How The Schools Shortchange Boys By Gerry Garibaldi

In “The Daily Grind: Lessons in the Hidden Curriculum”, Peggy Orenstein gives an observation of an eighth graders day in math class at middle school. Orenstein in this selection is trying to give the reader a view of how there is a gender gap between girls and boys and how control of power is different between male and female. In the beginning Orenstein states that Mrs. Ritcher the math teacher, “is a ruddy athletic woman with a powerful voice.”(97) While class is in session, Orenstein observes the teacher showing more attention towards the boys then the girls. The author observes that: “Allison, a tall, angular girl who once told me, “My goal is to be the best wife and mother I can be,” raises her hand to ask a question. Mrs. Ritcher, finishing

In his article “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto criticizes America’s system of schooling children, arguing that the whole system is bad and unfixable. In the majority of the essay Gatto relies on personal anecdotes, historical examples that do not correspond with modern day society, and bold unsubstantiated claims. Due to this, instead of convincing parents to take their children out of school and rethink our societies schooling structure, he just leaves the reader confused over what the problems he’s criticizing truly are.

Through the narrative “The Scholarship Boy” I find few turning points that I notice a shift in the demeanor of Richard Rodriguez as well as how I perceive the story. First of all, it is made apparent to me that people acknowledge him for his successes by making remarks such as, “Your parents must be proud” or “How did you manage it? According to the opening paragraphs Rodriguez is seen as a model student. Although this may be true, the first turning point I find suggests otherwise as Rodriguez conveys, “For although I was a very good student, I was also a very bad student…Always successful, always unconfident. Exhilarated by my process. Sad.” This quote changed my perspective of Rodriguez because of the negative emotion he expresses toward his family. By the same token, I recall my sister being an outstanding achiever throughout school, yet, she was similarly depressed as well as annoyed towards me and the rest of our family. This flashback assisted me in relating to Rodriguez’s emotions towards his successes. In the same fashion, I am supplied a grasp of his shift in tone and direction in the narrative.

As discussed in a recent essay by Saul Kaplan “The Plight of Young Males”, there is a serious academic gender achievement gap in the United States and as I will discuss, around the world. Young women are doing significantly better than young men, and the results are shocking. In the latest census, males make up 51 percent of the total U.S. population between the ages of 18-24. Yet only 40 percent of today’s college students are men. Since 1982, more American women than men have received bachelor’s degrees. In the last ten years, two million more women graduated from college than men. As Kaplan reveals, the average eleventh-grade boy writes at the level of the average eighth-grade girl. He also states that women dominate high school honor rolls and now make up more than 70 percent of class valedictorians. Kaplan says, “I am happy to see women succeeding. But can we really afford for our country’s young men to fall so far behind,” (733)?

There are multiple reasons why Kelley King, Michael Gurian and Kathy Stevens are on the pro side. For one reason, they believe that the differences exist due to boys being more interactive with certain topics and methods that don’t usually interest girls or vice versa. For example, the Wamsley Elementary School in Rifle, Colorado has both boy and girl students. However, in the past, the girl students over accomplished the boy students due to the school staff being more experienced in understanding how to teach girls than understanding how to teach boys. So, the school focused on teaching the boys with their own learning styles that are also girl friendly such as online courses. The result of this was successful as boys became more accomplished than they were from before. (Pages 147 – 148).

Mandatory, enforced schooling is common all over the world, and is generally seen as a public good, and a privilege of first world countries. However, author and teacher John Gatto argues that mandatory schooling destroys your ability to be free thinkers and therefore should not exist, in his piece “Against School”. Despite his effective use of ethos, Gatto’s argument fails to be convincing due to logical fallacies, and a lack of evidence or first hand experience.

Let’s do away with the school system. In “Against school, John Taylor Gatto says, “They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said that they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around” (Gatto 608). Gatto uses his article “Against School” to talk about how the school system is not necessary. He uses certain rhetorical strategies and personal experiences to do so. In “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto uses his personal experience in his thirty years of working in the school system and some rhetorical strategies to convince people who have children in the public-school system that kids do not need to be put in the system to have an education.

Society’s understanding of gender roles debate about gender equity and have always been connected to the social roles that men and women we assigned to shape Americans views of education for girls and boys. What has also been affected is race and social class between females and males who attend schools. Ideas of what women and men are suppose to be and do have cut across different classifications. Ending unfairness in schools has rested on change to gender roles mainly women.

Case studies is the main theme for Michael's argument as he did use multiple studies to prove a point or show percentages of ratios about men and women in education . Throughout this article, emotional struggles and feeling of discrimination for boys was shown many times, this gives Michael great support for his views on the war against boys. In the article, feminism was thought to be the cause of boys not being successful. Feminist had ideas and had goals to help future generations of

The writer of the essay uses Adam Cox a Clinical Psychologist as the authority figures to help support her thesis. Adam's support for the writer’s thesis is shown through Adam's statement: "The primary missing ingredient in [their] lives [...] is purposeful work." (Wente 5). Throughout the essay, the author criticizes the way in which schools have started becoming more feminized discriminating and alienating male behavior. Which in turn has caused many young boys to lose interest in school because

When you send your children off in the morning to go to school, no matter what grade they are in whither it be elementary, junior high, or senior high, you expect that they will receive the best education that they can get. They should be asked challenging questions, encouraged and called upon to participate in class, they should also be given as much help as they need to secede by the teacher. However, this is most commonly not the case. Parents and the children themselves are unaware of what is going on because gender bias is not a noisy problem. Most people are unaware of the secret sexist lessons that occur every day in classrooms across the country. In this essay I will use two essay's from the reader:

The story of Inside the World of Boys by William Pollack brings the attention to us that the boys often suffer from low-self esteem, in large part due to “the boy code”, the unspoken rules that compel them to feel they need to hide their emotions and keep them from exposure. In effect, “the boy code” causes the problem of gender gap between boys and girls in academic performances. I choose this essay because I am concerned with how “the boy code” raises the gender gap between boys and girls in their academic performances and how our societies often underestimate all emotional needs of boys. This story is not only a story but also is a research paper of Pollack which is supported by his research

Everybody remembers that one troublemaker they went to elementary school with. Was this kid a boy or girl? Though it may have been a girl, the majority of troublemakers are boys. In a study done in schools in 2011, teachers said, “according to a survey of teachers which found that a fifth thought girls were more likely to cause trouble than boys” (Vasager 1). This is not the case in the children’s book, David Goes to School by David Shannon. Although girls also can cause problems in school, throughout the story David Goes to School, David causes all the trouble in his class while the girls are setting the good example of a student.

In today’s society, education has become a very important factor in a student 's life. Everyone tries to do and implement whatever is best for the student to learn and become successful. Therefore, as a result, society tries to separate schools based on gender. Schools should be separated by gender for many reasons. The first reason is that gender separation will help eliminate bullying. It has been demonstrated that boys, in general, tend to be more rude and violent than girls causing the boys to “bully” girls. Another reason they should be separated is to help break down stereotypes. An example of this is that girls are free of the pressure to compete with boys in male dominated subjects such as math and science. Another reason they should be separated is that it makes it easier on the teacher to use different learning techniques that are geared toward specific genders. It is a great idea to separate students by gender at schools if they want the students to have a better education. This will help prevent bullying at schools, help breakdown stereotypes, and encourage teachers to use different educational techniques.

Christine Cosker responded to Mooney's article indicating that it is not the fault of the women teachers, but the society in which these boys are raised. The boys are taught that women are