There was an interesting article by Thomas Spence in the Wall Street Journal last week addressing the issue of boys and reading, or lack thereof. The fact is, according to a recent study by the Center on Education Policy, boys score much lower on reading proficiency tests than girls do. This trend, which began in 1992 (around the same time that video games took off), spans across all ethnic and economic groups. So, why is this happening and more importantly, how can we reverse this trend?
According to Mr. Spence and many other reading experts, a huge part of getting boys to read well is getting them to read enough. Now that brings us to the million dollar question - how to get boys to read enough?
It seems that these days the basic assumption is that boys are bored with most subjects and the only way to peak their interest is to focus on all things disgusting, gross and basically inappropriate. Apparently a July Associated Press study indicates that experts believe "meeting them where they are" is the only way to get boys to read. Unfortunately when we meet them where they are, they sometimes don't go very far from that safety zone.
Mr. Spence proposes an alternative strategy to get boys to read more. He suggests that we reduce the access to and time spent with video games and therefore give books - all books - a fair shot at a boy's attention. He goes on to say that this exposure to books will have a profound effect on the adults these boys will one day grow to be. A boy who reads and acts civilized too - now that's a winning combination!
If you click on the link below you'll see the article and then you can click through to see the many comments this topic has inspired. Don't forget to comment back to Sweet on Books too so that we may hear where you stand on this controversial subject.
The selection of books for boys to read is sparse. Boys and males in general have been marginalized in importance with the women’s movement and this has to be evident in the home where most tasks are now gender neutral and therefore more in the realm of the feminine. Men have taken on the role that mothers used to have and women have taken on the role of breadwinner, which men used to have. In the process, men have been marginalized and with them their own male children. Women have been given advantages over men in the same way affirmative action has worked. Often the playing field is not equal and the motivation for the male shrinks. Men are no longer told they are stronger or smarter and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
When I was in high school, in the sixties, the college entrance requirement for males was several points lower than females, so males must have scored lower then as well, but in actuality, they were supposed to perform at a higher level than their scores indicated at some point in the future.
In addition, in earlier decades, children were not so over programmed. It was not necessary to make them into well rounded jacks of all trades, providing access to every sport and after school activity. They were trained to be masters of one, only. School was the primary concern for most families; education was their ticket to success. Today it is not so traditional. Athletics and entertainment fields seem to be the best ticket to anywhere and for those careers, intellect is not the primary factor.
As a former teacher, I am aware of the fact that anyone can be excited by books, providing the person presenting them makes the effort to excite them. Even the most mundane subjects can be presented in interesting ways if the time is taken to find them. Different students react to different stimuli. One size fits all just doesn’t work in the educational environment and yet that is the direction we have taken. Can you imagine putting a size 12 body into a size 2 dress? Well that is what it is like when you try to teach all students in the same way.
We have lowered the bar and so the results are lower. We no longer have expectations for our students. We simply accept whatever they do in the interest of keeping their psyches healthy and keeping them happy rather than expecting them to achieve. We have taken the easy, lower road rather than the harder, higher one.
Electronics have become substitute parents. It is easier to plug a child into a machine than to engage him. Engaging him is hard work. Parents are tired from working all day so they can have enough money to buy all of the newest devices out there so they can plug their children in. The circle is complete. We have a generation tuned into or plugged into various headsets or other devices rather than into education and the expansion of their knowledge base including rules of appropriate behavior.
Even books are now being put on electronic devices because of the ease of availability. Me, I am a dinosaur. I prefer a book, a solid entity which excites, intrigues and invites me in. Long live the book for all the worlds it can take me to explore. Here is hoping that the pendulum swings back and parents and schools begin again to have expectations of those they teach, male and female, and that they begin again to require certain behavior and appearance from the students so that these children can face the future with hope and a longing for all the wondrous things before them that life can offer, rather than the blood and guts so prolific in literature now.
Posted by: Reading Grandma | 09/28/2010 at 10:39 AM