Boys and Phonics

Submitted by Matt on Sun, 2008-02-03 17:23

Submitted via note:

Hi, I have read an article about education and boys on your site and thought this may be useful to you. It is a system employed in some Scottish schools which eradicated the gap between gender and even social classes furthermore, boys actually came on top in some areas; but would the education system ever support a system where boys do better then girls even when the girls themselves do better with the system?

Articles here:
Article 1
Article 2
Article 3

Comment from one article:

"The size of the tiny, almost missable article on the shocking fact that 9 out of 10 working class boys fail to even get good basic GCSE's shows how much attention society is prepared to place on boys. Scottish schools which tested classical methods of using synthetic phonetics in teaching reading saw a truly remarkable improvement – with girls reading improving by 14 months at age 7, but wait for it - boys improving by 20 months, boys caught up to girls in comprehension and further more they actually beat girls on spelling and recognition.

In fact the current gap between different social classes even diminished! But will feminist influenced educationalist tolerate a system were boys do better then girls, even if actually the system means girls are actually improving themselves (by 14 months!) but simply not as much as boys. I doubt it so don't expect to see these techniques in British schools. I don't even know if Metro will think this comment is even worth publishing.

For years polices have been directed ONLY at girls, the result, boys particularly middle class white boys were neglected. Education for girls for decades sparked national campaigns, even world leader conferences for girls only and not boys yet as soon as boys started to do worse then girls as result of neglect, boys were forgotten. A recent government report said helping bridge the gender gap for boys is “counter-productive”. This simply highlights the double standards against middle class white boys – why were the three decades of helping girls until they outperformed boys not counter-productive? Furthermore, why don't these same people think schemes to increase the number of women in many fields such as science and engineering are counter-productive? Why is all universities having departments specifically for admission of women and women's studies not counter-productive? Ahh that's right because men can't be the victims of sexism. Just remember if you think that about men that's one thing but remember the people in question here – young children."

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Comments

This sounds like how I taught my son how to read. He is now halfway through Kindergarten. He went in knowing how to read short sentences, and is now leading the class in his reading ability; and surprising the teachers and resource personnel at his school.

Knowing the literacy issues for boys in school, I wasn't about to let the school system fuck up something so important for him, so I just did it the right way myself.

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Submitted by alen on Mon, 2008-02-04 12:48

Alan, thats a nice little anecdote with you're son.
I believe in general we conditioned the baby boomer males to focus like a laser on the educations of our girls, which is fine, but not at the cost of near abandonment of our boys.
In fact males that focus all their attention on the educations of our girls, while abandoning our boys may have a kind of subtle perversion.

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Submitted by Academic Aggression on Mon, 2008-02-04 21:09

We can call this anti-male subtle perversion,
The "mangina perversion".

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Submitted by Academic Aggression on Mon, 2008-02-04 21:13

alen,

Watch out for the school authorities who will be telling you soon that your son is "disruptive," or has ADHD, or "his social skills are deficient."

Because if he's as smart and masculine as you've made him out to be ....

some bureaucrat is gonna try to put that boy down.

I have daughters (now young adults) who could read when they were three and a half.

Their teachers often hated being in a classroom where my kids were reading three years beyond the expected minimum and were bored to death by an adult so-called teacher with an I.Q. 50% of theirs.

Just be on guard, because the system does not promote over-achievers.

It puts sandbags on their minds...

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Submitted by Roy on Tue, 2008-02-05 00:26

Thanks for the warning, Roy.
No way in hell am I ever going to let that happen to my son.

I have a bright nephew, whose mother let him get labeled with ADHD as a young child. He's now dropped out of high-school. On being disruptive/social... I've seen that too from schools with other kids... so I've made sure to spend as much time on those things as well so that he's aware. He's considered one of the better behaved kids in the class; good self esteem, good team player, considerate, listens well, helps, etc. Hopefully it will continue; but I've already got an idea of which teachers could cause trouble in later grades, and am planning ahead. We got a little lucky too, in that he's in a class with roughly 85% boys, which changes they dynamic a bit.

I've seen a good deal of how schools work from the inside; so I've never really considered it the school's job to educate my kids, because I know the schools aren't up to the job. So, I make it my responsibility, and they're there to help me. He may end up being bored. If he is I'll make things change. I already have somewhat with the school. So far he isn't; maybe because I keep him challenged (mentally, physically, socially, etc) outside of school.

Again, thanks for the warning. I'm on guard. ;)

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Submitted by alen on Tue, 2008-02-05 14:38