Right problem, wrong solution. How to help boys in school.

Here’s a study looking at mostly white, British boys published in Child Development which confirms what the MHRM has been saying for years: that boys face negative gender stereotypes in school which have a dramatic effect on their performance.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/sfri-nsa020513.php

By the time they are in the first grade, little boys have internalized the message that they are not as good as little girls. That little girls will behave better, perform better and achieve more than they will.

The idea that negative stereotypes can be a self-fulfilling prophesy is not news and has been confirmed many times over. When black students are confronted with images of negative stereotypes about black students, they perform much worse on tests of achievement. It’s called a “stereotype threat” and it isn’t the slightest bit controversial.

http://serpmedia.org/MSAN/motivation/Aronson_2002.pdf

What’s interesting in the work on racial stereotypes is that the efforts to counter the effect of stereotype threat do not focus on convincing any particular racial group that they are perfectly capable of emulating the dominant white group, but rather that their own particular racial identity is NO BARRIER to achievement.

Free your mind, and your ass will follow.

Efforts to counter the stereotype threat for race DO NOT involve encouraging the minority group to behave just like the white folks do. Being a “banana” or an “oreo” or an “apple” is, quite rightly, considered deeply offensive. There is no requirement that you be your color on the outside and white on the inside.

Let’s keep that in mind.

Let’s hop in our time machine and go back to the family-centered culture that dominated after the Second World War in all the major Western countries. It was a time of unparalleled technological and scientific achievement and the domestic birth rates soared. An average American family had four children, supported by one man, earning a family wage.

The idea that children need to play to learn was utterly, completely obvious. Mothers who actually raised their own children, spent time with them, and knew them would have been flabbergasted at the notion that children should sit quietly all day “learning”. On the contrary. Since Mommy had to clean up after her little darlings, the first thing out of her mouth once breakfast was over would have been GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY!

Today’s mothers, on the other hand, barely see their children, have no idea what they do all day, are crippled with guilt (rightly so) and sickened at the thought that something bad is going to happen to them. Rather than look at their own lives, and how destructive the drive to “personal fulfilment” is for children, they look around for someone to blame, and guess what?

Oh shock and surprise!

Rapists! Murderers! Kidnappers! Paedophiles! Abusers! Robbers! Sadists!

THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!

And of course, by all those terms, we mean MEN.

See this girl? She raped, kidnapped and murdered three young women, including her own sister, but she’s not the one we’re afraid of when we refuse to let Suzie and Johnny play at the park, is she?

She’s out of jail, now, by the way, and the mother to three children of her own. One for every life she took. Her husband, who was partner to the crimes, will never see the light of day again.

http://news.nationalpost.com/tag/karla-homolka/

Well, that seems fair, no?

So, if children are not to be allowed outside to play anymore, what are they to do? If we are not going to hold ourselves accountable, as parents, for their well-being, whom can we hold?

Oh, I know. Let’s make teachers accountable! Of course, they will have no powers to discipline our special, special snowflakes, but that doesn’t matter. We can still hold them accountable. We want measurable achievements, people! Proof that you are doing your job, although don’t ask me for proof I’m doing mine.

That’s crazytalk.

Schools, especially primary schools have been held to ever increasing accountability measures, especially at the primary level. Children must be able to demonstrate, on paper, that they are learning …. well, basically, to be girls.

Click to access Pellegrini.pdf

DO

Sit quietly

Read silently

Glitter your paper calmly

Speak softly

Cooperate gently

Listen submissively

Follow orders diligently

DO NOT

Run

Jump

Play

Roughhouse

Shout

Compete

Show defiance

Show resilience

Get knocked down, and get up again to fight another day

Obviously, you can’t have a classroom full of shouting, jumping, competing little maniacs. That would be chaos. What you CAN have is a playground full of shouting, jumping, competing little maniacs.

It used to be called RECESS, and it was the part of the day that allowed boys to shine, and to be boys. The days used to be split, pretty evenly, between activities that most girls loved to do and activities that most boys loved to do and that split allowed quiet boys and rambunctious girls to find their own places and thrive according to their own unique personalities.

We have now created a school system that is an oasis for girls and that outright punishes boys for being boys. Schools have pulled out playground equipment and have banned balls and won’t let children out if there is ice on the ground and it has all become complete fucking madness.

Let’s go back to that study. What did researchers do to counter the stereotype threat against boys? They praised little boys for acting like little girls. In an act of utterly cruel emotional manipulation, they took aside the little boys and explained to them that they were JUST THE SAME AS LITTLE GIRLS, and encouraged them to compete on the girl’s terms. Little boys, being every bit as emotionally vulnerable as little girls, tried their best. Their soft little hearts long for approval, for recognition, for love, for acceptance, just as girl’s do. Why?

Because they’re human beings, that’s why!

That’s the solution these female (shock!) researchers have come up with. Let’s manipulate little boys into thinking that little girls really ARE better and that they can be better, too.

As long as they act like girls.

What’s a good word for male on outside and female on the inside? I’m not sure, but I’m open to suggestions.

The solution is really very simple. Bring back recess. Bring back outdoor play. Let children scramble and tussle and compete and play. Adults need to be on hand to intervene in bullying, and that includes all sorts of bullying. Teasing chubby little Imogen until she gets an eating disorder is just as violent as beating little Rupert for loving Bratz dolls.

Boys are not girls. They learn differently and have different interests. And the reality is that while girls may perform better in the current school climate, they parlay that achievement into literature and sociology degrees, and not into engineering or computer science PhDs.

Knocking down boys is not just devastating for the boys in question. It is devastating for our whole society. Teaching them they are not as good as girls is destroying our technological and scientific advantage and we will all pay dearly for that.

And teaching girls they are better than boys? Well there’s your answer, if you want to know why women are such self-absorbed, narcissists incapable of taking any objective, quantifiable measure of what they actually contribute to the world.

Negative stereotypes about boys hurt us all. Be the change you want to see in the world. Hand your son a hockey stick and a puck and tell him to go outside and play. Tell him to watch for cars. That’s the real danger he faces. Even the ones driven by women.

Lots of love,

JB