Real Boys

by William Pollack

  When Purkey gave his test to a wide range of students—gifted and average, urban and rural—in grades six, seven, and eight, he discovered two important facts. First, he learned that for all students—boys and girls alike—this measure of self-esteem lowers as kids move into mid-adolescence, from sixth to eighth grade. But he also reported that “significant differences were found between male and female students.” Across all grade levels and in all categories, girls scored higher than boys. Put simply, Purkey showed that boys’ self-esteem as learners is more at risk than that of girls.

  Joan Finger, one of Purkey’s graduate students, created a similar study to look at African American middle school students. She discovered no significant differences in self-esteem between African American and Caucasian boys. However, she found that African American males had “generally lower” scores in self-esteem than African American females. In other words, self-esteem seems to be more an issue of gender than it is of race.

  Purkey’s results differ from those of a widely publicized report called Shortchanging Girls by the American Association of University Women. That report argued that girls have relatively lower self-esteem than boys, while Purkey’s findings show that girls, not boys, are the ones who think of themselves as smart enough to succeed. Purkey believes that the disparity comes as a result of boys’ tendency toward braggadocio. In his phrase, “boys tend to brag more to impress their friends,” while girls “brag less and do better in school.” Boys, he stresses, are simply using bragging as “a shield to hide a deep-seated lack of confidence.” This shield, of course, is what I call the mask, the emotional defense mechanism boys use to hide their shame.

  Purkey’s findings fit with those of my own work. I tested a group of boys for their performance on the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory, a series of questions designed to measure a child’s self-esteem. What I discovered is that, though the boys in my group were functioning quite well on the outside, and their measures of self-esteem were generally at least average, many of them were giving what are known as “false-positive” responses. A false-positive response is one where the child thinks he is answering a question in a way that reflects his high self-esteem, but his answer in fact reflects that the child’s genuine feelings are different. When a child gives several false-positive answers on this test of self-esteem, the researcher knows that the child is not able, for one reason or another, to give sincere responses. Indeed, the false-positive scale is actually referred to as the “lie measure.”

  Although the boys in my study showed average self-esteem—neither terribly “high” nor terribly “low”—not only did many of them give false-positive responses, but the extent to which they gave such false-positive or defensive responses significantly grew as the boys got older. On a scale from 1 to 8 (where 1 suggests genuine responses and 8 suggests false-positive ones), the boys “scored” higher and higher over time. Specifically, boys from grades seven through nine scored between 1.53 and 1.95; boys in the tenth grade scored at 2.45; those in the eleventh grade received 3.0; and the twelfth-graders scored a 5.0.

  These findings suggest that as boys move through adolescence, they are more and more prone to distort the extent to which they truly feel confident about their masculinity. In other words, as they move through adolescence, they feel an increasing need to say they conform to society’s ideal of “masculine” self-confidence (even though inside themselves they may not feel confident at all).

  This escalating masking of a boy’s real feelings is consistent with the research of Professor Notleman at NIMH. He studied young teens as they made the transition to secondary schools, assessing what they perceived about their competence and self-esteem as compared with what their teachers felt about them. “Boys,” Notleman found, “consistently rated themselves more competent. . . than they were rated by their teachers.” His findings, like my own, imply that boys resort to bravado to cover over the shame they would experience if they actually showed their fears about not measuring up. Rather than realizing or expressing their feelings of insecurity, boys “whistle a happy tune.” This confident tune may fool many adults, and the boys themselves—at least for a while.

  These studies also suggest that the longer boys are out there in society—in other words, the more they’re influenced by society’s ambivalent feelings about gender roles and masculinity—the more they feel they have to hide their own confusion by “making believe” they feel good about themselves when they don’t, and by pretending that everything is fine, when perhaps it is not so fine. As the years pass, the mask for many boys becomes tighter and tighter.

  So, while it’s not always easy to detect, adolescent boys, just like adolescent girls, are suffering from a crisis in self-esteem that seriously threatens their capacity to learn, achieve, and feel successful.

  THE SYSTEM DOES NOT ALWAYS FIT OUR BOYS: THE

  EMOTIONAL DISCONNECT BETWEEN TEACHERS AND BOYS

  To remedy this predicament, the solution, of course, is not to stop focusing on girls but to begin focusing more effectively on boys as well. This will not be easy, because I believe that the very structure of most coeducational schools tends unwittingly to favor female students, that teachers have become well sensitized to girls’ voices—sometimes at the expense of their ability to recognize boys’ voices—and that many educators do not understand boys’ characteristic learning styles. Many coeducational schools, I believe, have evolved—due to a variety of societal, cultural, and historical factors—into institutions that are better at satisfying the needs of girls than those of boys. Or these schools have evolved into environments that are essentially “gender-blind.” Either way, too many schools are failing to address boys’ unique social and emotional needs and are not providing the kinds of classroom activities and approaches that will help most boys to thrive.

  In a recent study entitled The Influence of School Climate on Gender Differences in Achievement and Engagement of Young Adolescents, Valerie Lee and her associates at the University of Michigan analyzed data on the educational progress of more than nine thousand eighth-grade students. They found that the impact of a student’s gender on his or her academic performance was inconsistent—boys did better in some areas and girls did better in others. Their more striking discovery, however, was that eighth-grade girls were more engaged academically than boys, evidenced better study habits and better attendance, were more likely to successfully complete their homework, and generally had a more positive set of academically oriented behaviors. Thus, though girls, as we’ve seen, may perform below boys in certain limited areas (generally math and science), it seems they are better adjusted to schools than boys are. But is it that girls are better adjusted to schools or that schools are better adjusted to girls?

  Consider this example. I was recently asked to consult at a highly ranked suburban public elementary school where the teachers had received compulsory retraining in gender equity. The teachers had become especially vigilant, even obsessive, about making sure that the voices of girls in their classes received ample attention. On several occasions I had observed the fourth-grade class of Ms. Callahan. She was particularly skillful, modern, and warm in her approach, universally beloved by the students. I have every reason to believe that Ms. Callahan was a teacher who would want both boys and girls to derive all they could from the classroom experience.

  On this visit, some boys and girls who had been organized into “teams” were working together on a writing project about friendship. Adult volunteers were consultants for these teams and were helping them with their computer skills. I was surprised to see that instead of focusing on the writing project, Ms. Callahan’s attention was almost entirely taken up by disciplining the boys. Several lively boys were making a commotion in one corner near the computer. Ms. Callahan cautioned them about making too much noise, and told them to return to their desks and wait their turns.

  With long faces, the boys meandered across the room and slumped into their seats. A moment later one of the
boys could not resist calling out about something. Ms. Callahan gave him a stern second warning. “I don’t want to have to caution you again,” Ms. Callahan said. “If I do, you’re heading for the principal’s office.”

  I had observed this class before, and now I noticed that two of the more creative male students—Robert and Shawn—were not in evidence. I asked Ms. Callahan if they were sick that day.

  “No,” she explained. “Robert is too excitable for the group process. He’s working on an entirely different project.” She pointed him out—sitting alone on the floor, tucked out of view, banished from the team endeavor.

  “And where’s Shawn?” I inquired.

  “He was telling inappropriate jokes about Albert Einstein earlier in the day and distracting the entire class. So, he’s sitting outside working on his spelling.” Ms. Callahan sighed. “Some kids just seem unable to fit into this more quiet team-based teaching.”

  I wish I had asked her what those jokes about Albert Einstein were, but I was too concerned about her attitude toward these boys. She clearly felt that they could not “fit in” and that they were “unable” to participate appropriately, when I knew (as she did) that these were bright boys with a lot to offer. Although I doubt that Ms. Callahan would agree, I think the prevailing method in class that day was structured around the way girl students prefer to work, and that boys were at a disadvantage.

  This unintentional disconnect between teachers and boys can grow more intense as boys approach adolescence. In elementary school, most teachers find it relatively easy to see their male students for what they are—little boys with weaknesses and vulnerabilities. But when a boy takes on the physical characteristics of a man—when stubble begins to appear on the upper lip and he starts to tower over the teacher—it can become very difficult for a teacher to remember that there is still a little boy inside that mature male body. All the teacher’s personal feelings about men and masculinity now come into play, and he or she may be less effective at focusing on what the boy needs from that teacher to learn. The teacher may not have been taught about the Boy Code or the mask; he or she may not fully understand the societal pressures that make boys feel they need to act strong, tough, and aggressive, and so the teacher may be unable to see the boy’s genuine vulnerability and thus even feel intimidated or, in some cases, physically threatened by him.

  These attitudes toward boys as learners are not confined to teachers. Girls themselves, encouraged by the school environment itself and picking up on their teachers’ attitudes, may unwittingly contribute to boys’ difficulties. As one eleven-year-old girl recently explained to me: “Boys mess everything up. They act goofy and we don’t want them in our groups.”

  Obviously, boys quickly sense these anti-boy attitudes. Fourteen-year-old Kevin explained to me how many boys at school fear getting involved: “I know that in many classes girls are supposedly intimidated by guys. But I think the opposite is true. Girls have an easier time opening up and communicating than guys do. . . . Many guys are afraid to speak up because they don’t want to look stupid.”

  Jacob, an eighth-grade student now in an all-boys school talked about the effect of not having girls in his classes: “When girls are around, you can’t help acting different. The good thing here is that you can say whatever you want in class and not feel stupid. We also say exactly what we mean to each other. That’s really important. It’s also nice not to care about how you look at school. It’s fun to see girls out of school or on the weekends, but I just don’t think I would feel like myself if there were girls in school.”

  Though younger boys may be less able to articulate the effects of girls’ attitudes toward them, of course they respond to them too. For example, Randy came into first grade as a strong reader. But, when Ms. Cohen organized the class into six reading groups, she decided Randy wasn’t quite strong enough to join the top group, consisting of three girls. After about six weeks, however, Randy had improved enough in his reading that the teacher felt he could join them. Randy was very excited; the girls were not. They did not welcome Randy. In fact, Laura, the girl acknowledged by everyone as the best reader in class and leader of the top group, was overtly hostile to Randy. If he made a mistake while reading aloud, she would stifle a giggle or roll her eyes. When it came to choosing a book for the group to read, Laura would always prevail, vetoing Randy’s choice and gaining support from the other girls for her own.

  It was tough for Randy to deal with reading at the higher level, tougher for him to be the only boy in a group of three girls, even tougher to deal with Laura’s derision and hostility. But I believe most of his stress could have been relieved if the teacher, Ms. Cohen, had chosen to intervene. But she too saw Randy’s elevation to the top reading group as a privilege—he was taking a position that she believed was “naturally” occupied by girls. And, in fact, the statistics about reading and writing performance support her belief. The treatment of Randy was, in effect, very similar to the treatment a girl might get if she were to join an all-boy sports team. He was rejected and made to feel unwelcome. In my opinion, such gender-based animosity should never be tolerated.

  GENDER STEREOTYPING IN THE CLASSROOM

  The gender stereotyping that leads up to the way that Randy was mistreated begins as early as kindergarten, and by the time kids reach middle school it often becomes virtually sanctioned. Based on many of the myths about boys that we’ve discussed—especially the myths that there’s just one way boys will behave (“boys will be boys”) and that boys are somehow wired to be rambunctious, socially immature misfeasors (“boys are toxic”)—many teachers may develop rigid or misguided ideas about how to deal with the boys in their classrooms.

  Like anybody else in society, teachers tend to place boys in gender straitjackets and thus restrict boys when they attempt to break out of them. Consider, for example, what happened when Linda Bakken, an educational psychologist at Wichita State University, recently visited a kindergarten classroom. When a little boy dressed up as a woman, complete with necklace and handbag, the teacher angrily chided him. “Little boys shouldn’t be playing with necklaces,” she said, and pulled him away from the girls’ area.

  A friend of one of my colleagues recently told me of how a budding friendship between my colleague’s daughter and our mutual friend’s son was almost destroyed in first grade when a teacher at their school sarcastically remarked: “Adam, it looks like your girlfriend, Sarah, wants to sit next to you.”

  By looking at boys in a narrow way and failing to recognize the gentle, creative, empathic sides of many boys, I believe that some teachers—though they may not consciously intend it—can seriously encumber the emotional and scholastic development of boys in their classes who do not necessarily comply with society’s old stereotyped gender rules about how they should behave, learn, and grow. Unwitting as it may be, many teachers strictly enforce the Boy Code and suppress any boys who try to buck it.

  In addition, many educators simply cast boys as the “bad guys,” pointing to our sons as the source of many of the serious problems girls have recently faced at school. And so rather than doing what’s necessary to address boys’ unique behaviors, concerns, and dreams, there’s actually a prevalent tendency in the educational establishment to ignore these needs. Boys are allowed, in effect, to “sink or swim.” When they clash with teachers, administrators, or other students, they’re often seen as troublemakers or problem cases. Based on the “myth of toxicity,” boys at school are often perceived as “little (testosterone-driven) monsters” whose “aggression” must be controlled and disciplined rather than as vulnerable little boys who must be nurtured and encouraged. This, of course, makes it hard for us to see new, helpful, creative solutions to schooling them.

  While it’s true that some boys may raise serious safety and discipline concerns, I am convinced that most simply aren’t getting the right kind (or amount) of attention and instruction. Consider, for instance, Julia Winslow, a teacher who has taught social studies i
n her town’s middle school for eight years. “When I first started teaching,” she said, “I was determined to be different from the teachers I had when I was young. I wanted to really listen to kids, really respect them, not ever speak down to them or get harsh with them.”

  The reality, Julia laments, had not matched her hopes. “There are days when I feel really pleased with what’s gone on in my classroom. The kids have built a castle to learn about medieval times, or we’ve had a really good discussion about some current event. But a lot of times I’m just a referee, or a circus trainer for twenty-eight seals. I’m barking orders, throwing fish, handing out reprimands. No one is getting what they really need.”

  Julia feels that boys in her classes often pay the biggest price. “I’m constantly yelling at the boys. No matter how much bluster they have, I know it hurts when I snap at them. A lot of times I’m sure there’s some underlying reason for their misbehavior, but I don’t have the time or energy to deal with it.”

  “What about the girls?” I asked.

  “The girls tend to take care of themselves more. The boys usually need more help with the work, but I can’t be ten places at once. So I’m always just trying to get through the day by telling this one to wait, this one to be quiet, this one to quit doing such-and-such to that one.”