“Girls’ behavior is held as the gold standard in schools. Boys are treated like defective girls,” says author and former philosophy professor Christina Hoff Sommers in the latest video from Prager University.
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It echoes something I’ve been shouting about for a while. Boys are naturally more kinetic than girls, but the behavior of boys has not only been deemed disruptive in today’s school systems, it’s been labeled as dangerous. Because of the more docile-themed learning that our educational system has developed, boys have been performing less and less well. They score lower on testing, receive fewer honors, and are less likely to attend college.
Sommers goes on to list 4 reforms that would help promote a boys willingness and enthusiasm to learn.
The first is that we need to turn boys into readers. Sommers points out that girls tend to enjoy different reading materials than boys do. While girls enjoy fiction, magazines, and poetry, boys tend to enjoy non-fiction and comics. Less “Little House on the Prairie,” and more “Guinness World Book of Records” says Sommers.
Second, she talks about letting boys unlock their imagination. Where stories of emotional disclosure are prized in schools, they’re usually a style excelled at by girls. This can’t be said for boys who prefer writing action and monster tales. She tells the story of a boy named Justin who drew a bloody battle with swords and decapitated heads, which Justin’s teacher found ghastly.
When she called in Justin’s parents, the only thing they found ghastly was the fact that the teacher didn’t understand that this was just typical, harmless boy behavior. Banning a boy’s natural imagination will cause him to become disengaged, and make it harder for him to learn.
Third, boys suffer from school’s “zero tolerance” policies. Sommers cites the case of Josh Welch who chewed his pop-tart into the shape of a gun. Every little boy has turned his food into a weapon. There is noting threatening or atypical here. Boys will continue to craft weapons and have mock battles as they always have throughout time.
Instead of labeling the natural boy as “dangerous,” schools should learn to harness his rowdiness.
Lastly, Sommers points out that recess is going the way of the Dodo. This is a problem for boys who need to run, jump, and compete. Boys need this outlet to help burn off the natural energy they have. According to the video, schools have lost almost 50% of their unstructured outdoor playtime. This also includes the loss of games like tag or dodge ball, which have been deemed “too violent.”
In fact, “too violent” sums up the American educational system’s take on boys. It seeks to scrub out the natural tendencies of the typical young male. As Sommers points out, we’re developing a male averse culture. It will not be good for our society if our young men are told that they are, by nature, a problem.