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The rite way
There is a way to help your students develop into health young men and women-
by creating meaningful rites of passage beyond merely getting a driver's license.
by Andrew Lines and Graham Gallasch (Australia)

ADHD kids' brains mature more slowly
Delayed development in regions that focus attention, study finds
Associated Press/MSNBC, November 12, 2007

Crucial parts of brains of children with attention deficit disorder develop more slowly than other youngsters’ brains, a phenomenon that earlier brain-imaging research missed, a new study says.

Developing more slowly in ADHD youngsters — the lag can be as much as three years — are brain regions that suppress inappropriate actions and thoughts, focus attention, remember things from moment to moment, work for reward and control movement. That was the finding of researchers, led by Dr. Philip Shaw of the National Institute of Mental Health, who reported the most detailed study yet on this problem in Monday’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Finding a normal pattern of cortex maturation, albeit delayed, in children with ADHD should be reassuring to families and could help to explain why many youth eventually seem to grow out of the disorder,” Shaw said in a statement.

Me Read? No Way!
A practical guide to improving boys' literacy skills
Report from the Ontario Ministry of Education, pdf format

This past July, in the sticky heat, I took the day off to haul five 11- and 12-year-old boys to a water park, two of them my sons. My job was to tag along and hold pouches of snack money and sunscreen.

A friend e-mailed her sympathies, saying she could think of nothing worse than taking almost-teen boys to a water park, since all they would do is leer at and make fun of scads of almost-naked bodies. She ended her e-mail with the word "Shudder!" and one of those not-happy punctuation faces - :L.

My acquaintance had assumed all boys hit an inevitable ick-scary stage where they suddenly compare everything to sexual acts and make fun of, or judge, anything covered with skin. It is, stereotypically, said to be an age of attitude, disrespect and scoundreling.

My son was born nearly 10 years ago, and I remember telling him that morning that he was one lucky baby. Forget Dr. Spock or Dr. Brazelton--I took my cue from Dr. Pangloss. If this was not the best of all possible worlds, it was certainly the best time and best place to be starting out healthy and free in a land of vast possibilities. In the months and years that followed, however, there came a steady stream of books and essays warning that I had missed something ominous: our little guy had entered a soul-crushing world of anti-boy influences.

In the face of mounting evidence that schools are losing alarming numbers of young black men, a small band of educators gathered here recently to bolster one response to the crisis: creating public schools designed to serve African-American males.

Haunted by the specter of a bleak future for millions of young men—and aware that single-gender programs can face legal and political opposition—the two dozen principals were nonetheless united in their conviction that it is high time to build education programs that meet the academic and emotional needs of black boys.

“[People] ask us why we are doing single-gender education, as though what the kids are currently involved in is working,” David C. Banks, the founding principal of the Eagle Academy for Young Men, a 3-year-old public school that serves predominantly low-income black and Latino boys in New York City, told a roomful of educators, scholars, and policymakers. “When you recognize that you are in crisis, you have to do more.”

Major American corporations have recently begun hiring consultants to tutor company managers in the art of complimenting employees with public displays of appreciation.

Why? As children, it seems, these young employees were over-praised and coddled, and now they're having trouble adapting to the real (vicious and unforgiving) world.

Some maintain that boys are especially susceptible to this pampering. We're tenderizing boys. Emasculating them. Creating pushovers and crybabies.

And this notion, no doubt, can partially explain the mini-phenomena surrounding a controversial new book called "The Dangerous Book for Boys."

The book, written by British brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden, is a manual of everything a boy, supposedly, needs to know.

It celebrates the wonders of pirate flags, Swiss Army knives, tying knots. It tutors young men on how to make a bow and arrow and a go-cart, use a compass, learn to play Texas Hold 'Em and other lost boyhood delights. It's perfect "for every boy from eight to eighty."

What makes "The Dangerous Book for Boys" somewhat contentious, though, is its implicit assertion that boys and girls are very different. That boys and girls are interested in different things and, gulp, excel at different things as well.

And according to Jim Hamilton, a program coordinator with Colorado 4-H, it's the adults who need help, not the boys.

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. In these frenzied, media-saturated times, the lure of a simpler past is more powerful than ever. That may explain the success of "The Dangerous Book for Boys," a deliberately retro tome that has become the publishing sensation of the year in Britain.

Exuding the brisk breeziness of Boy Scout manuals and Boy's Own annuals, "The Dangerous Book" is a childhood how-to guide that covers everything from paper airplanes to go-carts, skipping stones to skinning a rabbit.

It spent months on British best-seller lists, has sold more than half a million copies and took the book of the year prize at last month's British Book Awards.

The book will be published in the United States May 1, allowing American boys _ but not their sisters _ to learn how to play marbles, make invisible ink, send Morse code and build a tree fort.

There is no longer a need for dire predictions, hand-wringing, or apprehension about losing a generation of black boys. It is too late. In education, employment, economics, incarceration, health, housing, and parenting, we have lost a generation of young black men. The question that remains is will we lose the next two or three generations, or possibly every generation of black boys hereafter to the streets, negative media, gangs, drugs, poor education, unemployment, father absence, crime, violence and death.

How can boys be encouraged to perform better at school?
The British view, telegraph.co.uk, March 18, 2007

The problem is never far away from the headlines: boys are outperformed by girls at school. The latest idea for closing the gap is to introduce boys-own book shelves and to make role models out of old boys who succeed in life.

Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, suggests that a book shelf packed with spy novels and action stories "containing positive, modern, relevant role models for working class boys" would help them do better at school.

More male primary school teachers and more male role models in school would also benefit boys, Mr Johnson argued.

What do you think? Are more male teachers the answer? Are boys lagging because of too much Bronte and not enough Bond? Or are the problems rooted more deeply?

CLEARWATER - Nikia Smith could have left his studies at St. Petersburg College to work full time.

"It was hard," Smith said of his days, which started before dawn and lasted long after dark. "5:30 to 9:40 at night. Handling two jobs for two years. I don't see how I did it, looking back."

He hasn't quit, but young men like him are increasingly rare on college campuses both in Florida and nationwide.

The number of male students is dwindling quickly enough that SPC recently created a support group, tentatively called Men on the Way.

"The swimming bag hit the car floor with a thump and my son hit the car seat with an even bigger thump, grumbling: "What's the point?"

"His primary school had just lost a swimming competition, largely because their head teacher had picked a team on the basis of enthusiasm rather than ability.

"To paraphrase that old cliche, it wasn't the winning that mattered, it was the taking part.

"Well, I'm sorry, but in the real world life is full of winners and losers. And right now, the losers are a generation of boys who have been betrayed by an education system that no longer recognises crucial differences between the sexes..."

Re: gender gap in higher ed in Jordan
E-mail from Sandra Stotsky to the Boy's Project listserv, January 27, 2007

That was it. Some boys go to private colleges in the Middle East or elsewhere if their parents can afford it. I asked her about the sociological problem this created in a country where women are still expected to marry and have children. She said Muslim parents were now accepting of the fact that their educated daughters would probably be "marrying down."

Gender disparity in education has usually been experienced as disadvantaging girls. Although this continues to be the case in many places, the phenomenon of boys' underachievement - both in terms of participation and performance - has also become an issue in a number of countries.

This book reviews the research on boys' underachievement and presents the arguments that have been put forward to understand its causes. The authors also present new studies from Australia, Jamaica, Lesotho and Samoa; and they use both the research and the evidence from the case studies to explore the causes and policy implications of this trend - the first time a truly cross-regional approach has been applied to the issue. Dr. Tony Sewell conducted the studies in the selected Commonwealth countries.

"You’ve got a bright child on your hands! As a preschooler he loved books, drawing, and creating with blocks. He was excited by the things around him and was a bundle of energy, wanting to explore, handle, and figure out his world.

The Disconnect

"When he started school he was enthusiastic and looked forward to the wonderful adventures you told him were in store. In elementary school you started getting notes from his teacher indicating that he was “having some problems.” The list included comments like: doesn’t stay on task, fails to turn in homework, doesn’t complete projects on time, can’t seem to stop fidgeting and sit still. In middle school your bright, gifted son is getting by with mediocre grades and an attitude that you find disheartening. He just doesn’t seem motivated to succeed in school the way you and his teachers know he could.

Is something wrong with the way we're teaching boys? One elementary school thought so and decided to implement boy-friendly strategies that produced remarkable results.

"The Dangerous Book for Boys by the British brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden is a practical manual that returns boys to the wonder and almost lost world of tree houses and pirate flags. It celebrates the art of teaching an old mutt new tricks and accepts skinned knees as an acceptable risk for running through fields with the same dog yapping along..."

...is actually a problem with men. We've ignored all the evidence of male achievement and ambition deficits and stood aside as our sons have notched a growing record of failure and disengagement. It's time we did something about it. A call to action."

"The New Gender Gap"
Series in the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, March-April 2006

"Helping Boys Learn"
Interview with Michael Gurian, Education World, February 22, 2006

Over the past several decades, boys' behavior and performance in school has continued to decline. Researchers like Michael Gurian say these are indications that schools are not structured to accommodate how boys' brains work and how they learn. Included: Strategies for making classes more "boy friendly."

Jan. 30, 2006 issue - Spend a few minutes on the phone with Danny Frankhuizen and you come away thinking, "What a nice boy." He's thoughtful, articulate, bright. He has a good relationship with his mom, goes to church every Sunday, loves the rock band Phish and spends hours each day practicing his guitar. But once he's inside his large public Salt Lake City high school, everything seems to go wrong. He's 16, but he can't stay organized. He finishes his homework and then can't find it in his backpack. He loses focus in class, and his teachers, with 40 kids to wrangle, aren't much help. "If I miss a concept, they tell me, 'Figure it out yourself'," says Danny. Last year Danny's grades dropped from B's to D's and F's. The sophomore, who once dreamed of Stanford, is pulling his grades up but worries that "I won't even get accepted at community college."

Here's a thought that's unlikely to occur to twelfth--grade girls as their college acceptances begin to trickle in: After they get to campus in the fall, one in four of them will be mathematically unable to find a male peer to go out with.

At colleges across the country, 58 women will enroll as freshmen for every 42 men. And as the class of 2010 proceeds toward graduation, the male numbers will dwindle. Because more men than women drop out, the ratio after four years will be 60--40, according to projections by the Department of Education.

"Between the sexes"
Richard Whitmire, editorial in USA Today, December 27, 2005

Jacqueline King is a researcher who carefully sifts data for the American Council on Education in search of trends that colleges and universities might find helpful. One recent discovery jumped out: Over the past eight years, the percentage of middle-class males on campus shifted dramatically downward. Even more surprising, the sharpest drop occurred among white males.

In the 1990s, I taught for six years at a small liberal arts college in Spokane, Wash. In my third year, I started noticing something that was happening right in front of me. There were more young women in my classes than young men, and on average, they were getting better grades than the guys. Many of the young men stared blankly at me as I lectured. They didn't take notes as well as the young women. They didn't seem to care as much about what I taught -- literature, writing and psychology. They were bright kids, but many of their faces said, "Sitting here, listening, staring at these words -- this is not really who I am."

That was a decade ago, but just last month, I spoke with an administrator at Howard University in the District. He told me that what I observed a decade ago has become one of the "biggest agenda items" at Howard. "We are having trouble recruiting and retaining male students," he said. "We are at about a 2-to-1 ratio, women to men."

In May, the Minnesota Office of Higher Education posted the inevitable culmination of a trend: Last year for the first time, women earned more than half the degrees granted statewide in every category, be it associate, bachelor, master, doctoral or professional.

Three years ago, Jeff Gray, the principal at Foust Elementary School in Owensboro, Ky., realized that his school needed help—and fast. Test scores at Foust were the worst in the county and the students, particularly the boys, were falling far behind. So Gray took a controversial course for educators on brain development, then revamped the first- and second-grade curriculum. The biggest change: he divided the classes by gender. Because males have less serotonin in their brains, which Gray was taught may cause them to fidget more, desks were removed from the boys' classrooms and they got short exercise periods throughout the day. Because females have more oxytocin, a hormone linked to bonding, girls were given a carpeted area where they sit and discuss their feelings. Because boys have higher levels of testosterone and are theoretically more competitive, they were given timed, multiple-choice tests. The girls were given multiple-choice tests, too, but got more time to complete them. Gray says the gender-based curriculum gave the school "the edge we needed." Tests scores are up. Discipline problems are down. This year the fifth and sixth grades at Foust are adopting the new curriculum, too.

Surging testosterone could be a major explanation for the home advantage in football, say UK psychologists. They found that all members of a squad - and goalkeepers in particular - have much higher levels of the hormone before a home game than before an away match.

"It is clear there is a big home advantage, and we think testosterone is a major factor that has been overlooked by theorists in the past," says Sandy Wolfson of the University of Northumbria, who conducted the research with colleague Nick Neave.

"We know testosterone is linked to dominance and aggression in animals," says Neave. "We're trying to tie the results in with territoriality. The idea is that if you're playing at home, you feel you're defending your own territory. The testosterone surges in the goalkeepers was unbelievable and obviously they're the ones who are most involved in defence."

It’s a compelling story that seizes public attention with its “man bites dog” characteristics. It touches on Americans’ deepest insecurities, ambivalences, and fears about changing gender roles and the“battle of the sexes.” It troubles not only parents of boys, who fear their sons are falling behind, but also parents of girls, who fear boys’ academic deficits will undermine their daughters’ chances of finding suitable mates.

But the truth is far different from what these accounts suggest. The real story is not bad news about boys doing worse; it’s good news about girls doing better.