Isn't it interesting that they are finally catching up with Australia and
England who have been on the case for years. Its been an issue taken seriously
here in Oz since at least 1995. There is still a long way to go but BoysEd is
at least in the same grab bag as literacy, numeracy, quality teaching etc.
Now we have a state opposition in South Australia making it their education
platform to have boys only classes in schools.
Regards,
Chris
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,18002000%255E910,00.html
BOYS ONLY CLASSES
FOR CRUCIAL YEARS
Libs high school plan
By JEMMA CHAPMAN
01feb06
BOYS would be put into single-sex classes in public high schools as part of a
radical "men's policy" pledged by the Liberal Party.
In the lead-up to next month's state election, the Opposition has vowed to
introduce boys-only state school classes for Years 8, 9 and 10 in the core
subjects of English, maths and science as part of a broad policy to "rebalance
the agenda" between men's and women's issues. The plan is aimed at improving
male student performances and encouraging boys to stay at school longer.
Boys-only classes would include longer and more frequent "activity breaks" and
the curriculum would be altered to make it more appealing to boys, with a
greater emphasis on sport and physical activities. The Liberals' plan also
includes:
'); document.write(''); // End Hide -->
A FEASIBILITY study into setting up a boys' public high school,
similar to the Mitcham and Gepps Cross girls' schools. RETRAINING school
counsellors to direct them to encourage boys to consider teaching careers to
increase the number of male primary teachers. REDIRECTING funding from some
women's groups to services for men. A CAMPAIGN to encourage male victims of
domestic violence to "come out from the cloak of secrecy" and seek help.
Revealing details of the policy to The Advertiser yesterday, Opposition
families and communities spokeswoman Isobel Redmond said she believed
affirmative action to improve the rights of women had "done the job that it's
meant to do". "Do I think women are still downtrodden? No," she said. "I
think women today have as much opportunity as any male and in fact what we are
doing at the moment is the sting in the tail. "When we get to the point where
a female is getting the job because she's female and not the best person, I
think
that is demeaning for the female and unfair to the male. We should be
gender-neutral". Liberal Leader Rob Kerin said there were growing areas in
which men fared "significantly worse" than women, including health and
education. "Without wanting to turn the clock back to the unfairness of days
gone by when women lacked equality, it is time to recognise and address areas
in which males are falling behind," he said. Opposition education spokeswoman
Vickie Chapman said the boys-only classes would not require extra teachers and
would be introduced into schools where student numbers permitted. They would be
for such "core" subjects as English, maths and science. Ms Chapman said a
school with three Year 10 classes, for example, could have one boys-only class
and two mixed classes. "At the moment, we are providing a generic curriculum
and . . . there are aspects that are clearly more interesting to boys," Ms
Chapman said. "We (also) want to trial a change of school timetable to
include more activity breaks in the boys-only classes." Education Minister
Jane Lomax-Smith said the boys-only classes proposal, could increase class
sizes. "The reality is that high schools do not have even numbers of boys and
girls in each year level," she said. "The Opposition spokesperson needs to
explain how this half-baked and ill-conceived idea would work in SA schools
with no extra teachers. This is just a ploy by the Liberals to take local
control from schools and impose political ideology in the classroom. "Labor's
approach is to invest in more teachers, smaller class sizes and support for the
individual needs of each child, irrespective of their gender." Families and
Communities Minister Jay Weatherill ridiculed the policy. "It's a really
destructive way of handling a public policy debate to set up a conflict between
men and women and it really demonstrates a desperation in the Opposition," he
said.
Ferrel Christensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
FYI
---------- Forwarded message ----------
The letter below was published in The Washington Times on 1/23/06. The
special report to which it responds follows.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060122-111621-2691r_page2.htm
Boys, men and Band-Aids
I applaud The Washington Times for going down a politically incorrect road
and facing squarely a reality that we as a society generally have refused to
face -- the educational devastation that has been wrought upon boys and men
over the past four decades by the matriarchy that dominates education
("Academic underachievers," Page 1, yesterday).
While many attempts to improve the educational lot of boys and men are
reported in this article, in my opinion, they miss the core of the problem.
To properly locate the core -- and see just how far the pendulum has swung
-- one need only search two locations: (1) select any university Web site and
enter into its search engine the terms "women's studies" and "men's studies";
and (2) search anywhere for special programs, scholarships, fellowships and
grants of any kind that are restricted to one gender and see how many are set
aside only for girls and women versus how many are set aside only for boys
and men.
In my view, if we truly wish to improve the lives of boys and men and return
the educational pendulum to dead center, we must experience a massive change
in our social attitudes and come to view boys and men as worthy human beings
-- deserving not only of equality in educational opportunity but also of
civil and human rights as well.
As I see it, all else is but Band-Aids placed on a rapidly metastasizing
matriarchy.
GORDON E. FINLEY
Professor of Psychology
Florida International University
Miami
http://www.washingtontimes.com/specialreport/20060122-120546-2696r.htm
Academic underachievers
By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published January 22, 2006
First lady Laura Bush and a growing number of physicians, educators and
psychologists say Americans need to wake up and see that boys lag far behind
girls in school, and then demand that something be done.
Mrs. Bush, mother of two grown daughters, speaks at conferences and in
interviews about the declining status of boys in today's learning environment.
She
has charged that boys are being overlooked.
"I think we need to pay more attention to boys. I think we've paid a lot of
attention to girls for the last 30 years ... but we have actually neglected
boys," Mrs. Bush told Parade magazine early last year.
William Pollack, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School, agrees.
"Boys are suffering. They are sitting in classrooms where they can't perform
at the same level as girls and so cannot compete with girls," he says. "As a
result, they have lower self-esteem. The bottom line is that they are
suffering both academically and emotionally."
Mr. Pollack, who also serves as director of the Center for Men and Young Men
at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., points out that both upper-class
Caucasian boys and minority boys are failing.
"All in all, most schools across the country today are boy-uncentered," he
says.
Michael Gurian and Kathy Stevens, co-authors of "The Minds of Boys: Saving
Our Sons From Falling Behind in School and Life," back up claims that there is
a "crisis in male education" with data from the Department of Education, the
State Department and other sources. They point out that boys:
â¢Receive the majority of D and F grades given to students in most schools,
as high as 70 percent.
â¢Create 80 percent of classroom discipline problems.
â¢Account for 80 percent of high school dropouts.
â¢Represent 70 percent of children diagnosed with learning disabilities and
80 percent of those diagnosed with behavioral disorders.
â¢Are an average of a year to a year-and-a-half behind girls in reading and
writing skills. (Girls are behind boys in math and science, but to a lesser
degree.)
â¢Represent 80 percent of schoolchildren on Ritalin or other medications used
to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
â¢Make up less than 44 percent of America's college population.
Reversing the trend
To combat the trend of boys falling behind girls in school, the University
of Washington in Seattle turned to a college-preparatory program called the
Project Gear-Up .
The federally funded program is offered to disadvantaged high school boys in
the summer and on some weekends during the school year. It is designed to
show the students that a college education is vital for a successful future.
Project Gear-Up has a "rigorous focus" on mathematics and language arts,
says Thomas Calhoun, executive director. The boys get two hours of instruction
daily at the university. Project Gear-Up offers boys weekend workshops in
astronomy and other fields. Mr. Calhoun says after-school tutorial sessions will
be added as the program grows.
"We think we're doing a good thing," he says. "Academic rigor has been shown
to be the most important predictor of college success."
Asked why boys are falling behind girls in classrooms, Mr. Calhoun says:
"That is the $24 million question."
He cites "some differences in neurological and developmental patterns"
between the sexes as a possible explanation.
"The message does not come across that being smart is ... being cool," Mr.
Calhoun says.
For male students, this often translates into poor behavior, poor attendance
and poor achievement.
Further aggravating the situation, he says, "public schools tend to send the
most ill-equipped teachers to try to reach the most needy students."
In addition, "many schools are not providing a boy-friendly environment, and
they don't recognize that they are not boy-friendly," says Mrs. Stevens,
director of training at the Gurian Institute in Colorado, which aims to educate
teachers, administrators and parents about how learning differs between males
and females.
Mrs. Stevens says efforts to enhance learning for boys are moving slowly
because some fear that "we'll stop paying attention to girls if we focus more on
boys."
Data from the Department of Education show that in 2002, boys scored higher
than girls on College Board Advanced Placement examinations in five of six
subject areas. Boys outscored girls in social studies, English, calculus,
science and computer science, but fell behind in foreign language.
Jacquelynne Eccles, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan,
says the scores probably reflect "differences in test-taking strategies
between girls and boys" more than differences in competency.
"Girls report higher anxiety than boys when they take standardized tests,
and they tend to be more cautious in test-taking," Ms. Eccles says.
Scores tell a story
Federal data do show that fourth-, eighth- and 12th-grade girls outscored
boys in reading in 1992, and again in 2002 and 2003. Likewise, girls in those
grades outscored boys in writing in 1998 and 2002.
And a 2004 report by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES),
part of the Department of Education, said the "common perception that males
consistently outperform females in mathematics" has not been borne out by
scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test that measures
fourth- and eighth-graders in four subject areas.
"In mathematics, the gap between average scale scores has been quite small
and fluctuated only slightly between 1990 and 2003," the report said.
What's more, the data showed that in 2000, female public high school
graduates were more likely than males to take high-level mathematics and science
courses. The proportion of males was higher only in two courses -- calculus and
physics.
Ms. Eccles says no one should be surprised that girls fare better in school
today than boys.
"Girls have always gotten better grades than males. That's always been true.
On average, girls work harder than boys," she says.
Ms. Eccles says educators and parents raised concerns about this gender
differential as far back as the 1950s and '60s. At that time, she says, many
argued that schools were "feminizing" male students by requiring that they "sit
still" and be quiet all day.
"Back then, boys in the United States used to go to college more than girls,
since girls weren't really encouraged to do that. But the opportunities for
females have changed dramatically in the past 30 years," Ms. Eccles says.
The science of teaching
Some prominent scholars, such as Diane Ravitch, research professor of
education at New York University, disagree that schools favor girls.
"Girls get higher scores in reading, and boys get higher scores in math.
It's always been that way. No favoritism is being shown," says Ms. Ravitch, who
served as an assistant secretary of education during the administration of the
first President Bush.
But Mr. Gurian and Mrs. Stevens contend that a key reason boys are not
performing as well as girls is that there are neurobiological differences that
are
not recognized by most teachers.
"We have an industrial schooling system to educate the greatest number of
people, and this system -- with its emphasis on reading, writing and talking --
is set up for the female brain, not the male," Mr. Gurian says. "And this
verbally motivated environment will leave out large groups of males, who are not
very verbal."
He says boys cannot benefit optimally in an environment where they are under
tight control.
"When boys sit down, their brain shuts down," Mr. Gurian says.
Some boys need to be more active in the classroom, and because of this, they
are more likely to become discipline problems, he says. Although Mr. Gurian
acknowledges that not all boys will be lost in the current system, about five
boys in a class of 30 will be left behind.
Mr. Pollack, author of "Real Boys," says it long was thought that boys could
take care of their own problems and didn't require special attention.
"Boys can't be sad, so they get angry and act up or act out," upsetting
classroom calm, he says.
"I've worked with some schools in California where boys are given chairs on
wheels so they can move around more. Some of these schools have a 'brain
bank' in the center of the classroom, where boys can work with computers and
calculators," he says.
Mr. Pollack, who thinks such reforms are beneficial, says one trend that
hurts boys is the emphasis on teaching children to read and write earlier -- in
kindergarten rather than in first or second grade.
"Boys, on average, learn to read and write 12 months later than girls to
begin with," so forcing these skills on them a year or two earlier makes it
harder for them to achieve, Mr. Pollack says.
Separating the sexes
Dr. Leonard Sax, a family physician in Poolesville, says he thinks the
solution to helping boys achieve in school is separating them from girls in the
classroom.
Dr. Sax, a research psychologist and author of "Why Gender Matters: What
Parents and Teachers Need to Know About the Emerging Science of Sex
Differences," says there are "profound" differences between boys and girls in
areas such
as brain development and circuitry.
Dr. Sax cites these differences:
â¢In girls, the language areas of the brain develop before the areas used for
spatial relations and geometry. In boys, it's the opposite.
â¢The brains of boys and girls are wired differently. In girls, emotion is
processed in the same area of the brain that processes language. But in boys,
the regions of the brain involved in talking are separate from those involved
in feeling. So it's easier for most girls to talk about their emotions than
boys.
â¢Girls hear better. The typical teenage girl has a sense of hearing seven
times more acute than a teenage boy.
â¢Stress enhances learning in boys, but impairs learning in girls. (As Ms.
Eccles notes, this could be a reason why boys do better than girls on College
Board Advanced Placement exams.)
Dr. Sax says about 200 public schools nationwide offer separate-sex
classrooms.
He cites promising results at Woodward Avenue Elementary School in DeLand,
Fla., where fourth-graders last year were randomly assigned to a
coeducational class or to an all-boys or all-girls class.
"In the coed class, at the end of the year, 59 percent of girls and 37
percent of boys were proficient in writing," he says. "In the all-girls class,
75
percent of the students were proficient in writing, and, in the all-boys
class, 86 percent were proficient in writing."
JoAnne Rodkey, the school's principal, says both girls and boys in
single-sex classes also significantly outscored students in coed classes in
reading.
"Boys need more activity than girls, so more activity is built into the
lessons for boys. Teachers learn what needs to be changed to meet the needs of
boys," Mrs. Rodkey says. "As long as interest in and success with [single-sex
classes] are there, we'll likely expand these programs."
Heidi Glidden, a researcher for the American Federation of Teachers, says
her organization does not endorse the "single-sex classroom*" because research
on its outcome is "mixed."
"We're in favor of gender equity, but we support other proven methods" for
reaching at-risk students "such as smaller class size," Ms. Glidden says.
Regardless of whether boys and girls are separated in the classroom, Mr.
Calhoun says, "All young people need a push. But not enough resources have been
directed at boys and men."
â¢Researchers Amy Basker-ville and John Sopko contributed to this article.
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