With blond hair standing on end, mud on his knees, and a stick in hand, Jonah is a boy. Lately, he has taken to ripping his shirt off and posing with a helmet and sword. Sometimes he'll draw a tattoo on his bare chest like Iggy Pop. My dad will watch him involved in an imaginary dual with an adversary and laugh. He calls him "Little Tom Sawyer."
Part of that boyishness is boundless energy. It is physically impossible for him to walk in a straight line down the street. He must leap off mailboxes, sidekick, sidekick, twist, jump, run in a circle, and prance along the curb. We never worried about ADHD, because when he's interested in something, he'll devote every fiber of his being to that something, be it trains or Romans, for hours and hours.
Since his teachers rarely share his enthusiasm for trains and Romans, he has had difficulty remaining still in school. It's pretty much in check now that he's 6, but nursery school was a tough place for him. He would poke the girls in circle group or bellyflop on the floor to get a laugh.
Because Jonah's academic work has never been a concern, I didn't really loose any sleep about his inability to pay attention and to sit still. Maybe I should be worried. Everyone else is up in arms about boys in schools this week. How many articles can we count on this issue this week? Newsweek, the New Republic, Katha Pollitt. The topic du jour.
Baa. Let's follow along and talk about boys.
Starting in the mid-80s, boys began trailing behind the girls in school. In many colleges, girls now out number the boys. No one is disputing those numbers. The debate revolves around the reason behind the recent dropoff, possible remedies, and whether or not this represents a national crisis.
Katha Pollitt says that women are more driven to go to college, because they know that they can't rely upon a man for support anymore. She rejects arguments by others that the curriculum is more verbally based and school structure more rigid than before. Christina Hoff Summers has been making the school is anti-boy argument for a long time.
In Newsweek, they give a lot of weight to the idea that the real problems happen in middle school when the girls and their brains mature faster. The boys don't really catch up until 18. Of course, the slow brain theory doesn't explain the recent drop off in boy's graduation rates.
Some have thrown around the video game and rap music theory (boys are rotting their minds on trash), but that theory isn't getting too much play.
I agree with Katha's point that the girls are more driven to get an education than in the past. Boys haven't changed; girls have.
But there's more to it than that. Other things have changed in the past 20 years.
There are increasing demands on kids in school, and boys are less able to go with the flow. Jonah had a full day of Kindergarten; while I had a half day. In first grade, he's adding fractions. He has three tests per week.
Less parents are home to read to their kids nightly and assist with homework. Boys need more handholding in this department.
There are also less opportunities for boys to get their ya-yas out. And boys do need to romp about. It calms them and helps them think better. Playgrounds and recess time are being eliminated at schools across the country, because of lawsuits. Also, kids don't play outside anymore because they are in daycare or after school activities. Less walks and backyard mucking about leads to jittery, jumpy boys.
Two weeks after becoming a parent, everybody learns that boys are slower than girls. They are slower to talk, to potty train, to be civilized in a restaurant. They have to be taught to aim for the hole in the toilet, to stop eating their boogers, to not dump salt on the table, to stop flinging their toys out the window. They are more work. Every parent knows this.
Many social changes have converged to make school a rough place for boys. To achieve, boys need more exercise and more homework handholding to get them through school. Someone has to do this, either the parents or the schools.
Without intervention, without someone stepping in to make sure the boys go off to college, our two kids will end up living in the basement listening to Bob Marley and doing bong hits. Help the boys. Help me. Thank you very much.
