Ode to a Normal Boy's Life

Males are being asked to adjust to a new worldview. Working wives and mothers expect them to help with cooking and childcare, not just take out the garbage. Athletes still have to hide their sexual preferences in locker rooms and frat houses. And, as Marvel comic hero, Luke Cage, observed, young black men have guns and no fathers.

     After Keanon Lowe, the football and track coach at Portland's Parkrose High School, wrestled a legally-purchased shotgun out of a male student's hand and hugged him, TIME magazine (Dec. 23-30, 2019) recognized Mr. Lowe as one of 2019's heroes. Lowe told the 19-year-old who he hugged that he cared about him. "You do?" he responded.  Prosecutors learned the shotgun had only one round. It had failed to fire, when the young man attempted to commit suicide outside a bathroom. Mental health treatment was part of his three-year sentence to probation.

     A boy's surprise that someone cared for him and the term, "toxic masculinity," suggest a need to nurture males differently. Between the ages of four and six, research finds boys begin to match their behavior to the expectations of others who tell them not to cry, show fear, or make mistakes. When they develop a strong bond with someone, that relationship has a major influence on how they see themselves. Boys are close observers of the way teachers relate to them, for example. Instead of positive encouragement, if boys have trouble with a subject, negative reactions undercut their confidence. To avoid the vulnerability of looking stupid and to maintain the sense of male superiority someone close to him expects, boys probably act out and get suspended.

     Maybe female students are more willing to try to resolve conflicts with women teachers, but it seems boys are naturally inclined not to try. Faced with a problem involving a teacher, parent, police officer, or other authority figure, boys have a natural tendency to quit and run away. Adults need to listen to boys, understand their problems, and brain storm ways to cope. My mother loved teenagers. When she taught remedial math to high school students in Chicago, she used to come home and tell us how she had found out about the strange, incorrect ways her students had decided to add a column of numbers. She also allowed no laughing at others in her classes.

     Boys looking for good relationships and listeners are susceptible to the approaches of predatory priests, coaches, boy scout leaders, and girl friends. When these relationships betray them, even making them victims of sexual abuse, the results are as devastating to boys who opened themselves to those they trusted as is the effect of a total lack of relationships on other boys . Such boys conclude no one cares about them. They might as well use a gun to show they don't care about anyone, including themselves.

     Equally troubling is the tendency the educational system has of assuming poverty, broken homes, and other traumas justify grouping all boys with such backgrounds in remedial classes rather than making an effort to separate out those who are gifted, nurtured in stable homes, or blessed with the genes and spiritual fortitude to overcome a less than perfect upbringing.

     What it comes down to is: boys want a relationship with someone who wants them to be themselves.

   

     

How Students Can Get the Education They Need

Singapore, with an entire population of six million, and the Success Academy charter school network of 17,000 students in 47 New York schools, produce outstanding academic achievement. In the latest results from the triennial test of 15-year-olds from around the world, Singapore scored top marks in math, reading, science, and a new collaborative test, according to the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Students from Success charter schools score the highest marks on New York's standardized state tests,  despite the fact 76% come from low income households and 93% are not white.

     Before deciding, "Sure, small populations achieve academic excellence, but our country or State has millions of students to educate," consider the fact that these millions can be and are separated into classrooms. Some schools also group students into "houses," where teachers get to know their pupils while teaching them the same subject for two years  A bigger drawback is the assessment of teachers in large school districts, where they are unknown to those charged with evaluating them. A study at Peking University raises another question about the impact of pollution on testing days. Results on heavily polluted days reduced scores on verbal word recognition but not math tests, and toxic air seemed to have a greater impact on the scores of men rather than women. Yet, something can be learned from the testing and academic approaches in Singapore's and New York's Success charter schools.

Ideas from Singapore

• Students wear uniforms.
• Traditionally, teachers led classes and did not rely on students to learn for themselves, but now group work and teacher-pupil discussions also are used.
• Entire classes still progress through the same narrow and deep math curriculum. Struggling students receive compulsory extra sessions to help them keep up.
• After classes end at around 2 pm, students can go to a "Maker Space" to learn how to use modern technologies, such as 3D printing, stop-motion film production, or programming robots.'
• Students who said they did not play video games showed a better ability to effectively divide tasks and communicate well to resolve disagreements while solving unfamiliar problems in a teamwork test of ability to collaborate.
• By 2023, without giving exams, career guidance officials will help teachers prepare students for work with programs in computing, robotics, electronics, broadcast journalism, drama, sports, and other "real world" options.
• Reforms are guided by educational research and tested before deciding how to handle full-scale implementation.
• Programs will acquaint parents with career objectives that, in the future, may matter more than exam results.
• An exam still stresses students and parents who know high and low achievers are separated into different schools by age 12.
• There are no teacher unions.
• Classes with as many as 36 students and an excellent teacher are considered better than small classes with mediocre teachers.
• To develop and maintain excellent teachers, 100 hours of training in the latest teaching techniques are provided for teachers each year.
• Master teachers are designated to train their peers.
• Teachers receive rigorous annual performance assessments by supervisors who know them by name and evaluate them in relation to the social development and academic performance of their students.
• Teacher salaries are based on those earned by professionals in the private sector.

Reminder: Teachers interested is working with a classroom in another country can go to

                    ePals.com to find a connection.

Ideas from New York's Success charter schools:

• Students are called "scholars."
• Scholars dress in orange and blue solid and plaid uniforms.
• Halls are immaculate with scholar artwork displayed on the walls.
• A "golden plunger" award provides incentive to keep bathrooms clean.
• Multicolored carpets in elementary school classrooms are divided into rows of squares with a circle in each indicating where each child is to sit with hands still and eyes following whoever is speaking.
• Classrooms have white smartboards and bins of specially selected books.
• In timed segments, teachers provide instruction at the beginning of class. Students then work individually or in pairs (building something or working math problems, for example) and finish by sharing ideas with class.
• Laboratory science is required five days a week.
• Schools also teach sports, chess, and the arts.
•  Common courtesy, saying "please" and "thank you" and respecting peers and adults is required.
• A free curricula model is online.
• Parents are required to read to their children at home, supervise homework, keep reading logs, and respond to school communications in 24 hours.
• The schools are less successful in accommodating children who perform poorly or chronically misbehave, as well as those with disabilities and special learning needs.
• No transfer students are accepted to fill vacancies after fourth grade, when they are likely to be too far behind their classmates.
• Teachers receive constant observation and advice for improvement.
• Teachers are expected to know each child's reading, math, English language arts, and science level, goal, need for help and how it will be provided.
• Some teachers, designated as exemplars, receive extra pay and serve as models for others.
• Some teachers leave because of long hours and high stress to perform well.
• There are no teacher unions, bit teachers receive generous pay, benefits, and teacher training.
• Budget is funded by a combination of public and private philanthropic money.
• Director knows how to employ political advocacy.

What to do, if a child's school is not top notch: Look for community programs for children that are run by nonprofit organizations, churches, libraries, museums, colleges, athletic leagues, scouting, theatres, singing and dance groups, hospitals, businesses, police and firehouses. Don't be afraid to ask if there are scholarships and internships, because there probably are. 

You Have To Be Carefully Taught

If a child has never met a blind student from Peru, a Muslim actor, or a rich Chinese businessman, how will he or she feel about these people? In the musical, South Pacific, the U.S. soldier who begins to fall in love with an island girl he meets during World War II sings "You have to be carefully taught."

     Lucky children like Meghan Markle might have a black and a white parent, and a young President Obama even had a mother from the United States and a father from Kenya, got to spend early years in Indonesia, and grew to a young man in the diverse cultures of Hawaii. Lucky kids might get to know Hispanic, black, and white kids while playing basketball together on a neighborhood court. Korean and Italian kids could meet singing together in a church choir. And before a teen in a wheelchair and the school's aspiring ballerina publish their first comic book, they might have worked together on the school's newspaper.

     All sorts of robotic, marketing, math, trivia, and forensic competitions bring together kids with different backgrounds and genders. Yet, news events constantly show the danger of relying on luck to form children into adults who acknowledge the similarities and respect the differences of others. The fact is, children have adult mentors who influence them to think about people in ways that help or harm the world.

     In the United States, children are about to honor their Mothers on Mother's Day this weekend and their Fathers on Father's Day next month. Around the world, mothers and fathers should be honored, because they are in a powerful position. They can pass on their prejudices or open young minds.

     When trendwatching.com reports the Mexican startup company Sign'n, uses software to employ artificial intelligence that translates speech into Mexican sign language, we suspect someone nurtured a young inventor's concern for those marginalized because of their hearing disability. Likewise, visually-impaired  Brazilians employed to use their enhanced smell and taste senses as beer sommeliers have someone to thank for helping a young person learn to consider and remedy the needs of others.

     A Muslim friend recently introduced me to a book, Crescent Moons and Pointed Minarets, that uses rhymes and English translations of Arabic to present various shapes and to convey Islamic traditions and terms. At the end of the book, a Glossary provides definitions of the Arabic words used and a phonetic guide to their pronunciations.
     As an example of the way the book's author, Hena Khan, and artist, Mehrdokht Amini, combine words and art, picture how, under an arch embellished with complex borders and patterns of flowers and vines that resemble those in Persian rugs. readers learn:

Arch is the mihrab

that guides our way.

We stand and face it

each time we pray.

In contrast to picturing Muslims as over a billion religious people known for the early contributions of their mathematicians and astronomers, today's news reports Boko Haram added to its Nigerian terrorist kidnappings and killings by bombing a mosque and market. And Islamic fighters in Iraq commit genocide and sell Yazidi women and girls into slavery or hold them as sex slaves. Somehow these Muslims have not been carefully taught right from wrong. 

     Regimes, like those in Iran, China, and Russia, seem oppressive because they censure the broadcast and social media they allow their populations to see. But aren't we doing much the same thing, when algorithms select the books we read, the films we watch, and the news and ads we see, or when we self-censure by only watching the cable news stations that agree with us? Teaching ourselves and our children to keep open minds takes work, work both needed and worth doing...very carefully.