms with dumb dads and their "too good for them wives" are reality to you....
You can see yourself out, now.
come on guys, don't be the typical closed minded dude, afraid to have true discourse. How are you helping young men today? Spewing hatred and parroting talking points? Have you rasised any children? I don't know how you can question the females maturing 'faster' comment. It's just science. Oh, I know, some of you don't like that word. It doesn't mean that either one is better than the other, it's just a recognition that women's and men's bodies are different.
I am actually wanting discourse on what I've seen an experienced in this world while raising 3 sons, and what I observed with my 3 brothers. Not to mention, my 32 years in a male dominated field. I've always gotten along with men, had many male friends , and many male work friends. I have a lot of life experiences that have shown me how men and women are treated differently.
No one is trying to emasculate men. I know, that statement will freak you out. My brothers were raised by a dad who didn't teach them any more about cars or handyman skills than me, meaning they aren't good at that stuff. My boys, mostly raised by me, a single mother, made sure my boys learned early on to do things around the house and learned handyman skills, auto mechanic skills and to help their mom with heavy things etc. I think they are great men.
I have encrouaged other mothers, my friend;s, to start treating their son's like men as they near their teenage years. Even if you can carry something, ask them to. Ask them to fix something, etc. Let them know you appreciate their male attributes.
Anyway, I think my non-dogmatic input is much more valuable than your rote, thoughtless comments. Parroting is the worst thing in the world.
Thank you, Nancy. The victim mindset doesn’t look good on anyone, men or women. I think we men do have an expectation that we’re better than women, and a deep seated fear that we’re not, otherwise what’s so bad about raising your hand and being wrong. And the answer is simple. Men compete for women. Women choose the winners. Everyone knows this but acts like it doesn’t exist. In a man’s deep seated fear of being wrong is a fear of not being loved, of being expelled from the tribe, of being alone. In the not too distant past it was a valid fear that still upholds today. If you read all the pro GOP comments here, you will see over and over that they believe women hate them for being male, while having no comprehension that their attitude makes them undesirable, not their gender. I like the idea of all boys schools and all girl schools. It gives boys a chance to cross that wide gap between boyhood and manhood while being supported.
Thank you. Good reply to a feminist narcissist.
This research is vitally important for the future of academia as well as for the social implications inherent in gaining unwanted educational gaps at the upper and lower end of the scale. Due to gender differences it has always been the case that on the whole girls are better than boys at self expression, especially verbally. There has always been this predominance particularly in emotional self expression. Boys and girls do not respond identically to the same teaching methods. In what we call in Britain ‘Public Schools’, that are generally paid for by wealthy parents and are very far from public, the problem of under achieving males as compared to females does not seem to exist. Why, because most of these schools are single sex with the boys schools mostly employing male teachers and the girls female teachers. Why does this make a difference? Because of a naturally occurring method of teaching and requirements as to anticipated results. Not a conscious bias at all. Females want to see active participants in class and a good understanding of what is being taught, facilitated by the pupils. Girls answer verbal questions mostly readily, boys do not as a rule.
Male teachers tend to have to force or coax answers from their adolescent classes to teach them to respond so as to engage them more readily in future teaching. The methods of teaching are different. Boys are taught to be tough at these public schools and to participate in the sort of sports that most females don’t join into. They are also taught that participation is essential in all aspects of school life.
There are vast differences in the psychology that is useful in teaching male and female students and this should be addressed if any improvement in male rates of college attendance is to become equal in numbers to female attendees.
I have taught both male and female students together in a non academic setting. Boys don’t participate easily for two reasons. One. Usually a girl had her hand up first to answer anyhow and secondly, boys don’t want to look foolish if their answer is wrong. Again, different types of reactions in mixed sex classrooms amongst adolescent students. At the stage when it all seems to start going wrong.So, more male teachers would be a good start.
This is interesting. When you say high schools are not boy-friendly enough, what can be done to allow boys to achieve success?
I wonder what the rise of female success can be attributed to—(correct me if I’m wrong, but) there have been no drastic changes in education policy to uplift women specifically. The way I see it, these issues are pointing to broader social changes and possibly men’s focuses shifting from academics to other areas (physical fitness, making money, etc).
I would love to know how I can support the men in my life.
Moving topics down to lower grades probably makes it harder for boys to keep up with girls. Moving algebra to 7th grade or moving foreign language to 7th grade to IB probably does not help boys.
First, thank you for being thoughtful in your question, and not attacking. In general, females are more likely to seek safety and structure than males. Males are more likely to seek risk and danger than females. Within safety and structure is the confines of "do this and you get a good grade." This plays more to the female psyche. If you tell a boy, "do this", he will think, "well what happens if I do that instead of this?" I don't know the actual solution but I will liken it to something that was suggested recently concerning creative people.
We tell creative people that they have ADHD and need to medicate instead of giving them a creative base from which to learn and allowing the creativity to work in their favor instead of feeling the stigma of taking numbing medication, as if something is wrong. I'll drop the link. https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity
It is clear that boys are doing terribly in school and I believe it relates to something similar. They often think outside the box and current education is still very much inside a box. I'm not suggesting that females don't think outside the box. I'm suggesting that females follow directions well because there is a safety there. When males are given directions, they begin to think of all of the other possibilities, regardless of the risk.
Standardization plays to girls’ strengths. I saw this for years in higher ed.
My best guess is conscientiousness is why girl GPA is higher. The drastic change to education policy to lift up women was likely making homework and project based work I higher percentage of a grade than tests. Girls spend an average of 21 minutes more on homework a day, and that’s likely driven by a lot of boys not doing homework at all, lowering their grades.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/02/20/the-way-u-s-teens-spend-their-time-is-changing-but-differences-between-boys-and-girls-persist/
This is nothing new. I was the same in the late 1960s when I was in HS.