Real Boys

by William Pollack

  Indeed, since 1 in 5 of all reported AIDS cases is diagnosed in the twenty- to twenty-nine-year age group, and since we know that the median incubation period between HIV infection and AIDS diagnosis is nearly ten years, it’s now clear that most of those people in their twenties who are diagnosed with AIDS were probably teenagers when they first became infected. This means, simply enough, that scores of our teenage sons and daughters are being infected with HIV each year and that by the time they reach their twenties many of them may develop the symptoms of AIDS.

  As we’ve learned in this chapter, many boys feel afraid to talk about their sexuality. If they’re gay, many of them are terrified about how their parents, friends, teachers, and others might respond. They fear rejection, even abandonment. And so they go silent. And so we never speak to them about what they’re feeling inside themselves.

  But if colluding in our sons’ silence, if “just letting things work themselves out,” might once have been an acceptable option, I simply don’t see how it can be anymore. We not only owe it to our sons, and to our daughters, to talk openly about the fears and concerns they have about being sexually active and about whether they’re gay or straight, but now we owe it to them to explain what AIDS is all about for homosexuals and heterosexuals, how it is contracted, and what you have to do to make absolutely sure you’ll never be infected in the first place. Taking the necessary precautions is easy. Talking about it may be less so. But I believe we simply must overcome our qualms about discussing this.

  It’s nothing less than a matter of life and death.

  — 10 —

  SCHOOLS:

  THE BLACKBOARD JUMBLE

  “Girls have an easier time opening up and communicating than

  guys do. . . . Many guys are afraid to speak up because they don’t

  want to look stupid.”—Kevin, age fourteen

  SCHOOL: A WHOLE NEW WORLD

  It was the first day of third grade for Alexander. He rushed out to the bus stop ten minutes early, dragging his mother and father with him. He chatted happily with the other kids at the bus stop and, when the bus arrived, climbed aboard without hesitation—with only a perfunctory good-bye peck on his parents’ cheeks. He strutted down the aisle and plunked down into a seat next to a child his parents didn’t recognize. Both mother and father waved as the bus pulled away, but Alexander was so engrossed in conversation with his unknown seatmate that he didn’t return the wave. “What a difference from his first day of kindergarten!” his mother remarked to the father as they watched the bus disappear. “I felt like I was abandoning him then. Now, I feel like he’s abandoned us!” That afternoon, his mother asked Alexander who the kid was he had sat next to. “Oh, just a guy I know from last year,” replied Alex and headed toward the door. “Where are you going?” his mother asked. “Nowhere,” Alex said. “Don’t worry.”

  As every parent quickly learns, school is about a great deal more than learning to read and write and do math. School represents a whole new world, the place where our sons will wrestle with many of the most important social, emotional, and psychological challenges of boyhood. It is where a boy will expand his knowledge, forge relationships, explore his abilities and limitations, and—we fervently hope—build a strong sense of self-esteem.

  For parents, the prospect of this new world of school is exciting, because they wish to see their children grow and succeed. It is also a matter of some concern because they know they will now be sharing the task of raising their child with the professionals: teachers, administrators, guidance counselors, and other school staff. From the ages of six to eighteen, our boys will spend the great majority of their waking hours at school. In any given week, a boy may see more of his math teacher than he will of his father or mother. He may spend more time on the school playing field than in the family living room. Especially in today’s busy and overstretched families—in which both parents often work long hours or where there is only one parent—school may become the arena where a boy works through many of the challenges of growing up male.

  Because of the tremendously important role that school plays in a boy’s life, I think that parents of a boy should be asking, “Does my son’s school have a sufficient understanding of the emotional challenges boys face in becoming confident, successful men? Do the school’s teachers and administrators know about the Boy Code? Do they understand the mask? Are they sympathetic to boys? Does the school teach subject matters and use classroom materials that interest my boy? Does it use approaches to teaching that will stimulate him and make him eager to learn? Is the school a place where my son feels safe, happy, and engaged, a place where he’d like to be?”

  I believe that much too often, the answer to these questions is No. Our schools, in general, are not sufficiently hospitable environments for boys and are not doing what they could to address boys’ unique social, academic, and emotional needs. Today’s typical coeducational schools have teachers and administrators who, though they don’t intend it, are often not particularly empathic to boys; they use curricula, classroom materials, and teaching methods that do not respond to how boys learn; and many of these schools are hardly places most of our boys long to spend time. Put simply, I believe most of our schools are failing our boys.

  They are failing them in at least four major ways. First, they simply do not appear to be doing a good job at noticing the problems many boys are having in certain academic subjects—namely, reading and writing. As a result, many boys are doing extremely poorly in these areas—less well than girls—and their self-esteem as learners is plummeting.

  Second, our schools and their teachers tend to be poorly versed in the specific social and emotional needs of our sons, and so they often handle these needs inappropriately or inadequately. Many of the specific difficulties boys face that we’ve discussed in this book—the old rigid Boy Code, the mask, the vicious cycle of shame and hardening—are poorly understood or completely ignored by many schools.

  Third, a good number of our schools are not environments that are either warm or friendly toward boys. Especially when boys misbehave, rather than probing behind the misconduct to discover their genuine emotional needs, there’s a prevalent tendency to interpret their behavior solely as a discipline problem. Because the myth of boys’ toxicity is still deeply entrenched within many school systems, teachers and school administrators are often permitted to become hostile toward boys—and so they may push our sons even further toward academic failure, low self-esteem, conduct disorders, and a host of other emotional and behavioral problems.

  Fourth, our schools generally do not have curricula and teaching methods designed to meet boys’ specific needs and interests. To date most coeducational schools have done little to investigate how they can make the classroom experience stimulating for boys. They have not developed boy-specific classroom materials. They have not been creative about making the materials they already have interesting for boys. They have not addressed boys’ unique learning styles and developed teaching methods that take them into account. And most of our elementary and middle schools have a dearth of male teachers. This sends an early and faulty message to our boys—that education and learning are primarily for girls and women.

  It is understandable that parents put a lot of faith and trust in schools and the people who run them. Depending on how curricula are structured, how classrooms are run, and what essential attitudes about boys prevail, a school can positively shape our boys and their behavioral development. On the other hand, it can confuse them and lead them terribly astray. Research shows that being part of a school that addresses who a boy really is and what he really needs can make a major difference in helping the boy not only to do well academically but to feel positively about himself and develop a strong healthy sense of his masculinity. A positive school experience, in short, can bolster a boy’s self-esteem.

  By contrast, attending a school that does not address boys’ specific concerns can affect whether our sons will fully realize their
academic potential, whether they will succeed at nonacademic activities such as sports and the arts, and whether they will find their way to a fulfilling social life. Worse, a difficult school experience may cause our sons to act out in class, suffer depression, become involved with drugs or alcohol, engage in inappropriate or unsafe sexual activities, or become either victims or perpetrators of violence. The quality of our schools may make all the difference for the academic and emotional success of our boys.

  Many of the schools I visit are trying hard to do well. Many teachers and administrators care greatly about boys. But often because of a lack of resources or of sufficient and/or appropriate training and understanding, a lot of our schools simply don’t know how to handle the specific challenges of teaching and supervising boys. They can be hindered in their efforts when they aren’t completely knowledgeable about boys, especially when they confuse the psychology of boys with that of girls. That is the subject of this chapter. While it may still seem like a “man’s world” from the perspective of power and wealth in adult society, in our schools boys on the whole are failing.

  THE BLACKBOARD JUMBLE: HOW ARE SCHOOLS FAILING BOYS AS STUDENTS?

  There has been a great deal of discussion in the past few years about the relative performance of boys and girls in the classroom. We have been told that schools shortchange girls, fail in providing gender equity and fairness, and actually hinder women’s intellectual advancement in society. While these objections have largely been substantiated, I believe that in the heat of the debate about girls we have failed to analyze how boys are doing in our public coeducational schools. In fact, many boys are not performing well.

  One of the reasons that boys are assumed to be doing well in school is that many of our most brilliant academic stars are boys, especially in math and science. According to one well-regarded study conducted by educational researchers at the University of Chicago, boys outnumbered girls by about 3 to 1 in the top 10 percent of math and science performers. In the top 1 percent, boys outnumbered girls by 7 to 1. In some science and vocational aptitude tests, no girls scored in the top 3 percent. These few boys are the academic superstars, and our focus on them has, I believe, skewed our perception of how boys are doing in general.

  According to the same University of Chicago study, there is a new gender gap with a predominant number of boys falling to the bottom of the heap. The study, which combined results of six major surveys of educational achievement spanning thirty years and involving thousands of children, showed that especially in relation to reading and writing skills—those most basic to functioning in our society—boys are in deep trouble. For reading comprehension, perceptual speed, or word association memory, boys outnumbered girls at the bottom of the scales by a margin of 2 to 1, and many fewer boys than girls scored in the top 10 percent of the groups.

  Another report, entitled The Condition of Education 1997, issued by the U.S. Department of Education, confirms the University of Chicago findings. At all age levels, it states, “females continue to outscore males in reading proficiency.” This deficiency is particularly disturbing because, as the report itself stressed, reading is a skill that is absolutely critical not only to the boy’s progress as a student but also to his overall lot in life.

  In addition to their problems with reading, boys are equally dogged by difficulties in learning how to write. The University of Chicago study found such large differences in boys’ and girls’ writing skills that Larry Hedges, who led the study, concluded that “males are, on average, at a rather profound disadvantage in the performance of this basic skill.” The Department of Education report confirms this, stating that for the last thirteen years females of all ages “have outscored males in writing proficiency.” The report characterizes writing as a fundamental skill we need to have not only to learn how to probe and understand ideas and information but also to motivate others to do so. It also explains that a deficiency in writing skills is likely to undermine one’s academic success as well as one’s prospects for a meaningful career.

  From these statistics, you might be tempted to conclude that girls are “naturally” good at reading and writing, boys “naturally” good at math and science. But, over the years, girls have steadily improved their performance in math and science. So, although they are still underrepresented in the very top echelon of performers, they are making steady progress. The same cannot be said of boys and reading.

  Secretary of Education Richard Riley spoke to Congress in 1997 about these basic reading and writing skills as being “make or break” points not only in children’s education or career achievement but also in their later life choices. In Riley’s words: “Teachers will tell you that. . . [poor readers] . . . often get down on themselves . . . become frustrated, and often head down the road to truancy and dropping out.” Then things can get worse: “Some . . . begin to make the wrong choices about drugs.”

  Boys’ weakness in the basic skills of reading and writing contributes to a variety of problems at school. For example, eighth-grade boys are 50 percent more likely to be held back a grade than girls. And, by high school, two thirds of all “special education students” are boys. Statistics also reveal that in general boys have a greater difficulty “adjusting” to school life, and constitute 71 percent of school suspensions.

  What’s more, the percentage of boys who attend college has dropped dramatically. Twenty years ago more boys went to college than girls. Today, only 58 percent of male high school graduates make it to college, as compared with 67 percent of females. Women earn approximately 55 percent of all bachelor’s degrees granted today, and the percentage continues to grow.

  Overwhelmingly, recent research indicates that girls not only feel more confident about themselves as learners but also show more vigor in the steps they take toward developing meaningful careers. For instance, when eighth-grade students are asked about their futures, girls are twice as likely as boys to aspire to a career in management, the professions, or business. A 1993 U.S. Department of Education study found that among high school seniors, fewer boys than girls expect to pursue graduate studies, law, or medical school. Fifty-nine percent of all master’s degree candidates are now women, with males’ percentages in graduate and doctoral training shrinking each year.

  These statistics show that there are many more boys at the lowest rungs of the ladder of academic achievement than we had ever imagined or been led to believe. The reality is that although there is an attention-getting handful of star performers, many boys muddle along in the mediocre middle, getting by as “average” students, and that the bottom of the class actually contains a majority of boys rather than girls. And, although the issue of girls and their lagging performance in math and science is now well acknowledged by the U.S. Department of Education as well as by numerous private educational foundations, and targeted as an area for research and program funding, the problem of boys and their poor reading and writing performance has received little or no attention whatsoever.

  BOYS’ POOR PERFORMANCE IS A GLOBAL ISSUE

  This pattern of academic “boy problems” is not confined to the United States. It exists across Western Europe and Australia as well. In England and Wales, girls uniformly score higher than boys in standardized tests conducted at ages five, seven, nine, and eleven. While boys still show some advantage in mathematics scores in the teen years, the major standard achievement measure for sixteen-year-olds (the GCSES) shows that 48 percent of girls—versus 39 percent of boys—receive the highest grades in five or more subjects.

  When poverty is factored in, the discrepancy between boys and girls doubles in favor of the girls. In the European Union, more girls complete secondary education, and in most West European countries, they stay on longer in all forms of postsecondary schooling. In New South Wales, Australia, a study found that the majority of “special”- and “support”-class occupants were boys, a finding that sparked a major educational debate. It was also shown that boys performed less well than girls in li
teracy tests, had lower scores on entrance exams for higher education, and left school earlier than girls.

  POOR PERFORMANCE LEADS TO A CRISIS

  IN SELF-ESTEEM AS LEARNERS

  Behind these disturbing statistics lies what I believe is an irrefutable yet underdiscussed reality: boys have a significant problem with their self-esteem as students.

  Several well-publicized large-scale surveys have shown a crisis of low self-esteem among adolescent girls. They’ve revealed that when girls don’t feel confident about themselves at school, their unique voices become suppressed and they begin to suffer emotionally and academically. While the attention these studies have garnered is commendable, I worry that they’ve led us to conclude that if girls are in trouble, boys must be doing fine, that if girls have low self-esteem, boys must feel confident about themselves as students.

  I believe that another reason we have failed to recognize boys’ low self-esteem is that some of the surveys used to assess self-esteem are not designed to generate accurate results for boys. They ask very direct questions about self-esteem, such as “Do you feel that you’re good at math?” or “How would you rate your reading abilities?” Boys, more than girls, have a tendency to answer such questions in the way they think they are “supposed to.” In other words, boys know the answers that will make them sound self-confident—as dictated by the Boy Code—and are quick to respond accordingly.

  In one study by Editha Notleman at the National Institute of Mental Health, for example, boys and girls were asked to rate themselves on how well they functioned academically during transitional periods in adolescence. Their teachers were also asked to rate their performance. The largest discrepancies between the students’ responses and those of the teachers were always found with the boys. The boys tended to inflate their scores, to brag and “puff” them up, perhaps because they were ashamed of their weaknesses as learners. The girls’ self-ratings, in contrast, were much closer to those of their teachers’ assessments. But there are many ways to measure self-esteem, some of which overcome the tendency of boys to brag and overstate their strengths. The Self-Concept as Learner Scale, developed by William Purkey at the University of North Carolina, uses indirect measures to pick up on students’ sense of self-image—i.e., on how well they feel they are doing within the school environment.