Are Boys Lagging Behind?Are Boys Lagging Behind?

In the days of iPods, Game Boys, vision phones and digital high- tech equipment, it’s difficult for us to think about the possibility of boys lagging behind girls when it comes to education.

After all, there was a time when studies revealed boys scored exceptionally higher than girls, particularly in science and math.

A new book is coming out this week that supports the idea our communities are losing our young boys academically. This doesn’t surprise me. Years ago, I read about the plight of losing our young boys in education environments around the time they enter the fourth- grade.

Having a number of grandsons, this issue is of particular concern to me.

In some things, I’m a traditionalist. I believe there’s a role the male is destined to hold and a role the female is destined to hold. Without having a good cup of cappuccino and a soft leather couch to stimulate further discussion and debate on the matter, I’ll hold my further thoughts on this for now.

What I want to get across, however, is we are losing our young men at alarming rates. They’re becoming disengaged from the fabric of society designed to embrace us as a community.

I’ve been a part of many meetings in corporate boardrooms, civil organizations and faith centers where their presence is minimal. This seems to be true with respect to the male presence overall, regardless of race, ethnicity, creed, age or color.

Sadly, it’s particularly and dominantly true when we look at the presence of men of color.

As far back as 1985, Jawanza Kunjufu, an education consultant with African-American Images, identified the symptoms of the “fourth- grade failure syndrome” in the book “Countering the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys.” He noted the decline of interest in our boys. This disinterest is injected by self or by the actions of others.

But we all know research isn’t needed to verify the presence of failure. We can see it on the faces and in the actions of our youth during our daily interaction with them. We’ve seen the vibrant energy of their faces and heard the comments generated by their engaging minds between the ages of 2 and 8. And then, we begin to see a change.

Some people recently have indicated this condition is changing, but Dr. Leonard Sax, the author of “Boys Adrift,” the new book coming out this week, indicates otherwise. He says our society is continuing to grow unmotivated boys, and says it may be largely due to the No Child Left Behind initiative because it’s focused on implementing a compressed curriculum. Students are being forced to sit still and be quiet, and time on the playground has been taken away – compromising the very active and learning nature of children, and specifically compromising the very nature of boys. He said those restrictions may have forced more boys into special education classes.

The statistics Sax notes are significantly alarming. This is a book you’ll definitely want to read.

Glenda Overstreet is an active volunteer in the Topeka community. She can be reached at goov6@cox.net.

(c) 2007 Topeka Capital Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.