Schools need to play a critical role if boys are to overcome the disadvantages of a changing society where the playing field has new rules and girls appear to have the upper hand, say headmasters.
Failing to correct the now significant disparity between boys and girls educational achievement could come at serious social cost, experts believe.
Rapid technological changes, changes in economies, and the undermining role of feminism in the 1970’s and 1980’s, have all left many men unsure of their purpose in society, explains Ian Baldwin, principal of Southland Boys’ High.
The challenge to centuries of traditional beliefs has shaken male confidence and the results are simply being reflected in today’s schools, he said.
The failure of a significant number of boys to achieve at school led to the creation of the Boys Educational Achievement Reference group in 2004—whose task is to research and provide recommendations to the Ministry of Education that aim at improving educational outcomes for boys.
The recommendations have already been implemented in varying degrees in schools across the country.
Southland Boys’ High has achieved good results using a multi-disciplinary approach to addressing underachievement.
Only some boys fall into this category, Mr. Baldwin said, but if those boys are not dealt with now they will become part of social statistics later on, including truancy, behavioural issues, involvement in petty theft and crime.
The impulsive, risk-taking behaviour and the sheer ‘physicality’ of boys needs to be directed in a structured way.
The school has found that boys especially benefit from having clear structures in lessons, good feedback, mentoring and consistency right across the board.
Mentoring can develop “compassion and sensitivity to others’ needs” and sow the seed for good fatherhood, Mr. Baldwin said.
Up to forty percent of Southland Boys’ High boys come from single parent homes where they have “no meaningful relationship with an adult male”, he said.
Reading, writing and verbal expression are a ‘cornerstone’ of the school’s programmes.
“We employ out of our own money... and have employed for the last three years, a specialist reading teacher to teach the teachers and we would now have some of the most highly skilled year 7 and 8 teachers in reading and writing.”
“I would venture to suggest that we need to completely overhaul the way in which we teach reading and writing in this country... we need to train our teachers better and we need to value them more.”
Paul Baker, rector of Waitaki Boys’ High and member of the reference group, said that after studying 30 years of statistics he has found that there has been no significant change in the gender gap for English or maths.
However, he says, gaps have occurred in all other subjects, which have now become more “academic”, “feminised” and “complicated”.
“They have become less practical, less hands-on, and so a lot of other subjects where boys did considerably better than girls, there’s now no difference or girls are doing markedly better than boys,” he said.
Statistics show that girls are consistantly outperforming boys in most subjects, and that boys are dropping out of school at a faster rate than girls.
The challenge, Dr. Baker said, is to get boys engaged, to motivate them to succeed and “to get them beyond the minimalist mentality that the NCEA unfortunately so encourages.”
With the country going into recession, it is even more important to direct the huge potential of boys into good career choices as unqualified school leavers will soon be unable to find work, he said, inevitably leading to the same social problem that New Zealand experienced 20 years ago.
Judy Turner, former United Future member of parliament and primary schoolteacher believes that raising boys’ underachievement is the the answer to youth crime and delinquency.
New Zealand’s poor domestic violence track record, suspects Mrs Turner, could be attributed to a lack of good oral language skills.
“We get into a conflict and come out of the corner with our fists up.”
“For every six girls that pass NCEA level one, only five boys pass. Boys also make up close to three-quarters of referrals for literacy help, speech and language therapy, and behavioural difficulties.”
Mrs Turner refers to boys underachievement as “the white elephant in the classroom.” and claims that the problem has been ignored by major political parties over the last nine years.
“It is interesting when you talk about boys’ and men’s rights, there is an assumption with people that you somehow want to achieve this at the expense of women.”
