Guest Author - Marie Stroughter

"Schools are failing boys," a recent parenting magazine headline recently screamed. Is it true?

In the interests of "full disclosure", let me preface this discussion by stating that I have exclusively homeschooled my son. Futher, let me state that I have a background in Early Childhood Education (one of the reasons I chose to homeschool).

Let's begin with the obvious: Boys are hardwired differently than their female counterparts. This is a "duh" moment, perhaps, however, it bears repeating. In Gender Differences in the Attainment of Motor Skills on the Movement Assessment Battery for Children, Junaid and Fellowes found a marked difference in motor skills and manual dexterity.

Given this widely accepted and known fact, boys are still pushed to accomplish the same tasks girls are, and no allowances are made for the discrepancy. I do not suggest boys be allowed to "slide" , however, my point is that our current school system is a "one-size-fits-all" and children are herded through the year's curricula at the same pace without regard to these differences.

Further, many educational technologies in the classroom do not account for various learning styles. Many boys are kinesthetic learners. They learn best by moving, touching, handling and interacting with the material to be covered in a very active way. Because our classrooms have one teacher to approximately twenty-five to thirty students, many classes are formal and structured and do not allow for this learning style for all subjects.

Secondly, due to a previous long-term academic schism, girls did not fare as well in Math and Science as boys did. Thus, the push for programs to mentor girls in these areas. Though well-intentioned, and very successful, this focus on girls deepened the educational divide, since girls caught up, and boys stayed where they were.

When you add race to this mix, the disparity widens. Though there has been a push in recent years for cultural competence, you will still see inner-city children asked to solve word problems involving silos and troughs. Terms used in education need to be accessible to all children. Some children have never seen a farm, or snow. I do not suggest they do not learn about these things, however, when used in mandatory standardized testing, only terms that all children would be familiar with should be used. Anything less sets up children to fail because of their geographical differences, which often correlate to racial differences.

So what can be done?

Parents can work individually with their sons to increase their manual dexterity. I knit, and my son was very intrigued with this, so I taught him and the side benefit was that it greatly improved his fine-motor skills. Online worksheets focusing on handwriting abound. Talk to your son's teacher and ask what you might be able to do in the way of supplementing to help your son in this area.

As to cultural competence, make notes when you find something in your child's homework that promotes a stereotype or has concepts that only a child of a certain ethnic or socio-economic group might have access to. Share these with your child's educator or your PTA group.

Be an advocate for your child, and you will help your son bridge the educational divide.