Lending a Helping Hand in Our Children's Future

I'm sure you've heard of the popular school-yard taunt "Girls go to college to get more knowledge, boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider" that gets chanted around the playground sometimes. The words "boys" and "girls" can be used interchangeably depending on who's chanting. In today's educational society, there have been a large number studies and research that have statistics on the idea that boys are struggling in the classroom and not obtaining as many higher education degrees as women. Scientists and professionals are looking into why this might be occurring. 
In a New York Times article, "The Boys at the Back," Christina Hoff Sommers raises the issue of the overall average boy falling behind in school. She questions what we should do about the alarming data; take pride that women are finally overcoming men? or try to equalize the way our education system is running to help young boys achieve better results on tests than they are now? The comments that follow her article are pretty critical and I suggest you read it, but she points out that "Women now account for roughly 60 percent of associate's, bachelor's, and master's degrees and have begun to outpace men in obtaining Ph. D.'s" Sommers throws data at the reader to try to open their eyes and realize that our male counterparts are really struggling. 

In Lise Eliot's book, Pink Brain Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps --- And What We Can Do About It, she does a good job explaining a few ideas we've all heard of that divide both sexes, but she introduces how/why those differences may be caused through nurturing and/or biologically. In Chapter 4, "Starting School," Eliot explains the meaning behind inhibitory control and how that explains a lot of a young boys behavior in school. She defines inhibitory control by saying that, "Though we tend to think of development as the gradual addition of new skills, in fact, much of growing up involves the ability to suppress behavior--to stop moving, or talking, or elbowing the kid next to you when you should be listening to your teacher, reading a book…" (Eliot 148). She explains how young boys' frontal lobes are the slowest region of the cerebral cortex to mature which is the region where this inhibition takes place. This explains why age 5 or 6 year old boys measured less than girls in self-control, impulsivity, and following rules. She also states that, "Differences in inhibitory control persist through childhood and, by certain measures, well into the teens" (149). Eliot then stresses several keys points that maybe we as a society can do in order to better promote the environment for boys at an early stage. She suggests the following: more movement, less lecturing, more action, training inhibitory control, more manipulatives, tempt them with technology, practicing penmanship without penalty, competition as a lure, and male teachers. I highly suggest reading her book because of the interesting points she makes.

I believe that, as Eliot points out, "As is often the case, stereotypes about sex differences are greater than the actual differences themselves" (157). I do think that everything a child learns when first entering school is a very critical time period that shapes the child's brain into developing into an aspiring intellectual. I also believe that not all the studies and articles we hear or read about have accurate or recent data so the "factual information" we may hear about may be greater than the actual realization of what actually happens in the classroom. A girl's brain and a boy's brain are wired differently; girls have slightly higher scores in reading and writing, boys have slightly higher scores in spatial and hands-on tasks (156). With this in mind, the educational curriculum can help both genders by having them do both tasks. So Sommer's article suggested taking pride in ambitious women or helping boys succeed in the classroom while Eliot states her research on education today and suggests a new educational approach to help boys. I believe that by equalizing educational approaches towards teaching young children, both genders will benefit in the long run.

Sources:Elliot, Lise. “Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome     Gaps and What We Can Do About It.” New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. 2009. Print

Sommers, Christina H. "The Boys at the Back." Opinionator The Boys at the Back Comments. The New York Times, 2 Feb. 2013. Web. 28 Feb. 2014. <http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/02/the-boys-at-the-back/?action=click&module=Search®ion=searchResults%230&version=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%23%2Fboys%2Bin%2Bschool%2F>.