Althouse: "We need to stop blaming, suspecting and overly medicating our boys, as if we can change this guy into the learner we want."

December 4, 2005

"We need to stop blaming, suspecting and overly medicating our boys, as if we can change this guy into the learner we want."

"When we decide -- as we did with our daughters -- that there isn't anything inherently wrong with our sons, when we look closely at the system that boys learn in, we will discover these boys again, for all that they are."

From an article in the Washington Post, analyzing the gender gap in higher education. Via Gordon Smith.

Here's an old post of mine on the topic of the male/female imbalance. I find it interesting that Gordon says, "The biggest change over the past 15 years is that gender is no longer a diversity factor in admissions." I think he means that femaleness is no longer a plus factor. But I don't think he ought to be assuming that maleness hasn't become a plus factor.

8 comments:

The Drill SGT said...: Ultimately, unless this trend can be reversed, it will result in the disintegration of society as we know it today.

I think one of the points that the author implied but did not state clearly was that boys learn better by doing than by being lectured. Sitting there, they get antsy and distracted very easily.

Boys historicly learned by watching their fathers. "In his father's footsteps" on the farm, in an apprenticeship or on the factory floor. The Mentor may not have been a real father, but were surrogate males who taught the traditions, skills, and mores needed to succeed.

He talks about formal schools and about prison, but fails to make the connection. We don't have guilds, or family farms in great numbers or many factory floors with multiple generations working them anymore, or hunting parties

We do have Gangs! In the absence of fathers and looking at a formal education system that fails boys, more and more boys learn skills in gangs. For the most part Bad Gangs.

However, as some have described it the military is a "Gang led by adults". Beyond schools, the best education and transition tool into productive adult-hood had been the military. The military has understood how to teach boys with hands on learning, drills and one on one mentoring. Many boys who dropped out of school had their lives turned around in the military. I'm one of them.; 12/4/05, 11:44 AM
The Drill SGT said...: Slocum,

In support of my comment and taking a page from yours,

- turning math and science classes into something akin to subdisciplines of english and social studies ('constructivist math', 'writing across the curriculum' programs)

The HS science classes in my day (40) years ago had a high "Lab" component, e.g. hands on "doing" stuff. . My perception of today's classes have less of that. I was stuck on my back in bed having screwed up my knee. My chem instructor sent materials (beakers, flasks, chemicals) home and I did labs on a card table.

I taught math in the Army to soldiers attempting to get into West Point. Basically HS math and college freshman math (algebra/Geo/Trig through basic Calculus/logic). The method we used mimicked that used at WP, which emphasized lots of quizzes and daily work "on the boards" where all the students would go to the blackboards at the same time, either doing a new problem or preparing to present a homework problem. Then students would present/defend their work.

not a passive method.; 12/4/05, 2:20 PM
Adriana Bliss said...: The term, "medicating" in the article and in the comments seems to be used without consideration to its effectiveness. I don't believe parents would be medicating without seeing results. Clinically speaking, if the medication doesn't work, then there is no medical problem and the problem IS in the classroom. If the meds work, then there IS a medical problem that should or can be dealt with medicinally.; 12/4/05, 6:03 PM
The Drill SGT said...: Adriana,

Unless of course that the behavior being medicated out of little boys is boyish. I have heard of cases where female teacher takes boy to female school child psychologist, who identifies a problem, notifies the young mother that the boy has ADD and they have the female Doc prescribe.

Boys really are boys. If you've been around both boys and girls, they really have different behaviors even before hormones.

I think perhaps that boys are over medicated overall.

The fact that a medicated boy sits quietly in class doesn't mean that the medication was needed or that he is now learning better. After all, over medication is the technique of choice in warehousing mental patients as well.; 12/4/05, 7:00 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Interesting article, and just as interesting comments.

I watch my daughter in school, and while I would have done as well on the quizes and tests, she also gets in all her homework. I didn't. Back 40 years ago when I was in high school, in many of my classes, if I could ace the tests, I could get an "A", even if I blew off the homework, as I often did. After all, if I could get one of the top scores on the tests, what was the purpose of homework? But that doesn't work any more. I would be lucky in her classes to get a "C".

So, despite getting high SATs, I would probably find myself in a community college instead of a nice liberal arts college (ok, so they can't beat Wisc. in hockey this year - its still a good school).; 12/4/05, 7:35 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: I think one thing that we have talked about before here is that single sex schools might be very useful here. Maybe not for everyone one, but I see a lot of boys benefitting from a male learning environment where they are not being treated as deficient girls.; 12/4/05, 7:37 PM
Adriana Bliss said...: Slocum,

Which online program does your son use? I'm interested in that as an option for my son.; 12/5/05, 10:39 AM
Instructivist said...: And I can't begin to tell you how much both my kids (a girl and boy) both despise pointless 'hands-on' excercizes.

You might be interested in a critique of pervasive, trivial and time-consuming busywork in the form of endless "hands-on" activities and projects:

http://instructivist.blogspot.com/2005/05/trivial-hands-on-activities.html; 1/24/06, 12:03 PM