
Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School - tokenadult
http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/06/stop-penalizing-boys-for-not-being-able-to-sit-still-at-school/276976/
======
learc83
School is half education and half babysitting. The problem is that schools
aren't aware of that, and they try to cram too much learning/work into a day
at school. Kids just don't have the attention span. College isn't taught this
way. Colleges realize that even young adults can't handle 40 hours a week of
continual instruction, why do we do this kids can?

I think the reason, is that we're always behind other countries trying to
"catch up"\--50 years ago it was the Soviets, 20 years ago the Japanese, now
it's the "global workforce".

In our frantic rush to compete with everyone else we end up forcing an
overambitious curriculum on kids. How much time can kids really spend learning
everyday? A few hours at the most?

I have a friend who teaches 1st grade, she knows kids at that age can't spend
time on focused learning for more than 20 or 30 minutes, but the school
districts forces here to teach in 1 to 2 hour blocks and spend almost 6 hours
out of the day instructing

(they get 15 minutes, no more, of recess; 30 minutes lunch, many times in
silence because the lunchroom gets too loud; and on some days 45 minutes of
focused PE).

What 6 or 7 year old can possibly sit still and study for 5 or 6 hours each
day?

~~~
pekk
Historically many, many children have sat still at school and behaved
themselves.

That doesn't mean that others should be stigmatized, but it's not like this is
impossible and unprecedented.

~~~
learc83
First, historically mass education of the type we now employ is only about a
century old, and designed to produce factory workers not to promote
creativity. Learning to handle monotonous boredom and obey orders was of
primary importance to a factory worker.

Second, much of this is unprecedented. When my parents were children, they
didn't attend Kindergarten, and first grade was a half day. When my parents
younger siblings were children, Kindergarten was a half day. When I was a
child, I didn't attend preschool.

In 3 generations we've added more than 2 years of education for every child,
and that education is qualitatively quite different, even from what I
experienced (Kindergarten 23 years ago)

When I was in kindergarten the majority of the day was playtime, we had 30
minutes of recess, 45 minutes of mostly freeform PE, 30 minutes of naptime,
and a few hours of structured playtime (drawing, making crafts etc...).

From friends of mine who are teachers, since no child left behind, all of that
has been removed or severely restricted. Recess is now 15 minutes, PE is more
structured and not every day, no more naptime, and they don't have time for
freeform activities because the curriculum is so dense.

In Kindergarten we spent almost the whole year learning the Alphabet. Now the
curriculum assumes that children already know it.

Teachers know this doesn't work, but schools are obsessed with testing and
metrics to the determinant of real education.

~~~
coldtea
> _First, historically mass education of the type we now employ is only about
> a century old, and designed to produce factory workers not to promote
> creativity. Learning to handle monotonous boredom and obey orders was of
> primary importance to a factory worker._

Actually it is the inverse. The higher classes (from rich upper class families
to wealthy lawyers, doctors, scientists etc) were those that sat down and
studied without much fuss, in quite demanding schools. Those classes had a
high respect for education, and very demanding curriculums.

It's the working classes (factory workers then, office drones to McDonald
burger flippers now) that did and still get by with laxer schooling, less
"boring stuff", and more "creativity".

Most of the factory workers in days past didn't even get to go to school, or
stopped very early. That they learned "to handle monotonous labour" and "obey
orders" at school is a myth. They learned it by necessity at the factory. It
was either that or not getting to eat at all.

~~~
bennyg
> that did and still get by with laxer schooling, less "boring stuff", and
> more "creativity".

Creativity is inherently good. It's literally what brought us from the plains
fighting large animals to making monolithic structures that battle the
elements. We can harness the power of the electron to post, critique and
posture ideas in nanoseconds because of _extremely_ creative people. The
"boring" stuff matters just as much as the "non-boring" stuff. What kills me
is that the STEM and liberal arts side of the education debate are arguing
from extremes - and both sides sound like morons when it comes to creativity.
Creativity is harnessed by two things: a wealth of experience and knowledge
(ie learning Calculus is good, just like skipping rocks on the river), and
treating idea generation like play and not like work. Obviously it's a little
bit more nuanced than that, but that's the distillation and the point remains.
The boring stuff matters. The non-boring stuff matters. Everything is relevant
and we should be creating a culture of education that not only understands
that, but actually does something about it.

------
thezilch
I had a H.S. teacher admit to my mother that she was grading me on a scale
that included how "distracted" I was by my girlfriend in the class. Little did
she know that we had broken up months prior, and every guy in the class was
probably distracted by her at some point.

I had a second teacher that was giving myself and my friends lower grades in
computer class, because we were "goofing off" \-- making websites, chat
portals, playing with VB, etc. After completing our weekly assignments in the
first day of the week, we were applying ourselves to higher levels of
computing, which she equated to us not doing our work; in reality, she had no
idea what we were actually doing or what a computer could be made to do that
wasn't outlined in her spiral-bound curriculum. Let's take it out on these
meddling kids!

~~~
xxpor
That reminds me of the time my History teacher called up my mom when I was in
9th grade.

Teacher: Yes, hi. Your son isn't taking notes in class, even though he is
required to.

Mom: Well, what did he get on his midterm?

Teacher: 100

Mom: :| Goodbye.

~~~
thezilch
My parents were rather "amused" that I could almost be failing a class that
taught you how to Open a document, bold text, and save, while at the same time
as having self-made business cards and brochures and revenue from teaching
Office '97 to professional folk and another service of building corporate web-
portals.

My HS was really progressive, as the other 5 in town barely offered a typing
class, and it's only gotten better for my school -- a Charter school.

------
speeder
Although I was a generally calm student (I am introverted and not into causing
mayhem or attracting attention), I never copied from the blackboard, don't did
my homework, slept during classes, or instead kept drawing, or later writing
ASM code or toying with physics formulas, or I just outright spent my time
chatting about video games with whoever was nearby.

Every time I had a new teacher, my parents were called into the school, and
warned that I had some sort of problem (and my parents went into full denial
hell not of course my child is not crazy... later I found out I DO probably
have Aspergers, seemly inherited from the father of my mother), my parents
reply were: "Alright, wait until the tests, and if he fails, THEN you can call
us."

Unfortunately to those teachers, and me, I did not failed... Meaning I had to
endure them, and they had to endure me. Specially because I completely ignored
their lessons, and in the time of the tests I answered correctly but in my own
way, this was specially bad related to hard sciences because I would use
formulas I invented on the spot, and I wrote in totally random patterns,
forcing teachers to spend LOOOOOONG time to figure what I did, also my
calligraphy is horrible, thus all my teachers hated reading my tests, yet they
could not just zero them, because I always passed, so if they did that, they
knew I would send the test to their superior and would get them punished.

So yes, I can totally relate to the article.

Also I STILL don't sit still, right now as I type I am vibrating one of my
legs. (I guess this is a way to keep energy burning considering I stay sitting
the entire day).

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Ah, to have grown up in an education system where homework and in-class
participation aren't counted as some huge part of the grade!

~~~
speeder
class participation and whatnot counted, and I had not a problem with that,
when a teacher asked a direct question and I was not sleeping deeply enough
(if I was half-sleeping and heard the question I woke up) I would usually be
the first to reply.

Only later I figured this was bad idea (here in Brazil at least, the norm is
to noone ever try to reply to the teacher, as a kind of weird social
convention, and since I always replied, even while half-asleep, I quickly
attracted negative attention, I was frequently involved in fights I did not
started with the less performing boys... also girls sometimes pulled some
horrible stuff, like spreading rumors or attempt to frame me)

~~~
bitwize
Feels for you, bro.

I don't know if Brazilian education has improved since Feynman wrote this:
[http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education](http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-
brazil-education)

I suspect not by much.

~~~
speeder
Regarding the "test" mentioned there and it being self-perpetuating.

Brazil during the cold war, caught the propaganda of sorts that anyone to have
success needed to have a degree, the country needed to go from almost none
degrees to everyone have degrees.

The result was a severe lack of universities, so the government started to
build them like if there was no tomorrow (and they are STILL not enough for
the demand), and made into law a thing called "vestibular" that is a entry
test that you take to join university.

The test subject is whatever the government ministry of education decided that
schools must have as curriculum, thus the test asks questions regarding
everything you learn in school from 3 to 18 years old of your life, and since
it tests for everything and is applied to ANY course, the government mandatory
curriculum has anything a university student might need, thus we have a
curriculum that is so ridiculously big, that is impossible to teach it
entirely.

Because here getting the students of your school into a federal university
(here they are almost on US ivy league level) or to certain state universities
(those have several courses listed alongside ivy league and Oxford on best
courses list) is highly prestigious, and the only way to get in is passing the
stupid test, the high schools developed a system that they teach you how to
pass the test, literally, your final tests on the schools many times are
directly copied from previous years vestibular tests, and students on those
schools know how to pass the test, and only that.

Since here in Brazil university-level education is mandatory to be a teacher,
only those that passed the tests, and teach new people how to pass the tests,
making things worse.

Also, here in Brazil homeschooling is a crime (yes, they ARREST you for
attempting to homeschool your kids), and joining university without a normal
schooling is not allowed, you can be sure 99% of university students passed by
this system (the other 1% are dropouts that later did a high school conclusion
test sponsored by the government).

------
joonix
Are there any private all-boys[1] schools that embrace this side of childhood?
Look at tiger cubs and what not: they play, they bounce around, they fight,
they figure out the world around them through investigation and exploration.

I spent so much of my time outside as a kid, but I also spent a lot of time
inside on the computer. Both were amazing worlds where your imagination could
run wild; especially in the early days of computers and the internet... being
a part of a "wild west" frontier at the age of 10 was a special privilege.

My point is that learning and running around in the mud are both very valuable
and can be balanced to create well-rounded people who have confidence with
technology _and_ the outdoors.

Has any institution figured out how to balance these two in a formal
curriculum? Spend half the day exploring the woods and classifying
wildflowers, the other half back inside working with math formulae and reading
lessons.

Some might say there's not enough time in the day to spend half of it outside,
but I disagree. The kids will be more efficient in their inside learning time
if they've spent half the day learning outside.

[1] I'm not saying that girls wouldn't appreciate the same type of learning. I
suspect that in an environment that harvests the physical energy (horseplay,
outdoors activities) of boys to improve learning, even in a positive and
productive manner, might alienate _some_ young girls who might feel
uncomfortable, so perhaps it's better to separate the genders in this sort of
environment?

~~~
kawsper
I don't know about schools, but the kindergarten that I went to was a
"nature"-kindergarten, where we were out in the forest 80% of the day, no
matter if it rained or snowed.

I must have catched a whole forest of insects, and investigated them.

It is very popular in Denmark, and I love the forest and the outdoor because
of it, especially the different seasons and their impact on nature.

~~~
magicalist
That sounds _amazing_. Google suggests "Waldkindergarten", at least as a name
for the general category. Is that correct? Maybe just in Germany?

Edit: that wikipedia article is maybe the worst thing ever. Learning to be
comfortable in a natural environment, more free-form play, these are good
things in an of themselves. I don't understand why people need to fall back on
crackpot theories to justify a program like this.

~~~
kawsper
In Denmark it is named "Skovbørnehave" which translates to "Forest
kindergarten".

I am actually a bit surprised that it worked, because we ran around without
much supervision, but we knew exactly where we were allowed to be, and when we
were too far away from the group.

------
xiaoma
As a long-time teacher in multiple countries, I've also had this concern. I
realize it's a fairly heretical belief to hold on this site but I think boys
are systematically discriminated against in most western societies.

As a child that teachers (nearly all women) tended to be biased against boys
and downright dismissive of male dominated interests such as science fiction,
video games or arm-wrestling. Talking with students in recent years, I get the
impression that my teachers were actually _more_ tolerant of boys than most
current K12 teachers are. Invariably boys get punished more severely for
similar infractions, boys are more likely to be forced onto medication and
more likely to receive "tough love" in the face of academic difficulties.

Compounding this is that even in this day and age when there's nearly a 3-2
ratio of females to males in college, it's the boys who get fewer grants,
fewer sex-specific support organizations and less support in general. This
chasm continues, even for mid-career adults. Many organizations provide women
with free training in various fields, including tech (see Railsbridge, Women
Who Code, etc) and allow men only as guests of women at all. In fact the
_amazingly_ good hacker school I went to charges men $2000 more than women.

Things probably still seem okay at this point due to the fact that the trends
have gradually been getting more extreme and the educational imbalances
weren't so bad 15-30 years ago, when much of the workforce was in formal
schooling. But the swelling ranks of disenfranchised young men is a
demographic that isn't going to be good news for anyone, including women.

~~~
Camillo
> In fact the amazingly good hacker school I went to charges men $2000 more
> than women.

Is that even legal?

~~~
xiaoma
It's de-facto legal at the very least. AFIK all the schools do that. Actually,
it looks like mine just gives $1k off for women and certain minorities. There
were several students I talked to who paid 2k less than me, but I'm not sure
what the reason was. The tuition price doesn't appear to have been consistent
in the beginning.

------
yason
I was one of the calm and orderly boys in school. However, this was because
merely being at school where I didn't want to be made me mostly lethargic. I
didn't have any energy left to make a scene as I was busy counting hours until
the day ended. To be precise, since the first week of the first grade I
practically counted days till the end of high school when I knew this
suffering would end.

I did get good grades not because I was interested but because school was way
too easy. I never even studied for exams except the last evening before, and
that was mostly glancing at the books, yet I was always among the handful of
best in the classroom. That is, until teenage when I realize I don't need _all
this_ bullshit and deliberately began to focus only on the few interesting
subjects the school had to offer, and defocus on everything else. Didn't do
too bad even after that.

I still think it was such a waste of years, and I'm trying to imagine a better
way to waste it. I can come up with lots of ideas but very few of them would
fit all people. I would've enjoyed a more fast-paced and in-depth classes of
my favorite topic at the expense of the subjects I wasn't interested. I think
different people ultimately need different kind of environment to be taught
in, and I think that the current homogeneous standard schooling is likely to
kill more of natural curiosity than sow it. I don't think any standard
schooling works for all, unless it's so reduced down to the very, very basics
(reading, writing, basic arithmetics) that everyone absolutely needs and which
they can build on top of.

------
jasallen
I really like this article. It looks at a severe problem (that traditional
education is only reaching a small fraction of the students 'smart' enough to
excel) and it suggests both a new way at looking at the problem (at least one
I hadn't considered), and an approach to improvement that can be taken
iteratively, without a sweeping change or expensive program.

------
joelhooks
At least one of my three boys would have an incredibly hard time with this.
He's definitely "aspie" in a lot of respects.

The decision to home educate our 4 children is hands down the best decision
we've ever made. Highly recommend it, if you are able to pull it off
logistically. Very rewarding experience so far.

~~~
sanarothe
I just want to say that you might want to consider public high school. There's
a lot of social development going on there, even if most people come out of
the entire system bitter.

~~~
jamesaguilar
Agreed. In college, the kids who were home educated before just seem . . .
off. And I say that as a slightly off person myself.

~~~
fr0sty
> In college, the kids who were home educated before just seem . . . off

This particular bias is probably why the normal people in college who were
home-schooled didn't volunteer that information to you.

~~~
pogden
It's also a result. Normal people don't volunteer that they were home-
schooled, the strange ones do.

------
smokeyj
Public school is essentially an obedience camp. Is it any wonder boys are
lagging?

~~~
jacalata
Are you arguing that boys are intrinsically badly suited to a highly regulated
environment that expects them to do exactly as they are told as soon as they
are told? You should tell the army.

~~~
chris_mahan
why do you think the armies around the world have to threaten recruits with
corporal punishment, prison, and even execution when they don't follow orders?

~~~
OvidNaso
Do American football programs have to do the same thing?

~~~
jdminhbg
Is this rhetorical? Of course they do. They're legendary and/or infamous for
imposing extreme physical hardship as hazing to get kids to fall in line.

------
parennoob
One of the things they used to do for this at my school (in another country)
was to have 50 minutes of compulsory physical activity or drills in the
morning, at least three out of five days. (This was excluding separate
gym/physical training classes.)

I feel like this could go a long way into giving boys an outlet for their
physical energy. I definitely know that even as one of the most talkative and
fidgety kids in class, I used to fidget a lot less if I had returned from a
bout of running or whatever.

Also, I am somewhat acquainted with some of the teachers in the US school
system, and have found their knowledge about the subjects they are supposed to
be teaching (specially science) to be severely subpar. Kids can often perceive
this very accurately, and will respect a teacher less if he or she seems to be
unsure or vague regarding what they are teaching.

------
Spooky23
One of the guiding objectives of the current cohort of education thought
leaders is to focus on girls. So, we're focusing on girls. Boys, time for your
pills.

My personal goal is to figure out how to make enough money to keep my children
out of the insanity of public schools.

~~~
tokenadult
_My personal goal is to figure out how to make enough money to keep my
children out of the insanity of public schools._

It doesn't necessarily take a lot of money to homeschool children. (Been
there, still doing that.) It does take agreement among the parents about what
lifestyle adjustments each parent is willing to make so that children have
flexibility in their learning. My oldest son, now a programmer working for a
startup, sent me a very touching email for Father's Day in which he attributed
some of his success so far in the business world to having been homeschooled
rather than being put in public school. "That has made it very easy for me to
step into a leadership position and feel very comfortable in positions of
responsibility" is part of what he wrote.

Finding truly excellent third-party educational materials and programs can be
inexpensive

[http://www.singaporemath.com/Primary_Math_s/21.htm](http://www.singaporemath.com/Primary_Math_s/21.htm)

or expensive,

[http://ohs.stanford.edu/](http://ohs.stanford.edu/)

depending on what your selection criteria are for "excellent" programs, and
what your child's specific needs are, but some of the expensive third-party
programs have significant financial aid that reaches up into the middle class,
and some of the commercial materials and programs are available in a thriving
used-materials or group-purchase market for homeschooling families. So shop
around, and see what fits your family's needs.

There is a lot of information about how to get started in homeschooling

[http://learninfreedom.org/sidlifgetstarted.html](http://learninfreedom.org/sidlifgetstarted.html)

on the World Wide Web, and my goal for next few years is to update my personal
website (the link here) with more been-there, done-thats as I launch my
younger three children into adulthood to joint their older brother in the big
world.

~~~
pekk
I find it peculiar that you regularly cite scientific studies of this and
that, and yet you are using this terribly misleading, n-of-1 implication that
home schooling is why your oldest son has the success he has. Do you really
think that children cannot do exactly the same thing coming out of a public
school, and if so, why?

~~~
tokenadult
My son has taken up my thinking about the difference between anecdotes and
research studies, and he actually mentioned the issue of successful co-workers
he has who are public school alumni in another part of his email to me. But I
shouldn't have to quote his whole personal email to make the point for
onlookers that OF COURSE some alumni of public schools turn out to be very
successful, and they are much more numerous than people who have been
homeschooled. But there may still be an advantage for homeschooling at the
margin, simply because it is generally more flexible and responsive to
individual learner needs than mass classroom education.

------
kenster07
-This article strikes a chord with me. I remember I was placed a year ahead in math, in Algebra I Honors, and the class was so easy that I would bring little toys into class and play with them while still getting A's. The teacher, a female, sent me back to Pre-algebra as a result. In hindsight, that reaction was so patently absurd. If anything, she should have tested whether I should have advanced to Geometry Honors.

-I don't think anyone is surprised that the article claims that boys perform better under conditions which simulate actual adult workplace conditions.

-A bigger issue is really the education system targeting the median student. That means those students with the highest potential have to fight against the system to reach it -- if they ever reach it at all. And holding back the brightest people, when the economy is advanced by that small percent of bright people, sounds horribly ineffective.

This educational system is an artificial structure imposed on people with
disparate learning capabilities, trying to fit every peg under the sun into a
square hole, and I think we've missed out on a lot of value because of that.

Hopefully, as automation increases, this is something we'll be able to improve
upon.

------
dllthomas
As a youth, I was only able to sit still by focusing on sitting still. If I
was paying attention to the teacher, I was fidgeting, and would be told to pay
attention...

~~~
ImprovedSilence
They gave me silly putty to harness my fidgeting. I soon discovered silly
putty can be made into a bouncy ball, that I could use to distract everyone.

~~~
joezydeco
My son's classroom has employed smaller versions of exercise balls to keep
some of the kids focused (including my own).

It's interesting to observe. The kids are fidgety and restless while sitting,
but when you sit them on one of these the subconscious motor control going on
seems to quell the foreground restlessness.

~~~
sp332
Maybe it's a metabolism thing? If they're used to burning calories a a certain
rate, homeostasis will cause their bodies to seek to maintain that rate.
Fidgeting burns a lot of calories. Maybe tensing up core muscles for balance
fills that need?

~~~
wes-exp
I seem to recall studies in controlled environments where people were not
allowed to exercise, and there was a significant difference in calorie burn
attributable to small movements. So the homeostasis argument seems totally
plausible to me.

~~~
joezydeco
But if you sit that same twitchy kid in front of a video game or stimulating
TV show, the fidgeting doesn't happen. Interesting...

~~~
dllthomas
I recall being teased for moving around while playing video games...

------
cafard
During the baby boom there appeared to be an odd dynamic at work: in the
primary grades, the neater, more docile girls were the teachers' favorites and
got the better grades. Somewhere around or after puberty, they started to fall
back behind the boys. Some of this was certainly socially motivated; a cousin
said that boys didn't like to date girls they thought smarter. Some of it may
have come from the teachers.

Just my two cents..

~~~
PavlovsCat
One of the most impressive girls I went to school with was kinda intimidating
in her ferocious intelligence and confidence, but if I didn't dare to approach
her, it was simply because it was painfully obvious she was out of my league,
not because I didn't like her. She never sucked up, not to teachers and not to
peers, she never failed to say what she thought, she played the piano and the
violin and aced every single test anyone handed to her. And one time she
passed some sweets on to me during class, and then laughed her ass off,
because she had them in the mouth before wrapping them up again. If I utterly
adored one girl in that time, it was her; so much I never dared to even fall
in love with her.

In contrast, I never considered "neat and docile" pupils smart, just lame.

That wasn't even my two cents, just shamelessly indulging in nostalgia haha.

------
swamp40
I have a 6 year old daughter in a Montessori school. After a class observation
I noticed the teacher spent a significant portion of her time just dealing
with a few rambunctious boys, while all the girls in the class worked quietly.

Afterwards, I asked the teacher why they just didn't separate the boys from
the girls, since they were obviously two different species at that age (at all
ages?) It seemed to me that a class with only girls in it could learn faster
w/o all the silly distractions.

The teacher got quite serious and told me that girls and boys are a form of
yin and yang. The classroom dynamic was an absolute necessity to the healthy
social upbringing of each.

~~~
artsrc
> a few rambunctious boys

As the parent of a less rambunctious boy, I believe that discrimination should
be on the basis of behavior, not gender.

> The classroom dynamic was an absolute necessity to the healthy social
> upbringing of each.

I think that it is great to have everyone learn to work together, but I don't
think it has to be all the time.

------
DamnYuppie
I am surprised to see that none of the comments really comment or reflect upon
the issue this article brings up, which is that for boys to thrive they need
to be taught differently. If we can actually create ciriculum that allows them
to excel why would we not do this? I know that the main point against it would
be that young girls perhaps would not thrive in such a system. Yet I think we
have to find a balance between them if we want true equality and what is best
for all of our children.

Mayhaps it is time to reaccess if we should not have separate classes for boys
and girls..food for thought...

~~~
dgabriel
I bet girls would do just fine, and a sane combination of approaches works
best. The biggest issue with schools is that everybody _thinks_ they know how
to fix stuff, but the research is spotty at best. Standardized tests and core
curriculums? Differentiated learning or academic tiers? We all have opinions,
and there are many in this thread, but not all of these opinions can be
simultaneously right.

------
anigbrowl
I grew up (in Ireland) with single-sex schooling until age 12-3 (primary) and
mixed secondary. That has its own potential pitfalls (eg bullying, more
playground fights) but I think there are benefits too. Also, in primary school
it's the same teacher all day for a full year (or two) at a time, which makes
it a lot easier for the teacher to know each pupil and manage the classroom
appropriately.

I'm unsure why American schools are so tied to the lementary/ middle/ high
model. It doesn't confer any particular benefit that I can see.

~~~
cafard
It varies considerably. Most public schools break have either a middle school
or junior high school (grades 6-8 or 7-9) between primary and secondary
grades. But most Catholic parochial schools run to 8th grade. A lot of private
schools run from 6th to 12th grade on the same campus, some 3rd to 12th.

I suspect that the break is because in the middle years it becomes harder to
find a teacher who can do everything--reading, history, math--adequately. A
lot of what is called "science" in American primary schools I would call
"environmental civics"\--recycling is good; don't litter. Then in 7th or 8th
grades one can actually encounter chemistry labs.

(On the other hand, in my 7th (8th?) grade science class a big chunk of time
was given up to the evils of drugs; I didn't particularly disagree, but bilged
the class because I found it tedious to cull clippings about overdoses or LSD
flashback. And I have no idea what I might have learned in the "science"
lessons of the earlier grades--how many planets, maybe.)

------
gatekeepr
Every time I read an article about schooling I think about the best piece I
ever read on the subject.

The 7-Lesson Schoolteacher (1992) by John Taylor Gatto

[http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt](http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt)

------
dccoolgai
Reading this article, for me, is just a reminder of what an awesome effect a
really good teacher can have... In this teacher's writing I see a lot of
positive qualities reflected from some of the teachers that made a huge impact
on my life and disposition. In the end I suspect that - just having a teacher
that is even willing to think or write about this - has much more of an impact
than any rote following of procedural formula about "how to teach boys".

------
ameister14
I had a horrible middle school experience which led me to the opinion that
primary and secondary school is a much better system.

It's not just punishing students for not sitting still, though a friend was
almost flunking because he couldn't sit through a class. It's teachers eating
separately from students, no time for recess, and no adult to talk to without
social ostracism.

Then I went to a New England Prep school; 3 sports a year, teachers eat with
and openly question students, everyone feels like members of the community and
people have a stake in things, and the Headmaster knows everyone's name. I
can't thank that school enough; I went from failing with almost perfect test
scores to really good grades and a sense of belonging.

I don't understand why at least rural schools can't follow the same model. The
teachers are paid less but get better results; the students are cared for and
more disciplined, and the academics and athletics are generally better. It's
not about the student body, either; we had tons of kids on scholarship that
outperformed everyone.

------
rayiner
I don't see why we still have co-ed education in the early grades. It does
boys no good to be told they're behaving badly for not being able to sit still
in class, and it does girls no good to have boys disrupting class while
they're trying to learn.

------
easy_rider
I got this problem in elementary, still got almost the highest possible mark
on our CITO test (which is an indication of your education level here in the
Netherlands), went to one of the best Gymnasiums, and essentially got kicked
out of 80% of all my classes because of my ADD disorder, and refusal of
treatment (i.e. not wanting to take Ritalin). It also ended up me being easier
to calm the class by making an example out of me. I had to drop out of this
school to a lower grade, which I passed without pretty much doing fuck all,
cause it was too easy.

People should learn that distracted kids crave stimulation, and the stuff you
teach them is probably not stimulating (i.e. boring, easy)

------
cynoclast
As a boy who still cannot sit still at 30, the only way I survived being
forced to sit still at school was by programming my enormously overpriced
graphing calculator.

------
codereflection
As a father of two boys, I cannot agree enough with this article. I just
wonder how I can send this article to the teachers at my boys schools without
offending them.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Perhaps they need offending.

~~~
codereflection
Perhaps. I just worry about it being like insulting the person serving your
food. Tack needs to be used.

~~~
gohrt
Indeed, you might need to try a different tact.

~~~
codereflection
:)

------
cjdrake
I definitely recommend clicking on the "related story" link to "The War
Against Boys", written by Christina Sommers in 2000. American education has
been failing boys for _quite_ some time now. All parents have a responsibility
to educate themselves on this topic.

------
Houshalter
I got in trouble a lot for fidgeting at school all the time. I got diagnosed
with ADHD and had to take medicine for it, mostly because of the fidgeting.
One teacher made me put a giant a big inflatable cushion on my seat everyday
and it was humiliating and didn't help at all.

------
beachstartup
i remember i always got shitty 'citizenship' grades because i wanted to talk
to my classmates all the time.

talking - what a terrible thing for a child to do.

~~~
ceejayoz
Talking to your classmates "all the time" has very clear potential to be
highly disruptive to the teacher and other students' ability to learn.
Significantly different from just fidgeting.

~~~
embolism
But yet it may have been what he needed at that stage in his cognitive and
social development.

It's only disruptive to a disciplinarian, industrial age approach to
education.

~~~
ceejayoz
And what of the needs of the other kids in the room, who might need to be able
to hear what the teacher is saying?

A whispered request for clarification on something the teacher just said is
one thing. 15 separate conversations about the latest Call of Duty and who
made out with whom while the teacher tries to explain material is disruptive.

~~~
freehunter
What's also a good thing is social time with your peers. We separate kids
based on age, based on which random class they're thrown in, and in bigger
schools, which random lunch time they are assigned. None of these may match up
with their friends outside of class time. Perhaps there would be less
classroom disruption if friends could have time together outside of the one
class they took together knowing that would be the only time they could be
together?

~~~
ceejayoz
> Perhaps there would be less classroom disruption if friends could have time
> together outside of the one class they took together knowing that would be
> the only time they could be together?

There is. School ends at 2:30, upon which point they can enlist in formal or
informal shared after-school activities. Turning classes into a free-for-all
where no one needs to afford the teacher and other students any respect for
their time and attention isn't a great option.

Plus, most classes I took in high school had plenty of group projects, small
discussion groups, etc. that allowed for social interaction with friends in a
non-lecture context.

~~~
freehunter
Problem is, there are no buses that take the kids home from their after-school
activities. I don't know where you live, but there are many school districts
in the US where kids can't walk home or expect their parents to drive them to
and from school or a friend's house.

When I was in school, my house was an hour and a half bus ride from school. My
parents worked in the other direction. Outside of being at school, there was
no hope for social interaction unless we were in town for a festival. I'm also
not arguing for turning classes into a free for all. I pretty explicitly said
there should be room for social interaction _outside_ of class. In districts
with split lunch hours, there's literally no free-form social interaction
unless you're on one of the last buses to leave at the end of the day.

~~~
jff
We had buses to do exactly that. The "sports bus" departed at 6 p.m. every
day; there weren't a lot of the buses, because not everyone did afterschool
activities, but everyone who needed a ride got on the appropriate bus (east or
west, as I recall) which dropped them to their home. It was free, too.

This was a rural school district, about 60 students in my class, and the
district extended something like 20 miles in each direction from the town.

------
jvreeland
I felt like they were describing me that whole time. I was diagnosed with
learning disabilities and told to sit still countless times. Thankfully some
teachers realized keeping me in extra circular activities would offset my
energy but when I moved from that school the situation changed.

The frustrating part for teachers was that I typically scored higher on exams
than my peers, including standardized tests. They then saw my scores and
consistently lectured me about how if I just _applied_ myself I'd be doing so
much better.

I always treated exams as a challenge I sit here for 1, 2 hours at a time and
try and score as high as possible.

------
nether
Stop pandering to the internet crowd of "misunderstood" nerds, Atlantic [0].
You clearly know your audience and you've got your litany of "I was really
smart but teachers kept me down" testimonials here on HN and Reddit, but this
really adds nothing new to the discussion.

[0]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/business/media/13atlantic....](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/business/media/13atlantic.html?pagewanted=all)

------
fierycatnet
Overseas I used to go to school from 8am to 1pm with 40min classes(and I
received much better education). In US I had to sit for over an hour per
classs and until 4-5pm. Is this any wonder that kids can't sit from 8 to 4
with very small brakes in between? I didnt learn much in American HS, it was
torture most of the day. All I wanted to do was to get my work done and gtfo
/go home, but that system made it very difficult to do. In fact, I didnt care
much for school as a result.

------
StacyC
It’s unnatural for most any human to be expected to sit and focus on tedious
crap for hours on end, especially children.

We live in one of the top school districts in Texas, and three years ago took
our two boys out to homeschool them. No religious motivations, just got fed up
with the bullshit custom we continue to call “education” in this culture.

They are learning, thriving, curious, creative and happier than ever.

------
tenpoundhammer
Kids should spend have instruction for a while and then pushed out to play for
a while. Alternating back and forth, maybe an hour each way. Then we wouldn't
have as many fat kids and we wouldn't have so many kids disrupting classrooms.
Our children aren't automatons, they need plenty of time to be kids. There is
a lot of value in play.

------
Alex3917
"While Reichert and Hawley's research was conducted in all-boys schools, these
lessons can be used in all classrooms, with both boys and girls."

Not true, research shows that girls do worse when their performance is
evaluated in relation to others (competitively), as opposed to when their
performance is evaluated against an objective standard.

~~~
gthrowaway
Sad that I need a throwaway account to talk about this, but such is life.

Spend some time doing searches on terms like "gender grading gap" and reading
the recent research. What you find may surprise you, is consistent across
multiple Western democracies, and can be summarized thusly:

* When assessment is left to teachers, there is a grading gap in favor of girls; girls receive grades that are inflated relative to their performance on non-teacher assessments. This seems to be partly due to teachers including factors like "engagement" or "focus" in the classroom, which is known to favor girls, and partly due to bias by teachers in favor of students of their own gender (and many teachers are women, meaning the effect is most pronounced for girls).

* By surprisingly young ages, girls in public school systems internalize "we're better than boys" and boys internalize "we're worse than girls" (one UK study estimated boys internalize this by age eight), producing a performance/effort gap similar to that associated with racial stereotypes.

* This has ramifications all the way up the system, including an achievement gap which starts early and only grows with each milestone. Boys and young men are increasingly more likely to be held back and/or disciplined/medicated in early school years, increasingly less likely to get into advanced courses in later years, less likely to graduate local equivalent of "high school" and less likely to enter college/university or earn a degree.

~~~
melindajb
I'm confused about a so called achievement gap when men still hold the
majority of highest paying and most powerful jobs in the country.

I'd truly like to understand what you mean by this.

~~~
gthrowaway
I'm confused by what seems to be a non-sequitur. I'm talking about educational
achievement, and there is an absolute, well-documented and undeniable gap
there.

While it's true that within the highest ranks of Western society, gender plays
a significant role, it's also true that socioeconomic background -- "class",
for lack of a better word -- has a sunlight-to-candle relationship to gender
in terms of _getting into those ranks in the first place_. Western society has
drastically limited mobility right now, and the highest ranks are,
unfortunately, more conservative in their views on gender.

And as an aside, there's a good example of a broader application of
Kleinfeld's thesis there. Men dominate at the extreme high end, but also at
the extreme low end. Efforts toward true equality need to address the root
cause of that, which has more to do with rigid gender roles imposed on both
men and women than with outright favoring of men over women.

~~~
melindajb
You said: "This has ramifications all the way up the system, including an
achievement gap which starts early and only grows with each milestone."

And I say, I do not understand how this achievement gap, as you call it,
actually matters or is holding men back when men hold most of the advanced
degrees, and wealth in this society. I don't think you need a throwaway
account to discuss this stuff so long as everyone stays calm.

Meanwhile, you're spot on in my opinion about the role of class as well as
gender. This is very true. It's also why the "right" way of doing many things
is so often a "male" way of doing things, accepted as the default. They are
absolutely interconnected and probably inseparable. Most feminists will
absolutely agree that rigid gender roles hurt men and women, and we want
everyone to fulfill their potential, and not be stuck in those roles.

~~~
gthrowaway
_I do not understand how this achievement gap, as you call it, actually
matters or is holding men back when men hold most of the advanced degrees, and
wealth in this society._

Well, at the moment women are earning more bachelor's degrees, master's
degrees and yes, even Ph.Ds than men. That doesn't immediately erase a pre-
existing gap among the older generations, but it does tell us that in the
future we still won't have equality -- we'll have simply replaced one gap by
another.

The goal really ought to be to start raising generation after generation of
kids where boys and girls are equal in educational opportunity and
achievement. We've thus far failed at that goal, and I don't truly understand
how someone can call themself "feminist" whilst thinking that's not something
that "actually matters".

The prevalence of people who do call themself "feminist" and hold such beliefs
is why I shelter in my warm, snug anonymity. Pointing out such contradictions
does not typically result in calm discussions.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The goal really ought to be to start raising generation after generation of
> kids where boys and girls are equal in educational opportunity and
> achievement.

There are two very different goals stated there and they may not be
compatible.

------
ryanmarsh
This is why I will homeschool my son.

------
JulianMorrison
Or girls.

------
SmokyBorbon
60 years ago boys had no problem paying attention in class. The problem is too
many teachers today have degrees in education instead of the subject they are
supposed to be teaching. They've turned schools into daycare centers. They
rely on "projects", worksheets, videos, and busywork that have little to do
with what the kids should be learning. When children are bored and resentful
that their time is being wasted, they act out.

We can fix this by making it easier to fire bad teachers, require math,
science, and English teachers to have degrees in math, science, and English,
and prevent school funds from being used on new textbooks, televisions,
videos, workbooks, or other wasteful materials.

------
camus
Yeah , stop trying to teach kids discipline, especially when there is none at
home ...

~~~
kevingadd
Sitting still is not a virtue. It literally accomplishes nothing. It's a
secondary detail - whether or not the kid is sitting still does not tell you
whether they're actually paying attention to the lecture and whether they're
going to remember it.

~~~
GhotiFish
You're taking a narrow perspective. Fidgeting is distracting, to everyone
else. Whatever your ideals of a perfect world may be, 20 dump trucks of kids
needs to be educated at one facility every day. Whatever you may think one kid
is doing to help him focus, that kid is disrupting the focus of his 8
neighbors. Something needs to change, but it's more than just perspectives.

~~~
VLM
"that kid is disrupting the focus of his 8 neighbors"

Whatever else Catholic churches may get wrong, apparently all of the "modern"
ones I've ever been inside figured out the "crying room" technology a long
time ago. Setting up a "sound diode" isn't all that difficult with modern
technology. If whats really important is forcing future factory workers to
line up in alphabetical order in row/column format, then flexibility might not
work.

------
tlogan
And we wonder why smart kids are all introverts...

~~~
overgryphon
This is not true.

