The failure of boys in education | Alex Brown
Boys and girls learn differently. This is something there is no doubt about. This stems from identifiably distinct anatomy and neurology with their concurrent effects. Girls have better listening skills and a more detailed memory, whereas boys have a smaller attention span and struggle to multitask more than girls. Boys also suffer from greater physical impulsivity and tend not to control their natural urges as much whereas girls are able to control these more frequently. These are only scratching the surface of what makes the two different, ranging from women having larger Broca’s areas in the brain; making them more adept in language, to boys being less biologically developed than their female counterparts until the end of puberty and adolescence.
This is all true, yet sadly state education sectors around the Western world have done little to adapt to this reality, favouring standardisation in teaching methods and behavioural standards for the sexes. In the United Kingdom, this has, bluntly, led to a visible and disastrous difference between boys and girls in one of the most recent GCSE sets (2019) where boys had a pass rate of 62.3% compared to 71.4% for girls. More than this, however, in the same year only 54.2% of boys achieved a grade 4/C in English language compared to 70.5% of girls.
Yet there is even another disparity taking place. The Department for Education (DfE) also marked that: “White pupils who are eligible for free school meals (FSM) have markedly lower attainment compared to pupils from other backgrounds who are eligible for FSM”. So this is not simply a class cutting issue (despite boys overall achieving consistently less than girls), it is about deprivation too. All of this is staggering and unacceptable to anyone who cares passionately about education as I do.
Today, I will outline the key reasons as to the consistent failure of boys when compared to girls as well as explain what is to be done if we are to achieve any sort of educational rigor and fairness in the UK.
Having outlined some of the psychological differences between boys and girls already, let's continue to pursue this line of enquiry and find out whether they make any further substantive differences between the sexes that goes beyond grades. Esteemed Professor of Psychology Philip Zimbardo remarks that “we tell men and boys what they shouldn’t do but we don’t tell them what they should do to be a man in our society, the old roles don’t fit”. This is a good point. In a world in which traditional notions of masculinity (to be a warrior, a breadwinner), and the roles of boys come of age, are lambasted, such a reality raises an enormously difficult existential question to the educational field. Where are we leading them?
Increasingly, boys are being made to fit modern standards of ‘political correctness’ in the classroom, but these standards only critique behavior and, crucially, do not provide a model to follow. Teachers are being made to conform to these new standards too with “inclusivity training” which ironically does everything to exclude young men.
In the same talk, Zimbardo explains about how a mother’s love is “unconditional” whereas a father’s love is “conditional”, yet it is the father's love in a study of Harvard graduates that meant most to them in their success (such love being dependent on academic performance much of the time). This is a worrying conclusion considering that 86% of lone parent households in 2019 were single mothers as well as this being an increase of 14.5% since 1999. Combine this with the fact that divorces are being widely accepted and encouraged in the 21st century with nearly 91,000 taking place in 2018 and an increase in 2019 expected, one can only assume such failure will persist. This startling increase of fatherlessness could be massively to blame for the male failure to perform academically because they have received unconditional love from a mother (theoretically) that is not dependent on any sort of academic performance therefore removing any ‘risk/reward situation’ from the family dynamic.
Another big issue in this phenomenon is the educational curriculum. Across the board we are seeing the curriculum reformed to include ‘liberal approved’ authors, histories and narratives. For example we see the question of “how diverse is your history curriculum?” by the ‘History Association'' where they go on to ask the question “have your students learnt that: Women made up 50+% of people in the past? Non‐white people have long lived in these islands? Non‐white people have not only been victims of white oppression? There have always been less visible minority groups, such as LGBTQ+ and people with disabilities?” All of this is truly ridiculous.
Malcom Forbes (former owner of Forbes magazine) said that “the purpose of education is to turn an empty mind into an open one”. But with this new diverse narrative education creates not an open mind but a selective one as children are taught approved histories such as the irredeemable evil of the British empire whilst disregarding the massive infrastructure and language improvements that came with it. This is not to suggest such one-sided propaganda the other way would be desirable either, but perhaps G.K Chesterton’s statement that minds were made to be closed in order that they may be open suits our situation better. Teach truth, so they may be able to identify and discern it later.
Students are taught of the virtue in the empowerment movements of women and minorities whilst ignoring the numerous acts of terror committed by these movements in the process. But most worryingly, minority advocacy groups continue to suggest that to identify with a history, an author or narrative is to be empowered leading to disenfranchisement of young men but most of all young white men because their histories are now frowned upon. Heavily Foucauldian-inspired critical race theory enters the ears of impressionable and unassuming innocence in classrooms. It simply causes disunity in society and discourages any sort of cohesion since it pits a new ‘us and them situation’ between men, women, black people, and white people. I fear, as one of its numerous negative effects, it has at least in part contributed to the isolation of British society’s now paradoxically most imperiled and simultaneously demonised group; white working class boys.
The history that relates to men on this island, and thus attributes those here meaning to their ancestors, and a sense of rooted belonging, are being thrown aside in favour of certain histories that are coming to dominate their curriculum yet affect a very small portion of the population (2011 census found that only 19.5% of England and Wales are non-white-British).
As stated, one does not need to identify with their curriculum to enjoy it or be interested in it, but when your curriculum actively disapproves of every action of your ancestors it has a severe effect. In her latest book ‘The Power of Culture’, headmistress Katherine Birbalsingh talks in one chapter of the importance of teaching “dead white men” because the contributions they made are invaluable such as Shakespeare writing a good portion of the English language, now spoken around the world. This cleansing of whiteness in approved histories leads to a drop in interest across all subjects and this reflects up to the top of education.
After all, for all the hysteria about the dominance of a group that evidence suggests is actually suffering and falling behind, in 2016, women outnumbered men in 112 out of 180 degree subjects; with the biggest deficits being in the social sciences such as teaching. Indeed, government data shows around three quarters of schoolteachers in Britain are women. As Zimbardo has stated, women do not tend to value male attributes and traits. We must be mindful of the unnaturally occurring echo chambers that may be being therefore created.
So what is to be done if we are to help boys to succeed again. For me there are simple solutions. The government must:
Promote genuine pro-family policies in order to combat increasing single parent families. Such policies could include the tax breaks for married families that we saw abolished not too long ago as well as subsidies for public ‘family groups’ which would allow for genuine family time and teaching parents how to involve themselves in their children’s lives as well as the importance of such involvement.
Scrap all diversity programmes and diverse histories in education that have proved nothing but detrimental, tokenistic and fractious and replace them with a balanced curriculum that effectively deals with all sides of history; good and bad. This requires the rediscovery of an objective morality that applies universally.
Recognise that what we call ‘political correctness’ has had detrimental effects on men (especially young men) who feel neglected in a world that critiques their behaviour at every juncture. It can be no coincidence that men are three times more likely to commit suicide than women. This compromises women in the long run too. Society is not a zero-sum game.
As society leaps with enthusiasm to embrace change as progress, many are quick to embrace it while some others still have the courage to reject it and recognise its many flaws. One of its biggest is the neglect of men, there is an increasingly diminished role for men in every aspect of society and this begins in education. In order to combat this rise we must strike at the very heart and first line of battle which is in our schools. A diverse curriculum no longer means inclusion of all; it means inclusion of the few. As Roger Scruton notes, ‘inclusivity’ often means little more than excluding the old excluder. The idea of the family is dramatically being eroded, if not suffering from a deliberate and concerted attack, and male natural behaviour is increasingly under surveillance and criticism; leaving half of our young children confused and isolated, not knowing how to direct or order their traits which history shows us can lead to greatness.
Make no mistake we are coming to a head with the failure of boys and it cannot be allowed to continue. If it does we as a majority will be side-lined in favour of an unelected, dictatorial minority. For the sake of our society, we need good men.
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