[by:¿É¿ÉÓ¢Óï¡«www.utensil-race.com]
[00:00.10] Next, we turn to the latest in our series Parenting Now.
[00:03.37] Last night, we focused on concerns about raising girls and the ways our culture shapes their identity.
[00:09.48] Tonight, we turn to questions about that challenge of raising boys.
[00:13.57] In the classroom, it has long been a given that girls perform better than boys, but that academic achievement gap has now widened beyond elementary school level,
[00:27.08] to high school and college, where experts are increasingly concerned that boys are falling behind.
[00:34.55] When it comes to test scores, girls have essentially closed the math gap with boys.
[00:40.35] But boys have not closed the reading gap with girls.
[00:43.56] Reading scores show girls seven points ahead by fourth grade, a difference that grows to 10 points by eighth grade,
[00:51.05] and remains there through high school.
[00:54.01] Boys also lag when it comes to grade point averages, and in every state, they drop out of school at a slightly higher rate.
[01:02.07] By the time they get to college, 57 percent of all bachelor's degrees are being awarded to women.
[01:08.41] For boys who are poor and of color, the situation can be profoundly worse.
[01:13.47] Black boys in public schools score almost 30 points lower on reading and math than white boys by fourth grade.
[01:22.00] They account for one fifth of all school expulsions.
[01:25.38] And dropout rates for Latino and African American boys are substantially worse.
[01:30.26] T'Roya Jackson, who dropped out of high school in Washington, D.C., is raising a 2-year old son.
[01:36.33] She says she realizes that education must be a higher priority for her child.
[01:41.53] I 'm very concerned for him, especially in this day and age, especially for him being an African American male,
[01:48.49] and just today, period.
[01:51.56] It's crazy.
[01:52.52] Statistics are only part of the story.
[01:55.13] Educators, psychologists and child welfare experts are also concerned about the messages that boys get about masculinity.
[02:02.55] Stop crying.
[02:03.33] Stop with the tears.
[02:04.19] do not cry.
[02:05.06] That's the focus of an upcoming documentary called" The Mask You Live In." Its trailer was a viral hit.
[02:12.03] In good times, guys are like really close to each other.
[02:15.29] But when things get a little bit worse, you 're on your own.
[02:18.05] From middle school, I had four really close friends.
[02:21.07] But once I kind of went into high school, I struggled finding people I could talk to,
[02:24.47] because I feel like I 'm not supposed to get help.
[02:27.19] As government sponsored programs like the White House initiative's My Brother Keeper begin to shed a light on what is happening to boys,
[02:34.45] parents are on the hunt for solutions.
[02:38.04] So do these issues make it harder for parents to raise boys?
[02:42.04] For that and more, I am joined by Michael Thompson, author of" It's a Boy" and" Raising Cain.
[02:47.24]" He is a psychologist specializing in the emotional health of boys.
[02:51.14] Christina Hoff Sommers, author of" The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men," she is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
[03:01.04] And Ashanti Branch, vice principal at Montera Middle School in California and founder of the Ever Forward Club, an after school program that helps minority boys succeed academically.
[03:12.08] Christina Hoff Sommers, in a world that is ruled by men, why are we worried about boys?
[03:16.09]" The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men": Well, it may be ruled by men, but boys are not in charge in school.
[03:22.00] And they 're falling seriously behind girls, with no end in sight.
[03:25.52] Why do you think that is?
[03:27.20] I think it's complicated.
[03:28.45] It turns out that the broken families have just a far worse effect on a young man's educational prospects.
[03:36.14] We did not know that.
[03:36.58] We 're now learning it.
[03:38.08] Secondly, I think that our schools have become very accommodating to girls, almost places where, I think,
[03:45.02] as Michael Thompson has said, the girls are the gold standard and boys are treated sort of as defective males.
[03:50.17] And we have to meet boys halfway.
[03:52.49] There are different ª we have to acknowledge that boys and girls are different, they have somewhat different needs.
[03:57.26] And I think we 're doing a fairly good job meeting the needs of girls, and boys have been left behind.
[04:02.46] Michael Thompson, let me ask you about that gold standard comment.
[04:05.57] Is it true that girls are the gold standard?
[04:08.32] And, if so, what are the obstacles that are being placed in the way of boys?
[04:11.43]" Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys": Look, by school age, three quarters of boys are more physically active and more impulsive than any girls in the class.
[04:19.33] It's very hard for teachers not to wish that the boys were a little bit more like girls and they could sit longer,
[04:25.20] especially when teachers are under pressure to produce results in high stakes testing.
[04:31.39] And so the inclination is to more seat time, more pressure, less recess.
[04:37.02] And so they punish boys by taking recess away.
[04:40.04] They do not let them move.
[04:41.41] And then, all of a sudden, we have an epidemic of ADHD, with boys who are feeling like school is jail and that they 're constantly in trouble.
[04:50.32] Ashanti Branch, let me give a real time check.
[04:54.30] You are dealing with boys every day.
[04:56.11] You 're in the classroom, have been for more than a decade.
[04:58.46] How much of this issue is academic and how much of it is emotional and ª or are they the same thing?
[05:05.48] You know, I worked high school teaching math for 10 years.
[05:09.25] And I realized that there was something happening.
[05:12.55] I never really knew why the men seem to have such a challenge with the spatial issue,
[05:20.06] with the sitting still and focusing.
[05:22.51] But I realized ª I went through a training called" Boys and Girls Learn Differently." And from there,
[05:28.05] learning how the brain differences are happening between boys and girls helped me really become clearer about that worked.
[05:34.15] Doing the work, after school program, and doing the mentoring, that is a different type of style.
[05:38.56] So, we always do fun first.
[05:40.14] We do fun so they can get all the energy out.
[05:42.52] Then we can sit down and talk about things.
[05:44.27] But, as a math teacher, it was a very different interest.
[05:47.43] Right now at a middle school, the boys are getting in trouble a lot more often.
[05:51.50] They are definitely having a lot more challenge with focusing and disturbing others and bothering each other.
[05:58.20] So, there's a lot more challenges for them.
[06:00.28] Mr. Branch, I 'm curious whether part of this is that boys are rewarded for ª among each other for literally being too cool for school,
[06:09.16] for not being that invested or thinking there's much reward in academic achievement.
[06:15.10] You know, when I started the program, it was for that reason.
[06:17.49] I had smart boys in my class who were failing.
[06:21.00] And I said, why are you all failing my class?
[06:23.20] Like, I 'm here for you to be successful.
[06:26.21] And they ª they said, well, you do not get respect walking around with a big heavy backpack.
[06:31.59] That's not cool.
[06:33.17] Right?
[06:33.26] So, if you are going to be cool, you have got to act certain ways and you can not be too smart.
[06:37.37] And so we began to try and figure out strategies for them to be able to not only be successful,
[06:42.12] but also feel like they were being cool to who they were trying to impress, which,
[06:46.48] for most times, the girls.
[06:48.25] Christina Hoff Sommers, in your book, or your article about this, in your writing about this, you have said feminism is to blame.
[06:55.17] What do you mean?
[06:55.36] Oh, yes.
[06:56.29] That was a bit of a misunderstanding, because I said how misguided feminist policies have harmed our young mean.
[07:01.49] I did not mean to impugn feminism.
[07:03.16] And I think people thought that is what I was saying.
[07:05.24] Well, tell me what you did mean.
[07:06.20] What I did mean is that there ª that women's groups organized, and they rallied around girls in areas where girls genuinely needed help,
[07:16.34] math and science.
[07:17.39] And a lot of what they did was very good.
[07:19.51] But, at the same time, they carried a message that, oh, boys are not in trouble.
[07:23.32] The patriarchy has their back, they are fine.
[07:26.17] They were not fine.
[07:27.39] And so boys were neglected.
[07:29.52] And so it was a misguided application of feminism, not feminism itself ª misguided.
[07:35.14] And the idea that almost ª sometimes there are some women's groups that gave the idea that,
[07:39.57] oh, well, there are two teams, the men's teams and the women's team, and we have got to root for the women.
[07:44.05] Well, I think that we 're all in this together.
[07:46.42] Who was doing the neglecting?
[07:48.12] You say boys were neglected.
[07:49.21] Was it being done in a classroom?
[07:51.00] Was it being done at home?
[07:52.11] I think it was groups.
[07:53.41] There were certain groups, the American Association of University Women.
[07:56.10] I do not want to impugn them, because they did a lot to help girls.
[07:58.53] But they sort of covered up the problems with boys.
[08:01.36] I think when we first discovered how salient gender is in education, we did a good job addressing the girls ' issues and neglected the boys.
[08:08.58] Michael Thompson, let's talk about that, because this series is about parenting.
[08:12.39] And I do wonder what parents ' role is in this underachievement we have been talking about.
[08:19.11] Gwen, parents tell me all the time that they had not understood how hard it was for boys in school until they had a boy.
[08:25.07] Moms are telling me this.
[08:26.50] Boys often feel that school is set against them.
[08:30.21] And by second or third grade, they have taken their soul out of school.
[08:33.44] And it's with their town team, the thing that their father comes to watch.
[08:37.47] And they think, all right, I can be a boy and a man outside of school, but school is going to pin me down and make me feel bad.
[08:46.27] I had an educator tell me, boys in 1,000 years would never have invented school.
[08:51.35] But what goes on in the subject matter is always interesting to them.
[08:55.29] So, we have to find a way to use teamwork, movement, competition, a public product.
[09:02.19] We have to get boys up and energized.
[09:05.20] There are too many teachers who worship the quiet solo learner who puts a nice border around the paper and hands it in and wants to please the teacher.
[09:15.52] Boys are often pleasing themselves, that is, pleasing their group.
[09:20.05] And so if you can get boys to work as a team, if you can get them to compete,
[09:26.09] they are more energized and they will do better academically.
[09:30.15] People say, well, boys do not like to write.
[09:32.16] But they will write a screenplay and film it and show it.
[09:35.24] They will do that with great enthusiasm.
[09:37.44] Ashanti Branch, is that your experience as well?
[09:40.58] Yes, absolutely.
[09:41.39] I think what's happening in a lot of the classrooms is that students are ª the young men,
[09:46.35] they are fidgeting and they 're moving and they 're making noise because their desk is crickety.
[09:51.23] And so, therefore, the teacher is feeling like, why are you disturbing the rest of the class?
[09:55.11] And they 're just ª their bodies just do not want to sit still.
[09:58.01] And I think that one of the challenges is that teachers say, be still, and their brain is saying,
[10:02.12] I need to move.
[10:02.54] And that's a hard battle right there.
[10:04.34] That's a battle.
[10:05.17] As an educator, when I 'm in a meeting for longer than an hour, I need to move.
[10:09.12] So, for students, for these young ones who are ª their brains are moving, developing very fast,
[10:14.13] their bodies are ready for a lot of energy, and to be sedentary is driving them up the wall,
[10:21.17] and which is definitely creating a challenge with the teachers.
[10:23.50] And then they come to my office and I 'm like, well, what happened?
[10:25.52] And they say, well, I fell out of my seat, right?
[10:28.25] And so it's like, all these things that are happening with them is things that we got to find way of supporting them in the way they learn.
[10:35.09] How much of this is exacerbated, Christina Hoff Sommers, by the growth in single parent families, by absence of fathers in this?
[10:43.49] Yes.
[10:44.04] An excellent study by a think tank, Third Way, it's conservative and liberal researchers coming together to find solutions.
[10:50.40] And what they found was that, in a family with a single mom, for some reason,
[10:56.10] the girl is inspired.
[10:57.26] The mother is her role model.
[10:58.50] Now, boys love their moms, but the mom is not the role model.
[11:02.18] And so he tends to turns away and withdraw.
[11:04.57] And what happens is, we have a large ª a growing number of boys who are alienated from education.
[11:11.14] They do not have male role models to emulate.
[11:14.08] They tend to go with their peers.
[11:16.39] And so they ª that is just another dimension of the problem.
[11:19.44] Michael Thompson, I am a single mother or a married mother trying to raise a boy, what are the tips you give to try to get around some of these pitfalls?
[11:28.23] Well, first, you have to trust boy development.
[11:30.48] Boy development is slower than girl development.
[11:33.11] Girls are ahead, obviously, in early adolescence.
[11:39.22] And boys are taking longer to catch up.
[11:42.00] But if you can ignite their enthusiasm and their passion, they will do work for you.
[11:47.46] If you constantly discipline them, suspend them, expel them ª and we have a lot of evidence that the zero tolerance policies fell very heavily on boys,
[11:59.06] and they did not help.
[12:01.25] So, we have to get more teachers who are good with boys.
[12:05.25] And that can be women, but it would be helpful if we had more men in school.
[12:09.07] It would be helpful if we had more programs for fathers to come into school.
[12:13.51] But we also have to teach people that boy development, their activity and the kind of stories that they love,
[12:20.47] the kind of adventure and science fiction and superpowers that they love are not dangerous, not leading to violence.
[12:27.32] There are too many people who think that everything boys seem to love is dangerous.
[12:33.22] Michael Thompson, Christina Hoff Sommers, Ashanti Branch, thank you all very much for an interesting conversation.
[12:40.48] Thank you.
[12:41.24] Thank you.
[12:42.13] There's more from Michael Thompson online.
[12:44.03] He and author Marie Rocker Jones put together 10 tips for helping boys achieve their academic potential.