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How the education system leaves boys behind
The Wall Street Journal recently posted a viral article about how young men of today are giving up on college. This sparked quite a discussion around the internet and on social media about why young men are falling behind in education and why college campuses are increasingly dominated by women (59.9% last fall).
School is for Girls!
I’ve maintained for quite sometime that the source of this problem is that the K-12 education system is calibrated for the success of women. One former teacher in the WSJ facebook comment section took umbrage at what I said after she herself mentioned that girls in her classes were easier to deal with, easier to teach, and more serious than boys. She didn’t like me saying it out loud, but then promptly proved my point.
This Financial Times article puts it right on the nose, “And whereas most workplaces remain male-friendly environments, schools may be more girl-friendly. Girls tend to be more self-disciplined (perhaps because of how they are socialized), and good at sitting and listening, something many small boys find hard, says Francesca Borgonovi, senior analyst at the OECD. “Boys are too often seen as deficient girls,” says Gijsbert Stoet, a psychologist at Leeds Beckett University.”
