Can We Not Leave the Boys Behind?

Cory and Shawn slack off in the back of the classroom. Topanga’s right up front with her homework done and hand held high to answer the question. Mr. Feeny calls on the slackers, who inform him that they don’t know the answer. If only those boys would get their act together, then they could move to the head of the class.

But is it their fault they don’t have the motivation to keep up in school? A study to be released this week in the Journal of Human Resources asserts that boys are biased against in school starting at the elementary age because they can’t sit still as well as girls. The assertion, as described by Christina Hoff Sommers, is that all things equal, boys will get lower grades than girls by virtue of the fact that girls develop skills of attentiveness, persistence, eagerness to learn, the ability to sit still and work independently before boys do. Consequently, girls have better earlier experiences in school which is why they are going on to earn more college degrees than boys.

Interesting assertion. Anecdotally I can say that I had a much easier time in school than either of my two younger brothers. And neither of them had more trouble in elementary school than when they had a teacher I had first. And as we learn more about learning styles and even the value in recess we are starting to see more collaborative and interactive lesson plans. Sommers goes on to talk about Aviation High School in New York and some other school ideas that are being tried out. Even on Boy Meets World, we see that Mr. Feeny gets through to Shawn and Cory and Eric not so much in the classroom, but through one-on-one application in the Matthews’ backyard.

Okay, so if we assume the assertion that girls essentially get favorable treatment by teachers from the get-go, how do we change that? Is it simply a matter of giving boys a chance to be boys? I think the problem goes deeper than that. Of the six teachers I had in elementary school, exactly one of them was a man. My brothers had a few more male teachers than I, but their early education was still minimally influenced by y-chromosomes.

If boys had men as teachers, perhaps some of this female bias would evaporate. Men, after all, used to be boys and would probably understand how to reach them better. I know that in my elementary school career, there were female teachers with the reputation of not liking boys, and it sounds like this is true. So maybe we should spend some time recruiting men to the classroom to balance this. This is not to minimize the other suggestions that Sommers outlines. We absolutely should make allowances for all learning styles. And, for heaven’s sake, we need to make recess and playtime a priority (studies show that it’s important). But, at the same time, it seems that maybe we need some men in there helping to work on these solutions. 

Mr. Feeny helped Cory, Shawn, Eric and Topanga get into college and presumably their degrees. I know that was television, but would a Ms. Feeny have been as valuable a character?