1 00:00:00,650 --> 00:00:06,650 Being a normal boy is a serious liability in today's classroom. Boys tend to be disorganized 2 00:00:06,650 --> 00:00:12,250 and restless. Some have even been known to be noisy and hard to manage. 3 00:00:12,320 --> 00:00:15,080 Sound like any boy you know? 4 00:00:15,300 --> 00:00:20,760 But increasingly, our schools have little patience for what only a couple decades ago 5 00:00:20,769 --> 00:00:27,029 would have been described as "boyishness." As psychologist Michael Thompson has aptly observed: 6 00:00:27,120 --> 00:00:34,000 "Girl behavior is the gold standard in schools. Boys are treated like defective girls." 7 00:00:34,100 --> 00:00:40,300 As a result, these "defective girls" are not faring well academically. Compared with girls, 8 00:00:40,340 --> 00:00:46,600 boys earn lower grades, win fewer honors and are far less likely to go to college. 9 00:00:46,600 --> 00:00:51,460 Boys are languishing academically, while girls are prospering. In an ever more knowledge 10 00:00:51,460 --> 00:00:56,640 based economy, this is not a recipe for a successful society. 11 00:00:56,640 --> 00:01:03,330 We need to start thinking about how we can make our grade school classrooms more boy-friendly. 12 00:01:03,330 --> 00:01:07,720 Here are four reforms that would make a very good start. 13 00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:14,720 1. Turn boys into readers. In all age groups, across all ethnic lines, 14 00:01:14,840 --> 00:01:21,580 boys score lower than girls on national reading tests. Good reading skills are -- need I say? 15 00:01:21,700 --> 00:01:28,740 -- are critical to academic and workplace success. A major study in the UK discovered, not surprisingly, 16 00:01:28,750 --> 00:01:35,570 that girls prefer fiction, magazines, and poetry while boys prefer comics and non-fiction. 17 00:01:35,580 --> 00:01:40,820 Boys whose eyes glaze over if forced to read Little House on the Prairie may be riveted 18 00:01:40,820 --> 00:01:47,820 by the Guinness Book of Records. Boys will read if given materials that interest them. 19 00:01:48,040 --> 00:01:52,300 If you're looking for suggestions for books that have proved irresistible to boys go to 20 00:01:52,310 --> 00:01:55,130 guysread.com 21 00:01:55,240 --> 00:02:01,160 2. Inspire the Male Imagination. Celebrated writing instructor Ralph Fletcher 22 00:02:01,250 --> 00:02:07,700 contends that too many teachers take what is called "the confessional poet" as the classroom ideal. 23 00:02:07,700 --> 00:02:14,120 Personal narratives full of emotion and self-disclosure -- stories girls commonly write -- 24 00:02:14,160 --> 00:02:19,260 are prized; whereas action stories describing, say, a skateboard competition 25 00:02:19,260 --> 00:02:25,439 or a monster devouring a city are not. I recently read about a third-grader in Southern California 26 00:02:25,439 --> 00:02:29,779 named Justin who loved science fiction, pirates, and battles. 27 00:02:29,800 --> 00:02:34,680 An alarmed teacher summoned his parents to school to discuss a picture the 8-year-old 28 00:02:34,689 --> 00:02:40,669 had drawn of a sword fight -- which included several decapitated heads. The teacher expressed 29 00:02:40,669 --> 00:02:46,569 grave "concern" about Justin's "values." The boy's father was astonished, not by his son's 30 00:02:46,569 --> 00:02:53,549 drawing which to him was typical boy stuff, but the teacher's overwrought -- and female-centered 31 00:02:53,549 --> 00:02:55,819 -- reaction. 32 00:02:55,819 --> 00:03:01,749 If boys are constantly subject to disapproval for their interests and enthusiasms they are 33 00:03:01,749 --> 00:03:09,189 likely to become disengaged and lag further behind. Our schools need to work with, not against, 34 00:03:09,280 --> 00:03:12,419 the kinetic imaginations of boys. 35 00:03:12,419 --> 00:03:18,599 3. Zero Out Zero Tolerance. Boys are nearly five times more likely to 36 00:03:18,599 --> 00:03:26,399 be expelled from preschool than girls. In grades K-12, boys account for nearly 70% of suspensions, 37 00:03:26,500 --> 00:03:32,620 often for minor acts of insubordination and sometimes for entirely innocent behavior. 38 00:03:32,629 --> 00:03:37,819 Hardly a week goes by without a news story about a young boy running afoul of a school's 39 00:03:37,819 --> 00:03:39,819 zero-tolerance policy. 40 00:03:39,819 --> 00:03:45,939 Josh Welch, age 7, was recently sent home from his Maryland school for nibbling off 41 00:03:45,939 --> 00:03:50,109 the corners of a strawberry Pop-Tart to shape it into a gun. 42 00:03:50,109 --> 00:03:56,159 Josh -- like many other boys punished for violating zero-tolerance policies -- was guilty 43 00:03:56,159 --> 00:04:00,279 of nothing more than being a typical 7-year old boy. 44 00:04:00,380 --> 00:04:06,580 4. Bring back recess. Believe it or not, recess may soon be a thing of the past. 45 00:04:06,580 --> 00:04:12,180 According to a research summary by Science Daily, since the 1970s, schoolchildren 46 00:04:12,189 --> 00:04:19,189 have lost close to 50% of their unstructured outdoor playtime. Much-loved games have 47 00:04:19,240 --> 00:04:25,480 vanished from school playgrounds. In schools throughout the country, games like dodge ball, red rover 48 00:04:25,490 --> 00:04:31,290 and even tag have all but disappeared; too damaging to self-esteem or too "violent" 49 00:04:31,300 --> 00:04:39,840 being the usual excuses. One popular classroom guide suggests tug of war be replaced with "tug of peace." 50 00:04:39,980 --> 00:04:46,800 Boys need to work off their energy. They need to be free to play games they enjoy. 51 00:04:46,860 --> 00:04:52,060 And keeping them cooped up inside all day will not help them learn. 52 00:04:52,060 --> 00:04:57,620 As our schools become more feelings centered, more competition-free and more sedentary, 53 00:04:57,620 --> 00:05:05,880 they move further away from the needs of boys. We need to reverse the boy-averse trends. 54 00:05:05,930 --> 00:05:12,050 Male underachievement is everyone's concern. These are our sons. These are the young men 55 00:05:12,050 --> 00:05:20,230 with whom our daughters will build a future. If boys are in trouble, so are we all. 56 00:05:20,379 --> 00:05:27,799 I'm Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute for Prager University.