I have two boys. Yeah, I know, ALL of you know that. I live in a house that is strongly tipped in the favor of the Y chromosome. Even my Labrador is a boy. While, that in itself makes for some really interesting and hilarious experiences, it also exposes me so much to the male thinking. One complaint I hear very often from both my children these days is that many teachers show a distinct bias towards girls.
I heard that girls are allowed not to play in games periods. They are also allowed to not do the march past practice if they so want. The PT teachers who are generally monsters in the guise of humans are very gentle with them while being physical and verbally more colorful with the boys.
Boys are being subject to more physical and verbal abuse in schools
And, this is the strangest, there are girls who cry at the drop of the hat so that the teacher will increase half mark that they lost due to their silly mistakes. Seriously, I’ve heard men complain about women using their tears as weapons, but this truly is stretching it too far. It is also an established fact by research that better behavior in class often gets rewarded with better grades even when the performance of two children (irrespective of gender) has been academically similar.
A teacher must be seen as fair and unbiased in evaluation
I am a proud member of my tribe who takes up for the girls instantly. But the fair-minded me finds it very hard to justify this behavior. Is it just some rattled boys making random observations to bring down girls or is there some truth to it? When I look back at my own memories of school days, I don’t remember us getting any respite from any PT or games. What the boys did, the girls did as well. I remember the march past practice used to be so harsh in the hot, humid Mumbai sun that some girl or the other would invariably faint. Yet, there was no letting up for girls.
Do teachers actively discriminate between boys and girls?
Yes, the teachers would not hit girls. This was back in those days when teachers did use force on children. I guess that is simply because one treats the female gender more gently. But my son questioned why should girls be respected, and it be accepted by teachers that boys can be shoved around and hit? I really had no answer to that. That is certainly not right!
In a way, are we reinforcing the rough and tough, machismo image for boys and advocating that violence is okay.
Things like chivalry and allowing another person concessions once in a while just because they are of another gender is a concept very difficult to grasp for boys. It only hits them when they get older and start dating. Even then most liberal girls don’t want to be treated any differently and prefer paying their own bills too. Since girls (at least in the schools my sons go to) are in every way similar to them, come from similar affluence and are perhaps even more competitive, boys are very confused when girls are treated with kids’ gloves, and they are given preferential treatment . As a matter of fact, I was surprised to hear that in one of the class debates, the girls had accused boys (and their ilk) of being selfish, mean and anti-women. Clearly, that does still happen in society. But blanket statements like these only achieve in annoying an entire gender which may not be at fault.
Are we alienating boys or stereotyping them due to the attitude of their predecessors?
Finally, studies have proven that boys at younger ages have the problem of inattention and of being less organized and focused. With co-education, often this problem is not addressed. Assignments catering to their strengths are not given very often, as those topics are considered geeky and obtuse. What is with such a skewed emphasis on Arts and Crafts assignments in school anyway? I can tell you that both my boys are equally bad at them. And the onus of doing their projects falls on me not that I dig craft.
There is a dearth of male focused methodology of teaching and assignments.
These last lines by Christina Hoff Sommers sum up my feelings aptly.
“I became a feminist in the 1970s because I did not appreciate male chauvinism. I still don’t. But the proper corrective to chauvinism is not to reverse it and practice it against males, but rather basic fairness. And fairness today requires us to address the serious educational deficits of boys and young men. The rise of women, however long overdue, does not require the fall of men.”
This is a not a boys vs girls debate. The intent of this post is to highlight challenges boys currently face in our education system as well as in the attitude of educators that may often not be noticed.
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