In the book “Boys Adrift,” author Dr. Leonard Sax, a psychologist with a background in scholarly research, discusses a developing epidemic for boys growing up in the United States — an educational system that does not interest them. Thus, he says, boys are turning their backs on academia and embracing the virtual world of computer games to create their own reality. And he argues that it could come from our country’s emphasis on education at an early age, how students are taught, and less “manly” options for young boys.
Sax first comments that, of all the students tested globally in high school, the highest ranked students come from Finland. According to Sax, in Finland and other European countries, children don’t begin to learn to read and write until they are 7 years old.
In the United States, however, within the last 30 years, the first-grade curriculum of reading and writing has become the standard for kindergarten classrooms. According to Sax, while girls have an innate desire to please their teachers, “boys have more allegiance to each other.” It is more common for 5-year-old girls to sit still in their chairs and learn to read and write than little boys, who wiggle in their chairs and seem more interested in playing outside.
So kindergarten in the United States is not a favorable academic beginning for many 5-year-old boys, says Sax. When the kindergarten class becomes separated into those students who can sit still and pay attention and the other students who are looking out the window, boys will more likely be placed in the inattentive group. They know they aren’t in the “smart” group, so they most likely will not enjoy going to school and being assigned to sit in the “dumb” group, he writes.
And, he says, many parents know beforehand that their sons will not be able to sit still in a kindergarten class, so they are now opting to enroll their children into schools at the age of 6 instead of 5. But despite the United States advancing the teaching of reading and writing one year earlier, our high schools students’ test scores rank at the bottom of those in most first-world countries, he writes.
In many European schools, such as in Germany, there is a difference between “Kenntnis” (German for “to know” or “be familiar with”) and “Wissenschaft” (German for “to know” as in knowledge from books or computers). There is now a grassroots movement in Germany to move all learning for students who are 5 and 6 years of age to classrooms outside, year round. For example, the students can go to a pond and search for frogs and get to hold the amphibians in their hands, which would be “Kenntnis.” In the United States, however, kids these ages learn about frogs from books or on computers, which is “Wissenschaft.”
European schools place value on both types of learning. But over the years, Sax says, the United States’ academic curriculum has eliminated “Kenntnis” and has come to rely soley on “Wissenschaft.”
In Germany, these outside classrooms even take place in the winter, when boys can throw snowballs back and forth at each other, which in the United States has become a prohibited activity at recess.
Besides preferring “Kenntnis” learning, Sax writes, boys thrive on competition. In the United States, competition in the schoolroom has become practically non-existent, because every participant wins a prize so as not to hurt the self-esteem of the students who lose. According to Sax, low self-esteem is an innate trait in girls who often underestimate their abilities and “value friendship above team affiliation.”
Sax says boys, on the other hand, prefer competitive activities against each other (even in physical contact like football) and usually overestimate their abilities. Since American schools no longer teach a curriculum geared towards male students, boys become absorbed in video games where being hyperactive and inattentive are assets towards winning in a virtual world, he writes.
And this preference for competition carries over to what boys prefer to learn about, Sax says. Many male students like to learn about war, and write about the “generic” violence that happens during war, he writes. For example, Sax said when he was in high school, he wrote about the violence that happened during the Battle of Leningrad during World War II. Sax says he received high marks for his creative writing.
“Generic” violence should not be confused with more personal violence when a student writes about shooting his classmates and teachers, writes Sax. This type of writing about personal violence has often foreshadowed many school shooting incidences. And since there is such a strong fear of these shootings happening, Sax says, boys are no longer allowed to write about any violence at all.
Because boys are asked to sit still in classrooms for long stretches, faculty often propose giving these students medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, with stimulants such as Concerta, Metadate, and Adderall. Sax cites recent research that has found that boys who take these medications for years end up decreasing an area of the brain where activity for motivation is fueled.
Sax strongly believes most of the young boys diagnosed with the disorder do not really have it at all. If boys can focus and pay attention in sports and extracurricular activities outside of the school, he argues, then they probably don’t have ADHD. Sax blames the fault of the school for not changing curriculum to attract the interest of boys.
Sax says even short-term use of these drugs can cause changes in a child’s personality turning “an agreeable, outgoing, and adventurous” boy into becoming “lazy and disengaged.” If medication is absolutely necessary as a last resort, he says, children should take non-stimulant drugs such as Wellbutrin, Intuiv, or Strattera — which, he says, there have been no scientifically found side-effects.
He goes on to say that many of these boys who took stimulant drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder graduate from high school with little motivation to move on to college. Across the United States, he says, there are now more women enrolled in colleges and universities than men. Men are also more likely to drop out of college, where as women are more likely to graduate and receive honors when they graduate, Sax says.
Sax also takes to task schools that have demeaned vocational work. Since the 1980s, he says, high schools have made it a priority that every student go to college, and have viewed vocational training to be “blue collar work.” As a result, he says boys who could apply themselves to a trade to become a carpenter or an electrician believe this type of work is below them. Consequently, it is now first-generation immigrants in the United States who have taken these trade jobs, and because so few of them exist in some communities, they can command up to six-figure salaries, he writes.
From his years as a therapist, Sax has seen boys today thrive in all-boys schools where there is competition in the classroom and on the playing field, and many of the teachers are men. He writes there is also research showing that there is a period in a boy’s life when he benefits from learning from other men.
While Sax says it is important that women be treated as equally as men, it is inherently imperative, he says, that boys have a safe place to go to speak frankly with men and learn “manly” skills such as using common tools or surviving in the outdoors. He cites the Boy Scouts as an excellent program where men teach boys skills where they learn to use patience and tenacity.
“[Our] culture has failed,” writes Sax. “The culture has not provided a community of men to train the boys … We must, for the sake of our children, rebel against the culture. We must create a subversive counterculture that promotes such unfamiliar notions as: 1) Real men love to read. 2) What really counts is not how you look but who you are. 3) Achievement in the real world is more important than achievement in the virtual world.”
Allison Plitt is a frequent contributor to NY Parenting and lives in Queens with her 10-year old daughter.
