Will Boys Be Boys? Blog #3

The article “Will Boys Be Boys?” by Ann Hulbert the author discussed the effects of boys in the classroom. People are focusing more on what girls needed to improve on and pushing boys issues aside. Girls showed a weakness in math and sciences so schools were focusing on improving girls in that area, but failed to notice that boys were struggling in verbal areas. This is causing boys to fall behind the girls in the classrooms and is decreasing the amount of men attending collage after high school.

Another main point that was mentioned in this article is “being a haptic learner doesn’t necessarily mean you have ADD”. The author shares evidence that boys just have different “learning styles” such as being more “hands-on”. The author Richard Whitmire from New Republic wrote an essay that was about evaluating boys brains which showed that this “points to a lower density of neurons in the male’s temporal lobe cortex, which is “associated with verbal skills””. As well Newsweek states that boys use the prefrontal cortex of their brain, which means “a less matured pattern of brain activity”.

The main point to this article was the evidence that it brought forward about how the boys are not getting the help that they need to excel in school and are being left behind. Personally I feel that it is not only boys that are not getting the help that they need in school, but all kids in general. There needs to be more individual help and more after school programs for those that are falling behind. One of the main problems is that the states keep cutting the budgets for schools instead of giving them the money that they need. As well there needs to be programs for preschools so that way when they get into kindergarten they are not behind and everyone is at the same level. I do agree that different kids need specialized help, but this article makes it seems like only the boys are the ones not getting it. We need to take a look at the schools systems as a whole.