Ne'er Do Well Boys, or a Failed Education System

This is a tough review to write, but it needs to be told. A decade ago, I was serving as a parent representative on a Southern Association of Colleges and Schools committee to evaluate the local elementary school. I was a "plant" because I had been a classroom teacher for some twenty years, as well as being the mother of two students in the school. Despite what I knew about education, I learned a great deal from the experience. The other parent rep made an astute observation, which I will no doubt misquote due to the years which have passed, but he said, "I see a lot of boys in the community and none of them are interested in school. Something needs to be done." And a light went on in my brain. Okay, as an English teacher, I knew that many of the males in my classes had not had much fun, but that is because boys like math and science better, right?


Wrong. Boys, or at least a majority of them, don't like anything in school. Or they only like one or two classes, such as physical education, shop, or ROTC. That means many, many hours of misery. Worse, it means that boys either drop out of school or graduate with such poor skills that they don't make it through college. Nowadays, colleges are 65/35 female. The never quite ending recession has shown how vulnerable marginally educated men are to long term unemployment. Years ago, boys had a better chance in school than their female counterparts, but those days are long gone. Now, it is boys who suffer. But why?


Since I first was made aware of the depth of this problem, by that fellow parent, I have read some articles and a few books about the gender gap in education. Although it is now considered flawed, I view many of the points raised by Christa Hoff Sommers in her book, The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Boys, as factors. Or, as my favorite talk radio personality puts it, "the wussification of America." When having a tool such as a penknife results in permanent expulsion from school, boys are clearly being emasculated by the system. But, the gains by girls are taking place in other countries, where boys can still be boys, so the feminization of education is clearly not the only issue.


A newer take on the problem is Why Boys Fail: Saving Our Sons from an Educational System That's Leaving Them Behind by Richard Whitmire. Instead of putting the blame on the rise of female leadership in education, reporter Whitmire suggests that the push toward early literacy leaves boys behind the more verbal girls, and those boys are turned off to education before they become ready to read. This book is quite readable; instead of being written for a scholarly audience, feature reporter Whitmire uses real people to illustrate the statistics which are troubling to anyone who cares about the male half of the population.


Lest any readers of Pam's Pages think, who cares? I will offer some reasons to care. The days when a man could work with his hands and not be especially literate are waning. If our daughters are to have a mate worth marrying, in terms of intellect and in terms of earning power, then we need educated males. Of course, that argument won't work for some, so consider this: When males can't earn a living, they may turn to crime. The number of males in prison seems to reflect that, doesn't it? Most of us would not be in favor of an education system which produces criminals. If you think that is overstating the matter, just do a web search for the phrase "school to prison pipeline."


How can we address this problem? As Whitmire goes to some length to explain, the education system needs to acknowledge that there is a problem. By and large it does not. Thus, I propose a simple first step to do that. In my state, all sorts of test stats are reported in the newspaper. By law, these figures must be printed in local newspapers, but there is no breakdown by gender. So, I am going to write to my local representatives and ask that this small change be made to our state's laws. The best way to solve a problem is to get started, and this problem must be put before the public. Reporting the scores of boys and girls side-by-side should show the general public that there is a real problem to be addressed. 


The more I read, and the longer I serve in education, the more I realize that society may think that boys are being bad, instead of recognizing that they are being short-changed by the megalithic education system. ’Tis sad.

Two Reviews— Waiting for Superman and Temple Grandin

While I have made most of the money I have ever made (or ever hope to) in public education, I genuinely enjoyed and appreciated the expose of public education called Waiting for Superman. The film is captivating, and somewhat suspenseful for a documentary.

As it opens, viewers meet five young people, of different ages, genders, and ethnicities. Each one has hopes and dreams which can only be fulfilled by a proper education. And each one is in a school which feeds into a "failure factory." That term is applied to high schools where most students either drop out or fail to have the right background to get into college and succeed there. The facts and figures are playfully represented, and the stories of the five subjects introduced early on unfold gradually, along with commentary from educators.

Viewers will take away different images, I am sure, but I certainly identified with the "hidden camera" video of a classroom where the students were in the back of the room, playing craps, while the teacher sat in front of the room, with a magazine, waiting for his time to be up. My husband found that footage to be shocking, but I did not. Certain classes are like that. Really. I know, because I used to work in a public high school.

My experience tells me what the filmmaker does, and that is the answer to education problems is to hire good teachers and only good teachers. A good teacher is indeed "a work of art." Of course, making sure that only good teachers are employed in public schools would entail firing bad ones. The filmmaker explains how difficult it can be to fire a bad teacher, and he professes to have an answer for this problem. I enjoyed the film, including the solution part; but as an educator, I am also skeptical that the solution can be so simple. (No, I won't say what it is, but I hope readers of Pam's Pages will want to know and will watch Waiting for Superman.) As the film draws to a close, viewers get a glimpse of the future of each of the youngsters, with mixed results, of course.

On a recent evening, our whole family enjoyed the excellent biopic from HBO which explains the life and thought patterns of the most famous autistic person in America, Dr. Temple Grandin. Anyone who has dealt with autism, or merely wants to know more, should see this film. And anyone who likes a good story will probably be just as impressed with it. Clare Danes is simply amazing, as she becomes the namesake of the film, Temple Grandin, in her speech patterns, her mannerisms, and she does a fair job of suppressing her movie star looks to appear more like Grandin would have looked in her earlier years.

Dr. Grandin writes well, and I first learned about her via her articles on how autistic people think. But, before she was famous for speaking out about autism, she was famous for being an expert in animal husbandry, and this biography begins with her summer trip to her aunt's ranch, which was the beginning of her intense interest in animals and how they think. Grandin believes that there are distinct similarities in the thought processes of animals and autistics, and that is in pictures. Indeed, she has authored several books, as well as becoming a college professor, and one of her books is entitled Thinking in Pictures.

There is quite a bit of humor in this film, as Grandin blunders through social situations, but there is plenty of heart, too, as she is befriended and mentored by various people. As a mother, I do identify with Grandin's mother, ably portrayed by Julia Armond. There can be no greater task than that of the mother of an autism spectrum child.

Unfortunately, neither of these movies will attract the viewers of the latest sci-fi blockbuster, but they are such worthy films that I hope you'll go rent them or buy them and then share them so their messages will be spread a bit farther.

Let's Have a Meeting (or Not)

One thing I have learned in my time in adult education is that teaching in mass does not work as well for adults as it does with children and teens. Actually, I don't know that it works too well with youngsters, but most of them have not formed a persona that they do not intend to change. Adults have, and therein lies the difference.

A group of kids can be whipped into a frenzy (think pep rally) much more easily than a group of adults. Oh, there are inspirational speakers who can get adults onboard. Preachers and politicians can do that, but it works best if everyone in the room has the same set of beliefs.

To effect any change in adults, even small changes, requires one-on-one or very small group instruction.

In ancient times, a young man would be apprenticed to an older craftsman, and the mentor would guide the young person. This still happens, but usually outside of "formal education." In my hometown, there was a family in the construction business. While we were all growing up the young ladies in that family went to college, but the young men all went to work in the family business. Each of those young men got a heck of an education, and I imagine that they learned math, science, writing, leadership, and philosophy from their dad, who was a master builder. Oh, and they can make stuff, too.

Anyone who teaches or supervises adults would do well to adopt the mentor and apprentice model. During my tenure in secondary school, I sat through any number of sessions which were conducted by adults for adults, using the "one size fits all" lecture method. Seldom did the session achieve the intended goal. Instead, most people gathered afterward to commiserate or retaliate. Therefore, I postulate that work related meetings should be banned, unless, of course, there is a pep rally going on.

Writing=Punishment, Redux

Those who read the news, and I love to read the news— the odder, the better— have probably already seen this story. A ten-year-old student in a public school in Texas has been punished for possessing a dangerous substance— a Jolly Rancher candy. News headlines have touted her weeklong detention, but careful readers will note that she was also assigned "an essay" which is a punishment, rather than a mere assignment, in modern America. While I hate this abominable misuse of my subject matter, there was no surprise. None.

More recently, a solicitor in Forest Park, Georgia (one of the many suburbs of Atlanta) ordered a teenager to write 2500 sentences for passing a school bus with its stop sign extended. Now, that is an offense worthy of punishment, but why not make the offender do couple hundred math problems? I'd view that as punishment aplenty, but no, it is my beloved subject matter and my favorite hobby which is once again used by a warped authority figure as a whip to inflict punishment.

"The invention of mass printing practices changed our world and the print invention is regarded by many as the invention of the millennium." Indeed, writing is one of the most important distinctions between civilization and the lack thereof. Is this thrashing of the written word the beginning of a decent into literary darkness?

Flunking

“....brainpower is the scarcest commodity and the only one of real value. Any human organization can be rendered useless, impotent, a danger to itself, by selectively removing its best minds while carefully leaving the stupid ones in place.” (Heinlein, Friday 37)

Working for the government has, in my experience, been both rewarding and frustrating. The public schools once attracted bright people, but that is no longer typical. One of my former student teachers was the valedictorian at her high school and became a wonderful teacher herself, but she was atypical as well. As the “old” teachers move on, there will be a dearth of talent in the classroom. The better teachers at my children’s school are in their 60’s and 70’s, and there are some talented ones who are a couple of decades behind. Among the younger ones, a great teacher is a rarity. A quick look at the average SAT’s for the college of education vs. the school of business at the University of Georgia will provide a quick confirmation of the lowering of intellectual standards in education.

Why are the better students shunning teaching careers? Many point to low salaries, but that is often not true. I just saw a full page ad for a local school system’s job fair, and the salary range was $37K to $80K, numbers that might not be attractive in some areas of the country, but those are not too bad in northeastern Georgia.

No, there are many forces that drive the better students away, and the number one deterrent may well be their experiences in high school. My own children have had a roller coaster ride, with fine teaching talent one class period, followed by a hack who is working harder on a graduate degree than teaching the next class period. (Additional degrees add some $7K here in Georgia, so there are plenty of doctors who don’t have any medical training.)

Modern classrooms are mine fields, with behavior and mentally challenged students sharing the same teachers and classrooms as regular ed students, due to government mandates. If you don’t believe me, just google “least restrictive environment” and read up on it. Some teachers refuse to administer tests, instead having students do “projects” which are casually awarded a grade based on an oral report. Essays are unread, leading to a big shock when the post-secondary instructor actually evaluates student work. One must postulate that the reason state and federal governments mandate tests is that teachers no longer use them. Smart students who have just endured four years of this treatment are not going to rush to gain teaching credentials.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote “Harrison Bergeron” as a not-so-subtle warning about government seeking to make everyone equal. In this story, intellectual equality equals stupidity. Mr. Vonnegut’s and Mr. Heinlein’s cautionary narratives certainly ring true when one contemplates the woes afflicting modern educational institutions.

Private schools and virtual schools may give concerned and better informed parents a way out of this morass, but many students will never understand what they missed by being born in an era when the public schools flunked.