Home

Boys' performance in schools declining

Mastodon - Thu, 2012-08-02 17:23

Letter here. Excerpt:

'David Brooks shines a light on the worsening situation for boys in education [“Time to change the cookie-cutter approach to school,” Opinion, July 9]. While convincing in his case that there is indeed a problem, he comes up short on solutions, other than to point out the obvious fact that one size does not fit all.

As an educator and father to an adolescent male, I believe one solution is to increase the number of male teachers in elementary, middle and high school. When I was in middle school in the 1970s, at least half of my teachers were male. In stark contrast, my son had only one male teacher during the two years of middle school he just completed.
...
I did not like all my teachers, male or female, and surely not all of them liked me, but the six male teachers I can specifically remember — all very different in style, personality, and physique — no doubt contributed in some way to my modest success in school, even if just in allowing me to see myself reflected in the mirror of education.'