The educational attainment of men and boys has nosedived over the past several decades. Whether the issue is the rate of overall engagement, dropouts, learning disabilities and disorders, suicides, final grades, and so forth, the gaps have grown to a point that they now warrant serious concern and meaningful action.

The problem is multifaceted, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. I have compiled a list of reforms, programs, and practices that have been implemented. While this list is not meant to list every possible type, it is nonetheless a good start, and will be updated and expanded over time.

Note: the listing of a particular program here is not tantamount to an endorsement. For example, some programs (such as affirmative action and single-sex schooling) I do not myself endorse. The purpose of this list is simply to compile a list of solutions that education practitioners, administrators, and paraprofessionals, and community stakeholders have put on the table.

Mentoring Programs

These programs, which focus on mentoring and coaching students (particularly in lower education), can take a variety of forms. In Boys and Girls Learn Differently, Dr. Michael Gurian outlines one model of peer mentoring whereby high school boys mentor younger middle- and elementary-school boys. Some universities, such as UT Austin, also sponsor in-house mentoring groups for college men to mentor secondary students.

Not only are mentoring programs useful for helping a student with immediate academic problems, they also help students from broken homes and crime-ridden communities develop positive peer networks that will model, encourage, and reinforce constructive behavior (“character instruction”).

Instructional methods and strategies that particularly appeal to the male brain (“differentiated instruction” / “brain-based learning”)

For lower education teachers, I cannot recommend enough the book Teaching the Male Brain by Dr. Abigail Norfleet James. This book is filled with suggestions for practical classroom applications and brimming with technical knowledge. Closely following this would be Boys and Girls Learn Differently by Dr. Michael Gurian and Kathy Stevens.

Although I cannot hope to give a fair representation of all the suggestions contained in these books (especially Dr. James’s book), I will note a few here:

• Increase the amount of movement in the classroom setting
• Increase the use of manipulatives (as boys tend to be kinesthetic learners)
• When possible, make learning a competitive, yet friendly game
• Language learning should be phonics-based; avoid “whole language” instruction
• Avoid severe grade penalties for errors in neatness, as boys tend to develop fine motor skills later than girls
• Be less punitive toward fidgety boys, understanding that many young boys really cannot sit still
• Understand that boys tend to approach learning with a different orientation; when reading a history text, for example, girls will tend to pay attention to social implications of historic events, whereas boys tend to pay attention to technical knowledge – dates, maps, the numbers of soldiers in an army, and so forth.

Again, these are just a few suggestions. Of course, no individual student should be presumed to think in a “male” or “female” way; at the end of the day every student is an individual learner. These practices will, however, help round out a teachers’ repertoire.

I would also like to make a suggestion of my own: for later elementary- and middle-school teachers, use instructional technology to create fun games. Got a Mimio board? If not, steal one from the teacher next door. Make an interactive game on the whiteboard whereby students walk up to the board to select their answers.

The walking will help boys who are restless and aching to move, which will also stimulate blood flow to the brain. In addition, the game element will connect with boys’ psychology.

Support the kinds of reading and writing boys tend to like

Dr. Gurian advocates that boys be allowed to read “nontraditional materials, such as graphic novels, magazines, and comic books.” He also recommends that “approximately 50 percent of reading and writing choices in a classroom [should be] left up to the students themselves.”

I also strongly suggest reading Misreading Masculinity by Dr. Thomas Newkirk, who examines popular misconceptions about boys’ artistic preferences. Boys tend to love reading and writing (as well as illustrating) adventure stories, many of which include the element of physical conflict. They also enjoy literature that employs subversive humor that some may consider gross, but boys see as fun.

In today’s educational climate this is frowned upon, however, and sometimes forbidden. This is a mistake, and it has negative academic and psychological consequences. First, it cuts off boys from the type of reading and writing they are most willing to perform. Second, it bottles up boys’ feelings and tells them that adults do not want to hear about them.

Of course, there is a line between creativity and gratuitous obscenity in a student’s writing. Also, if a student writes about inflicting harm upon himself or others in real life, that does warrant concern by the teacher and school counselor. But too often writing that simply bugs teachers is conflated with obscenity or a call to real-life violence.

“Men on the Way” programs

A key problem with male students is that they are far less likely to engage in help-seeking strategies than female students. This is true in both their academic and personal lives. As some higher education administrators have noticed, even though services are offered to young men they may not take advantage of them.

“Men on the Way” programs are centered in higher education and mirror similar “Women on the Way” programs. Focusing on outreach and advising, these may take on the role of tutoring, scholarship and tuition counseling, leadership development, and so forth [1]. Those staffing such programs target and recruit young men, particularly those who are more at-risk academically, to benefit from the full range of services schools provide.

Reach out to male teachers

Lower education has always been female-dominated, especially in primary and elementary. But never before has the ratio of female to male teachers been as one-sided as it is now, and never before has it paralleled a substantial absence of fathers at home. Many boys are yearning for positive male role-models. Some never find them until high school, at which point they have already formed peer groups that reinforce negative behaviors.

An increase in the number of male teachers in public schools will introduce more positive role-models into the lives of boys at critical development periods in their lives. It will also organically open up the door to alternative teaching strategies that particularly appeal to boys, since male teachers – who have actually been boys at one point in their lives – are more likely to communicate on the same wavelength.

For more, visit the website Men Teach.

Create a father involvement program

Consider the group Watch DOGS (Dads of Great Students), a group with thousands of active programs across the U.S.. These groups invite “fathers, grandfathers, step-fathers, uncles, and other father figures who volunteer to serve at least one day a year in a variety of school activities as assigned by the school principal or other administrator.” Such activities include:

• Reading to children in the school library or in class
• Helping students with arts and crafts
• Helping students study via flash cards and other cooperative study activities
• Engaging with and providing guidance to students during lunch or other break periods
• Assisting in loading/unloading buses
• Being a monitor in the hall and at recess
• Just being a positive part of children’s lives.

Similar programs exist, such as Real Men Read. This program recruits men from the community to read to kids. This helps overturn the stereotype that reading is “girly” and something boys shouldn’t do.

Bring back a strong recess period (“unstructured play”)

Many schools have greatly limited the range of activities students can perform during recess. Worse, revoking a boy’s recess “privileges” is now a default punishment in many districts.

This is a mistake. Not only does recess help boys blow off steam (decreasing the the likelihood that they will do so in the classroom), it is necessary for boys’ psychosocial development. As an associate director at a Manhattan nursery school named Alex Martin puts it, recess helps boys learn “how to navigate space with their bodies, and to negotiate rules, risks, and experimentation of cooperative play.”

Also, boys do not relate on a verbal realm as much as girls do. They tend to develop social bonds through what Dr. Gurian in Boys and Girls Learn Differently calls “mediating objects” such as games and projects. Recess allows boys the opportunity to use games to develop these social bonds.

If a boy is a danger to himself or others, then limiting his recess activities makes sense. But in most other cases, the practice of revoking a boys’ “recess privileges” should be viewed in much the same light as the idea of revoking their “math and science privileges.”

Use greater discretion in punishing students

Over the past several decades schools have decreased the use of traditional methods of dealing with problematic students: counseling, intervention, and so forth. Instead, many are now utilizing suspensions, expulsions, and police intervention. In some cases these punishments are warranted, but too often they are meted out in an overreacting, knee-jerk fashion.

This is especially problematic for boys, who are suspended twice as often and expelled three times as often as girls.

Out-of-school suspensions and expulsions are particularly problematic; not only do they create a physical distance between the student and academic resources, they also create and reinforce a psychological distance between the student and the school community. The student begins to stereotype himself as an outsider.

Schools should also refrain from labeling prepubescent children (in whom no sexual urges could possibly exist) as “sexual harassers.” This is common sense, and are many other labels that can be substituted for such behavior.

Some colleges could also use greater discretion in student affairs deliberations, particularly when they summarily suspend male students on a mere accusation of sexual misconduct and prior to any investigation. As this site has demonstrated, there is a disconcerting tendency for college women to make false claims of sexual misconduct.

Also, false claims of sexual misconduct are in and of themselves a form of sex discrimination, and schools that automatically side with accusers do nothing but help perpetuate it.

Make sure adequate resources are available to address depression and suicide

Men are four times as likely to kill themselves as women, and suicide spikes even higher among high school and college-age men [2]. According to the American Association of Suicidology, “In the past 60 years, the suicide rate has quadrupled for males 15 to 24 years old, and has doubled for females of the same age.”

It’s really quite simple: it does not matter how much mentoring, scholarships, affirmative action, and so forth, are given to male students if they do not have the opportunity to set foot on campus because they are dead.

Support men’s groups on campus

One of the biggest problems male students face is isolation. Encouraging them to be more active in the community can help ameliorate that. Many college campuses have women’s groups run by female students. Why not a men’s group run by male students?

Men’s groups can take a variety of forms. They can be discussion groups in which students simply gather to talk about their experiences as men and seek solutions in their individual lives. Men’s Issues Groups, which are also sometimes called Men’s [Human] Rights groups, tend to be more dynamic in that they tend to address a wider range of men’s issues and employ a wider array of methods in doing so.

There are also some men’s groups focused on religion and volunteer work.

Hire people with the right knowledge and attitudes on boys’ education

A critical element of progress is fostering a national conversation on educational equity – both in our educational institutions and the broader public – that includes the perspective of compassion for men and boys as a group. To that end, it is necessary to hire personnel who have demonstrated compassion and competence for boys’ education issues, and who possess a courageous can-do attitude

This is especially true with administrators whose roles involve diversity, student affairs, and student success. These administrators should be tasked with networking with like-minded people. They must also be aware that the administration will back them up in their endeavors.

For these positions in particular, schools should refrain from hiring the more hardline Feminists who see gender equity as a zero-sum grudge match between men and women. This is poisonous to the idea of gender equity in education – not to mention men and boys. A few bad apples really can spoil the bunch.

Reach out to education consultants

Some education consultants specialize in helping local communities become more in-tune with the educational needs of boys. The size and scope of these services vary, and it is best to thoroughly check the credentials, references, and work history of consultants beforehand.

Exercise greater discretion in referring boys for ADHD diagnoses

Although boys are twice as likely to be officially diagnosed with ADHD, they are nine times as likely to be referred for an ADHD diagnosis by teachers [4]. This indicates that there is some bias among teachers, many of whom – as Dr. Gurian argues – simply need more training in teaching boys.

The broad definition of ADHD is problematic as well; the symptoms of gifted students are often the same as those with ADHD [5].

As Dr. Abigal Norfleet James recounts in Teaching the Male Brain, the negative mislabeling of students can create self-fulfilling prophecies. Some students who are erroneously labeled with disorders begin to doubt their aptitude. In addition, there is a disconcerting tendency among some students to use such labels as crutches rather than scaffolds, and to refrain from making the most rigorous academic efforts while citing their disorder as a rationale [4].

Of course, it is bad science – not to mention a bad way to care for people – to fail to make accommodations for those who truly need it. But misdiagnoses are a bad science and a bad way to care for people in and of themselves, and it is time for schools to acknowledge this on a broad, institutional level.

Affirmative Action / “Gender Weighting”

A more controversial policy, some college admissions offices have begun favoring male applicants. The idea behind this is that something went wrong for many boys earlier in the education pipeline, and affirmative action grants them an opportunity to help level the playing field.

At best, such policies are a mixed bag and do as much harm as good. Not only is discrimination ethically problematic, it may actually harm the male students it intends to help. It is important to remember that affirmative action grants admission to less qualified students. Not only will these students have to take out more loans due to qualifying for fewer scholarships, they also face a higher chance of dropping out.

No degree plus a mountain of student loan debt is a bad combination.

Single-sex schooling

Perhaps the most controversial of the list, single-sex schooling is being implemented in some states. The idea is that students will learn best among their own sex, especially during the onset of puberty when boys and girls are spending exorbitant amounts of time and energy trying to impress each other.

In theory, such schools will also have greater freedom to implement teaching strategies that distinctively appeal to boys and girls, increasing students’ overall degree of academic achievement.

Research on single-sex schools is sketchy, with some scholars casting reasonable doubt over their effectiveness, and others saying otherwise. Whatever your position, if you are interested in reading more about single-sex schools from its foremost advocates, consider reading Successful Single-Sex Classrooms by Dr. Michael Gurian, Kathy Stevens, and Peggy Daniels.

Notes:

[1] See this article in the Tampa Bay Times. Also, see Peg Tyre’s The Trouble With Boys p. 268-269

[2] Sources here and here.

[3] Dr. Abigail Norfleet James, Teaching the Male Brain, p. 89

[4] Dr. Abigail Norfleet James, Teaching the Male Brain, p. 85-107.

[5] Dr. Abigail Norfleet James, Teaching the Male Brain, p. 95