Angel Heart
Conservative Hippie
http://www.pacificsun.com/story.php?story_id=1176
Feature: Boys on the side
When it comes to gender equality in the classroom, says one local educator, our public schools are earning an F
by Jacob Shafer
When I was 10 years old, I had a friend named Donnie. Our houses were only a short bike ride apart, and we both enjoyed a lot of the same activitiesbuilding couch-cushion forts, chasing his little sister around, pretending to be Indiana Jones. Also, he had a turtle. But in school, Donnie and I were very different; where I was (mostly) studious and attentive, he had trouble focusing. Sitting for long hours at a small metal desk, reading and writing and doing long division drove him crazy and put him on the wrong end of more than a few reprimands and trips to the principal's office.
By the time we reached junior high, Donnie drifted out of the public school system, and also out of my life. I don't know if he ever earned his high school diploma, but when I tossed my mortarboard and tassel into the air with my classmates he wasn't there.
Donnie wasn't stupid, nor was he emotionally damaged beyond repair. So what was it that led him to become marginalized by the school experience, to the point where he was pushed away altogether?
Joe Manthey, a North Bay educator and "gender equity advocate," thinks he knows the answer. Mantheywho has taught various grade levels in the public school system and served as a juvenile hall counselor (and was featured in these pages eight years ago in the wake of the Columbine massacre) is a founding member of the Boys' Project, an organization that advocates for males in the classroom. In that capacity, Manthey has put together a number of presentations with titles like "Teaching to Gender Differences in Brain Development" and "How Boys Are Shortchanged in the Schools."
"Teachers are not required to take a course on the brain differences and hormonal differences between males and females and how that affects learning styles," says Manthey. As a result, he argues, public school curriculum is often not tailored to boys' natural strengths.
What are those strengths, exactly? While the subject remains a controversial one, a preponderance of research points to what some might call the obvious fact that boys and girls thinkand behavedifferently, and that these differences are rooted in biology. Male brains tend to focus on spatial relationshipsmanipulating objects to see how they use up spaceand gross motor skills, while the female brain is hardwired for fine motor skills and more sedentary, detailed tasks like reading. And testosterone, the hormone that courses through the average male at levels eight to 10 times that of the average female, translates, in behavioral terms, into aggressiveness and increased physical activity.
Given this, desk-bound exercises like reading and writing come more easily in general to girls than boys. The more these things are emphasized the more boys will fall behind argues Manthey and others who share his point of view.
"Schools aren't being held accountable to gender," Manthey says. "When they do these standardized tests, the feds want to see results with regard to English learners, with regard to low-income students, with regard to certain minority groupsbut they aren't asking for results with regard to gender. That doesn't make sense to me, because if you look at all those subgroups, girls are outperforming boys across the board."
And, Manthey adds, not only do the tests not measure the fact that boys are being outpaced, they also serve to make the classroom an even less hospitable place for the male mind. "[Teachers] have to teach to the tests," he says. "That means less time to get creative with boy-friendly curriculum."
Manthey is part of a growing chorus of voices sounding the alarm about boys in our public school system, and society at large. There has been a proliferation of studies and news stories in recent years focused on the notion that young American males aren't getting the attention they need, and that as a result, they are being marginalized and left behind.
A HOST OF statistics exists to bolster the "boys are in trouble" thesis. More boys than girls are placed in special education classes. Boys are far more likely than girls to be diagnosed with a learning disability and to be prescribed drugs accordingly. Boys drop out of high school at a much higher rate, and even those who stick it out are less likely to take the SAT and to attend, or graduate, from college.
Some, citing figures from the National Center for Education Statistics, see boys' downward spiral beginning to reverse. A recent Time magazine cover story titled "The Myth About Boys" purported to show that the sky is not falling when it comes to the education of our young men. But even analysts with a rosy outlook don't deny there's a problem; the only debate appears to be over the degree of the crisis.
Up until the mid-'90s, nearly every story about gender inequity in our public schools centered on the idea that girls were getting the short end of the stick. While the plight of boys has become a hot topic of late, some argue that we should instead be trumpeting the good news that girls are finally soaring.
And then there are the realities women face after school lets out. Despite the many strides made by females in the workforce, by some calculations they still earn less than 80 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. Only eight Fortune 500 companies are helmed by women. And, of coursepending Hillary Clinton's historic dash for the White Houseno woman has ever been elected president. When it comes to social and financial equality, women, many argue, are still getting a raw deal.
Though some of Manthey's views run contrary to the above facts and assertionshe goes so far as to say he doesn't believe we live in a male-dominated societyhe is quick to emphasize that by supporting boys he isn't looking to bring girls down. He says that as a teacher, many of his favorite students were girls. And he claims that when he started paying attention to both sexes equallyand tailoring his curriculum as much for males as femaleseverybody responded positively.
Manthey points to a few key ways that schoolwork can be made more conducive to the learning style of boys. Boys, he says, are less inclined to read novels and so alternative reading materials like how-to manuals and practical informational texts should be provided, and graphic and visual aids should be incorporated liberally into lessons. Boys are "kinesthetic learners," meaning they respond well to activities that facilitate movement; thus, Manthey says, teachers should utilize drama and other activities that get kids out of their desks and onto their feet. Manthey also argues that there's nothing wrong with a little competition.
"Cooperative learning is all the rage, to the point where competition has become almost a bad word in education," he says. "But boys and high-testosterone girls love to compete. I'm not saying you shouldn't do any cooperative learning, but quite frankly, my experience as a teacher has been that when you do cooperative learning with young boys and girls the boys tend to get bored and often will let the girls do the work."
Another technique Manthey advocates is splitting classes up into single-sex groups, especially for activities like reading, where the divide between genders is greatest. "It gives those kids a chance to engage the material in a setting where everyone is more on the same page," he says.
Asked if this means he endorses a proliferation of single-sex classes and even schools, Manthey hesitates a bit. "It's important to give parents that option, but I don't think it's a be-all and end-all. There's no question that [single-sex schools] need to be experimented with more, but I say that with the caveat that if the educators are not educated to these hormonal and brain differences, those single-sex schools will fail."
In the lower elementary grades about 90 percent of teachers are female, a reality some have called central to the gender gap problem. But Manthey says female instructors aren't the issue. "I know plenty of female teachers who have much more boy-friendly classrooms than some male teachers," he says.
But, he adds, "There is a dearth of male role models for this generation. Lots of kids are growing up without a father." To illustrate this point, Manthey says in one of his presentations he shows two quotes from world-famous athletes, both talking about how much they love to compete. The first was nurtured by his dad; the second never had one.
Their names? Tiger Woods and Mike Tyson.
MANTHEY, PERHAPS NOT surprisingly, has gotten used to people who question his theories, at times accusing him of woman-bashing, unfair stereotyping and worse. "I've heard every [retort] you can imagine," he says with a laugh.
His response is to reiterate that every child is unique, and that gender is proclivity, not destiny. "There are always exceptions and we should treat students as individuals," he readily admits. And yet, he quickly adds, "There's a big difference between a stereotype and a generalization based on real science."
Manthey's mantra, and rallying cry, seems to be: Don't blame the boys.
"When girls were behind in math and science, we said, 'We want to help these girls' and that there's something wrong with the schools," he says. "But when boys don't do well in school, we say there's something wrong with the boy."
