Smart Boys, Bad Grades

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Gender Inequality and STEM in Education

By Julie Coates and William A. Draves © 2015 by Julie Coates and William A. Draves. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, with the exception of “Chapter 11 For Parents of Boys”, may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the authors, except in the case of brief quotations in reviews and articles. “Chapter 11 For Parents of Boys” may be reproduced as long as the following information is included, “From Smart Boys, Bad Grades: Gender Inequality and Stem in Education, by Julie Coates and William A. Draves.”

Published by LERN Books, a division of the Learning Resources Network (LERN), P.O. Box 9, River Falls, Wisconsin 54022, U.S.A.

Phone: 800-678-5376; email [email protected]; URL: www.lern.org

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Coates, Julie, 1946- Smart Boys

ISBN 978-1-57722-045-9

Manufactured in the United States of America

5 4 3 2

Dedication

To our smart boys, to your smart boys, to smart boys everywhere. Thank you for creating the 21st century Cover

Four smart boys. From left to right – Landon, Graham, Will and Ray. Photo taken in 2013 when they were around age 27. They are smart, successful at work, motivated and hard working. Yet our educational institutions at the time of this writing graduated only 1 of the 4 with a four year college degree.

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank firstly, the Board of Directors of the Learning Resources Network (LERN) for their support of gender equality in education. In particular, we are grateful to the Board members who in 2008, under Chair Paula Hogard, passed a motion supporting grading based solely on learning and knowledge, not on behavior. We are also grateful to the Board members who in 2014, under Chair Cathy Noon- an, restated their support with a motion expressly supporting gender equality in education. We are indebted to other educators for their pioneering work over the past several decades, including Michael Gurian, Susan Pinker, Christina Hoff Somers, Simon Baron Cohen, and Doreen Kimura. We are grateful to the work of second wave feminists; the foremost being Betty Friedan and to several of our own female ancestors for their work on behalf of gender equality. We are especially thankful to the mothers of boys who have encouraged us in our work and for their optimism, faith in themselves, and never giving up, we thank the boys. Production was carried out professionally by Gale Hughes. Smart Boys, Bad Grades Gender Inequality and STEM in Education

Table of Contents Chapter 1 - America’s #1 Problem 1 The problem has no name; society at a tipping point; the college debate; the intangible economy; generational turnover; economic prosperity for the future of our country.

Chapter 2 - Title IX Gone Wrong: Gender Inequality in education 11 We have the numbers; drop outs; a problem for over 30 years now; males get worse grades than females; fewer boys expect to graduate from college; ruling out other theories.

Chapter 3 - The Boys Are Fine 25 Yes, we have to have a chapter on this; why boys are widely regarded as bad; when boys will be regarded as good; how boys are smarter today; boys have to create the 21st century. Chapter 4 - The Solution: Grade Learning, Not Behavior 31 Grades don’t measure what students know; homework is a problem; business measures outcomes: welcome to the 21st century; the solution is easy, costs nothing; the solution is working. Chapter 5 - Teacher Objections: “But, We’re Teaching Responsibility Here” 43 The evidence that there is no evidence to support teacher objections; teachers spend too much time on student behavior; why teachers teach ‘responsibility’. Chapter 6 - This Happened Once Before: The Historical Parallel 53 This happened 100 years ago; when change happens, boys and a few men are the first to adapt to the new environment; why we got trouble right here in River City; history repeats itself. Chapter 7 - Why Women Don’t Go into STEM 63 Every girl who wants to go into STEM should, and so should every boy; why women tend not to choose to enter STEM; why females have lower spatial ability; STEM camps make no difference. Chapter 8 - Where Feminism Went Wrong 73 The bias against women in the workplace; boys should not be raised like girls; Betty Friedan was right; there are differences between females and males that affect learning. Chapter 9 - Inside the Female and Male Brain: Teachers Really Need Sex Ed 79 The impact of neurological differences; some practical implications of gender differences; where females are superior; the 20% gender crossover; the fundamental difference. Chapter 10 - Boys in the Classroom: Why Boys Do Less Work 93 Why males do less coursework; males hate easy work and like hard challenges; boys are not lazy nor unmotivated; boys show up to work on time; boys choose punishment to doing stupid stuff. Chapter 11 - For Parents of Boys: Never Give Up 105 Notes to mothers, fathers; the 3 keys for parents; working with the school; responding to teachers; 9 talking tips for parents. Chapter 12 - Helping Female Students Learn More 121 The bias against boys also hurts girls; why girls study more, but don’t learn more; the 5 bad learning habits for women; 8 ways to teach girls differently. Chapter 13 - For Educators 133 Change the grading in your own courses; teach your male and female students differently; 40 tips for teaching boys and male students. Chapter 14 - Conclusion: End the Gender War, Celebrate Our Boys Too 145 Achieving change; end the gender war; celebrate our boys too. References: 151 Chapter 1 America’s #1 Problem

“The new jobs require a good deal of formal education.” Peter Drucker

We have a big problem. In fact it is our nation’s biggest problem. What’s worse, in the United States the problem has no name. The problem determines your financial prosperity. This is so for each one of you reading this, regardless of whether you are retired, working for a Fortune 500 company, are an executive, or a government worker with lifetime employment. You can walk around your neighborhood and see the extent of the problem in your local community. For verification, you can do a two minute search online and get the exact numbers and thus confirm the issue for your local area. America’s #1 problem is also every other post-industrial nation’s number one problem. It exists in New Zealand, Japan, Russia, Singa- pore, Canada and all of Europe. The difference is that other nations, at least those in Europe, are both aware of the problem and have a name for it. America is neither aware of it, nor do we have a name for it. It’s not a short term problem, like the national debt, taxes, social security, war or peace. It is an issue that will be with us for decades, but also one that has to be addressed by 2020. It might not be solved by 2020, but every month of inaction after 2020 means we fall fur-

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ther behind as a nation in the global competition for prosperity in this century. Every month of resolving the problem before 2020 moves us ahead in the global arena. It’s not abstract, like our export to import ratio. It’s not our infrastructure, pollution, drugs, or climate change. The closest issue we talk about is education. But even there the problem is not mentioned often. It’s rarely talked about, and not mentioned enough in the media. America’s #1 problem today is a skilled worker shortage. By “skilled,” we mean college educated knowledge workers. The Problem Has No Name We don’t even have a commonly accepted or used name for the knowledge economy. Different American economists use a variety of terms, some have different meanings, but none are accepted or written about to any extent. Some use the misleading phrase “service sector”. Others call it the “information sector” or “technology sector”. One best selling author calls it the “innovation sector.” Some give up on specificity or historical placement and just say “new economy.” Our government has no measurement for it at all. A critical aspect of the knowledge economy sounds immoral: the “private service sector.” But other countries, at least in Europe, have a name for it. If you go to the BBC web site, you will see a regular section of articles on the “Knowledge Society.” When we were attending a conference a few years ago, we sat at a table with people from Germany. We asked them what the word in German was for “knowledge society,” and they said they used the English term, in English. Germans apparently say “knowledge society”, but we don’t. What’s more ironic is that the term “knowledge worker” was invented by an American, business and management guru Peter Druck- er, in 1959. (1) We are now in a knowledge economy, a post-industrial society where intangible goods such as information, data, software and services are now the most important economic sector in society. Ev- ery other economic sector now depends on the jobs that people in the knowledge sector create in our country. Our economic prosperity is now determined by the percentage of our workers engaged in high earning, high job creating knowledge 2 Enrico Moretti’s book, named the top book of the year by Forbes, shows the data that a community’s economic prosperity is directly related to the percent of college graduates in that community.

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work. By economic prosperity, we mean your financial future, and your quality of life. We mean the stock market, jobs, median income, retirement funds, and social security. But we also mean your chances of being the victim of crime, your chances of mental illness, how much you pay for local services, and the quality of service you receive at a local store or restaurant. Every other problem in our country is a function, subset, consequence or solvable issue, dependent on our #1 problem. Society at a Tipping Point At the time of this writing, society is at a tipping point, moving from an embrace of the obsolete world of the last century to a new awareness and acceptance of the new economy of the knowledge society of this century. We have just silently concluded the futile debate on how to bring back factory jobs to America. Just a few years ago both Democratic and Republican governors promised to bring back industrial jobs, and Ed Schultz of MSNBC ranted beside shipping containers from overseas about the economic necessity of restoring the industrial sector. Remember in 2009 how a key aspect of pulling our nation out of the Great Recession was bailing out the automobile companies. Merci- fully, we have now given up on trying to put our daughters back on the assembly line. One pundit noted that the factory of the 21st century has two employees: a man and a dog. The man’s job is to feed the dog, while the dog’s job is to keep the man from touching the machinery. We will continue to have factories. We will see reports of factory output going up. But that does not mean anyone is hiring in the nation’s factories. For example, in 2012 President Obama visited a factory celebrating the fact that the Milwaukee Master Lock company brought back manufacturing jobs from overseas to the U.S.(2) In this nationally highlighted visit, to the best example of bringing back overseas manufacturing jobs, the company had only brought back a paltry 100 jobs. The qualifications for working in today’s high tech factories are so non-high school, including chemistry, the metric system, and advanced math, that one would think a college degree would provide the best training for the factory job of the 21st century.

4 The World Bank’s Knowledge Economy Index is an aggregate index representing a country’s or region’s overall preparedness to compete in the Knowledge Economy. Between 2000 and 2012, the United States fell 8 positions in the index, the only advanced country to fall that many places. Source: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTUNIKAM/Re- sources/2012.pdf

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So factories will go the way of farms. We will have fewer of them producing more than ever, with fewer employees than ever. In the last century, the Industrial Age created manufacturing jobs for 35% to 50% of our employees. These factory workers also created local prosperity. Every city, town and village had an “industrial park” to encourage new manufacturing plants to locate there. That’s because the manufacturing sector was the most important, and the most prized, sector in the economy. Every factory worker created an additional four jobs locally. (3) The goods produced by the factory were sold to people all over the country, even outside of the country, and this outside money came into the community, sustaining not just the factory worker but an additional four other people employed to serve directly or indirectly those factory workers. The No-College Debate In 2014 The New York Times, in a couple of devastatingly factual stories, put an end to another national argument, about whether young people should attend college.(4) The no-college side of the debate was, hypocritically, mostly waged by college educated journalists and professors who would never tell their own children or grandchildren not to attend college. One historically black college president even intimated that those urged to skip college were the poor and minorities, almost certainly not the children of white college educated people. President Clinton in the 1990s first suggested that a two year college degree was the new benchmark or standard for entry into a live- able, assumedly middle class, lifestyle. He was probably right for the last decade of the last century. That mantra of a two year college degree was then carried on by President Obama right up until 2012. After 2012 the two year advocacy fell silent as the evidence accumu- lated that it is a four year college degree that is the necessary entry education standard for a middle class lifestyle in the 21st century. In our seminars for community college presidents and senior administrators of two-year colleges, we present on the value of a four year degree, along with our prediction that our community colleges will be at the forefront of the effort to create more four year college graduates.

6 The Need for College Graduates The demand for workers with a college education will outpace the supply by 300,000 a year by 2018. By 2018 the postsecondary system will have produced 3 million fewer college graduates than demanded by the labor market. The demand for college educated workers will keep rising. By 2018, nearly two-thirds of the nation’s jobs will require some postsecondary education or training. (5) Between 2008 and 2018 the demand for college-educated workers will rise by 16 percent while the demand for other workers will stay flat. The demand for college-educated workers in nearly half of the states will grow 2 to 3 times faster than the demand for high school graduates or dropouts. In six states (IN, MA, ME, MI, MN and OH), jobs that require a college education will grow 5-7 times faster. The demand for college-educated workers in four states (ME, MI, MN, and OH) will grow five to six times faster than the demand for high school graduates or dropouts. (6) The Benefits of More College Educated A College Board report in 2007 says that a college graduate will pay 134 percent more in federal income tax and 80 percent more in federal, state and local taxes than someone who does not graduate high school. This amounts to $238,000 or more over a lifetime. Over an average lifetime, total government spending per college degree is negative. That is, direct savings in post-college government expenditures are greater than government expenditures on higher education. Plus, the direct extra tax revenues from college graduates alone are more than six times the gross government cost per college degree. Thus, in addition to the many other benefits from higher education, public financial support of college education pays for itself many times over. Not only do four year college graduates pay more in taxes than lesser educated adults, they also cost less in medical and hospital costs, less cost to the government for unemployment, and mental illness. They pay more into social security, they donate more to charity. They require fewer societal resources and they provide more overall financial support.

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We predicted that by 2016 the four year degree would be recognized by leaders in business and government as the education standard for our nation. That prediction is now coming true. We do not need every child to get a four year degree. But we do need 50% of our young people to have a four year degree. The United Kingdom was the first nation to establish that standard and begin an educational strategy to achieve that goal. Every post-industrial society is now on course towards attempting to reach the 50% level, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) charts regularly compare the progress of post-industrial nations toward that goal. The Intangible Economy We sat stunned in the college auditorium as the managing editor of Wired Magazine described to the students of the Savannah College of Art and Design a revitalization of the manufacturing sector. The college kids seemed stunned as well. (7) For every one of them, their art and design careers and future will be digital and online, the heart of an intangible economy that is the most important sector in our society. And for older adults, even the managing editor of Wired Magazine, they just don’t get it. Today in the United States intangible assets exceed tangible assets. Investment in intangible assets exceed investments in tangible assets. (8) Pointing to the economic way of the future, the United States currently leads the world in exports of private services (9). Here’s an example of a knowledge worker in the intangible economy. Bill was sitting on an airplane next to a man on a computer. Asked what he does, the man said he moves grain on freight trains. Had he seen the grain? Not in years, he replied. Did he go on the train? Never, he said. Instead, he moves the grain by going online and directing the movement of the bins of grain on the right cars on the right trains going to the right destinations. Yes, someone loads the grain. Yes, someone drives the train. But those people are totally dependent on this man, this knowledge worker. The farmer, the grain elevator company, the grain distributor, the railroad and the company using the grain in its products are all dependent on this knowledge worker. Knowledge workers may compose only 20% to 25% of the workforce, but they are ones whom everyone else’s job is dependent upon. 8 We will always have retail workers, welders, plumbers, government employees, and teachers, but their jobs and relative economic prosperity are dependent on the knowledge workers. You can see how well your own community, or any community, is doing economically by simply checking out what percentage of that local population has a four year college degree, says Enrico Moretti, in his best selling book The New Geography of Jobs,(10) named the best book of the year by Forbes. Those cities, counties and areas with a higher percentage of the population with a four year college degree are more economically prosperous than communities with a lesser percentage of residents with a four year college degree. Not only that, Moretti finds, but workers with a high school diploma do better in communities with more college educated people than do workers with a high school degree in communities with a lesser percentage of college educated people. So four year college graduates do not only economically benefit themselves and their communities, they also benefit people less educated. The economy of the United States will not just be able to sustain millions of college educated knowledge workers, but will have an economy so robust and in need of growth that we will have an ever deepening shortage of college educated knowledge workers. The economy of the United States will continue to be healthy throughout the rest of this decade, and with the exception of a possible one to two year recession, through the rest of the next decade. Jobs will be lost in the manufacturing and unskilled sectors of the economy. Jobs will be gained in the new economy. Generational Turnover The lack of jobs for college educated that young people experi- enced in the last decade is becoming greatly diminished. Around 2016 the problem will have disappeared. Exacerbating the skilled worker shortage will be the rapid generational turnover now taking place. In 2012 the Baby Boomer generation was the largest generation in the workforce. There were 60 million Boomers in the workforce, consti- tuting 43% of the workforce. (11) In 2020 only 14 million Boomers will be in the workforce, just 10% of the workforce. (12) In 2020 Genera- tion Y, those people born in 1980-1999, will be the largest generation in the workforce. Gen Y will have 80 million people in the workforce, or 50% of the workforce. In 2016 Gen Y will surpass the Boomers in the workforce. All those jobs with retiring Boomers will need new workers. All those jobs held by Boomers that already require a col- 9 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

lege degree will need to be filled by Gen Yers with a college degree. The combination of a growing economy, an intangible economy replacing the tangible economy, and the replacement of the big Boom- er generation creates this skilled job shortage. Summary America’s #1 problem today is a skilled worker shortage. By “skilled,” we mean college educated knowledge workers. George- town University’s Anthony Carnevale, our nation’s leading training and workforce expert, says the shortage is estimated to be 14 million skilled workers in 2017. What we need, above all, is more college educated people. In 2014 the United States was at only 28.5% of its citizens with a four year degree.(13) Anyone getting a college education is good. In no way should we have fewer female college graduates. But what is critical is getting the 50% of our smartest young people to have a college education. As a society, we need our smartest people to get a college education. They are the ones who are most likely to be job creators, business people, leaders in business and in society. And right now we don’t have our smartest half of young people in college. We are missing 2 million smart boys in college every year. A “smart” boy is one who tests at or above the level of students who are in college. Every young woman who wants to go to college should go to college. We don’t need, and we don’t want, to limit any young person from going to college. Our business leaders, government leaders and a growing percentage of society understand we need to increase the number of four year college graduates. The solution to America’s #1 problem is to admit, retain and graduate millions more smart boys, specifically smart boys with bad grades.

10 Chapter 2 Title IX Gone Wrong: Gender Inequality in Education

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educationprogram or activity.” - Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972

We were driving our son Willie to middle school. “See that kid?” Willie asked as we drove past a boy walking to school. “He’s bril- liant,” Willie continued, “and he is flunking.” A few weeks later we asked Willie the name of the boy. “I dunno,” Willie replied, “I could have said that about any number of kids.” Actually, we do have the numbers. It’s in the millions. In the year 2012 alone, it was 2.3 million. That’s the number of males not allowed in college who test at or above students who were enrolled in college. You know about the lucky few who are able to be successful without a college degree, such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zucker- berg. But you do not get to hear about the millions of other smart boys

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who are equally intelligent and equally hard working, who did not get to be rich and famous. You also do not hear about any college drops who became successful engineers, biologists, doctors, or physicists. That’s because we, and apparently everyone else, cannot find any. It’s either impossible or virtually impossible to be a drop out in those occupations, otherwise someone would have reported on that person. Someone would have heard! There would have been an article, somewhere. It would be a bigger story than man bites dog. Do an online search for “Famous Drop Outs.” None of the living famous drop outs are in those STEM fields requiring a college degree. Now 100 years ago one could work in engineering or science without even a high school degree. Today Henry Ford could not become an auto engineer at Ford Motor Company. Today Thomas Edison could not be a research scientist at Con Edison. The Wright Brothers could not be pilots at Delta Airlines. 2 million smart boys missing from college We know around 2 million smart boys are not admitted or retained in college each year. In 2012 there were 2.446 million more females enrolled in college than males. (1) And 2012 was not an aberration; it was a continuation of what’s been going on for three decades now. Males are just as intelligent as females, every reasonable study shows. And boys test overall at the same level as girls, as numerous studies document. (2) And yet over 2 million more girls are in college every year than boys. The gap is growing, not diminishing. We know male students get worse grades than female students. We know they get worse grades, even though they learn and test at the same level as female students. When Richard Arum of Columbia University studied successful people in the workforce and then traced them back to college, those successful males got worse grades than the successful females. Even the top 20% of successful males in the workforce got worse grades than the top 20% of successful females in the workforce. (3) We know that getting worse grades in college deters or prohibits males from entering graduate school. We know that critical occupations for our economy, like engineering, veterinary medicine, physics and chemistry, are not getting enough male students. 12 Only 47% of girls, and just 44% of boys, are given a grade appropriate to their test results, according to the classic study Gender and Fair Assessment, by Warren Willingham and Nancy S. Cole. Cole was president of the Educational Testing Service.

A third of girls, but just a fifth of boys, are given grades much higher than their test results would warrant.

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Because of the shortage of STEM workers, the government is im- porting college educated males instead of giving our own smart males the opportunity to become college graduates. One day we were driving home after doing a seminar for senior administrators with the President of a successful community college, Waubunsee Community College, in Aurora, Illinois. We turned on the radio and the office of the Governor of Illinois, Pat Quinn, was an- nouncing that the governor wanted to increase the completion rate in higher education from 41% to 60%. By 2025, Quinn’s goal is for 60 percent of the Illinois adult workforce to have a degree or career cer- tificate.(4) This goal, necessary for economic prosperity and business needs, is simply not mathematically possible without addressing the needs of smart boys who are left out of our education system. Math- ematically, it is not possible to boost our completion rates without the boys, especially the smart boys. Drop outs not to blame “Drop out” - - the term itself assumes total responsibility and blame on the student. There is no term for colleges that fail to retain students. And there is no blame either. Colleges and universities admit both male and female students on the same criteria. There is no gender bias to anyone’s knowledge in the acceptance of students into higher education. We know males in college learn as much as females, and test as well. Recently, a new “exit” test called the College Learning Assessment is being administered, and at the time of this writing, CLA officials are not reporting any gender difference. And yet higher education institutions fail to retain far more male students than female students. While women comprise 57% of students enrolled in college, they account for 61% of the graduates. A research team comprised of two females and two males at UCLA concluded, “Women attain degrees at higher rates than men, and the gender gap in degree attainment has widened in the last decade.”(5) So don’t let “enrollment” figures fool you - - those percentages do not reflect the sex ratio at graduation. We got started on our research one day in 2000 as we sat, a little bored, during the long commencement ceremony for one of our staff 14 This is where the problem is. Some 36% of boys, and 20% of girls, are given grades significantly worse than their test scores would indicate.

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members graduating from the state university in our town. So we began to count the graduates by sex, and discovered only 35% of the graduates were male. Undergraduate degree completion means so much because that is the prerequisite for graduate school, where most of the STEM fields require a more advanced degree. (6) If we look at master’s degrees, it is even more gender biased against males than the undergraduate degree. In 2010 some 62.6% of the 611,693 master’s degrees went to women. We take the most responsible male high school graduates, males who had comparable grades and test scores with females in high school. We reject those ‘irresponsible’ boys who turned their homework in late. We select just the responsible boys and send them to college. And within weeks, by the end of the first semester, our most responsible boys are getting worse grades than their female counterparts. Overall, institutions of higher education in the United States have a miserable 55% retention and graduation rate. This is unacceptable for a post-industrial society that is in the knowledge society of the 21st century. Graduating barely more than 1 out of 2 students will not get us to the goal of having 50% of our citizens with a four year degree. Graduating barely more than 1 out of 2 students would not be acceptable if we were talking about a high school degree. Graduating barely more than 1 out of 2 students means we are spending almost twice as much to graduate a student as we should be. In 1981, the United States graduated an equal number of females and males from undergraduate higher education. Before then, of course, females were underrepresented in college. Our society made, and achieved, the deserved equality of opportunity for women to attend and complete college. In 1962, when Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique, she noted in the book that women comprised only 38% of graduates in higher education. The nation was quite rightly outraged, and set upon to correct that inequality. Today, around 38% of graduates in higher education are male, yet there is no outrage. In fact, Caryn McTighe Musil of the Association of American Colleges and Universities celebrated this inequality in Ms. Magazine by calling the gender inequality of 60% graduates being female “progress.” (7) When contacted by us, the president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities refused to state what the ideal ratio of female to male graduates should be. The AACU web site did have a section devoted to promoting education for women, but no section 16 College expectations decline. Ever since 1980, boys increasingly get the message in middle school that they are less likely than girls to attend and graduate from college.

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about the education of men. Let’s be clear on what the breakdown by sex for college graduates should be. It should be 50% female and 50% male. If females and males are equally intelligent, and if they test overall at the same level, then it makes sense economically and ethically that half of our college graduates should be female, and half should be male. There is no reason to graduate below average female students and not graduate above average male students. Some might say being biased against male children in school makes up for, or help closes, the gender pay gap in the workplace. However the evidence suggests this is not the case, and that prohibiting qualified males the opportunity to earn a college degree is in no way a solution or aid in closing the gender pay gap in the workplace. The gender bias against males in education should be against the law. It should be a violation of Title IX. Here’s what Title IX says, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” A problem for over 30 years Males have been a minority of college students, and college graduates since 1981, for more than thirty years now. The gap is growing wider, not diminishing. In 2000, for example, there were 13,436,000 total students in higher education, according to the National Science Foundation, and 7,419,000 of them, or 55%, were female. There were 1.4 million more females in college than males. In 2010 the NSF reported that of the 18,312,000 total students in higher education, some 10,379,000, or 57%, were female. In the ten years between the reports, the gap grew from 1.4 million to 2.4 million. (8) One argument used to justify gender inequality is that the number of males in higher education grew between 2000, when the number was 6 million, and 2010, when the number was almost 8 million. But the population of the country grew by 27 million during that time. This argument of course would have been unacceptable in the 1960s and 1970s with respect to the growing numbers of females in higher education. And in light of our nation’s need to almost double the per- 18 centage of our nation’s people with a four year undergraduate degree from 27% of the population to 50%, this excuse is no valid argument for either gender equity nor for the economic prosperity of our country. Gender inequality against males is worse in the United States than most other post-industrial countries. The United States has a worse than average record on gender inequality against males in higher education, according to a study of advanced countries in the OECD report,“The Reversal of Gender Inequalities in Higher Education: An On-going Trend,” (9) Males receive worse grades Males receive worse grades than females in college, and in high school. The average GPA for male high school graduates in 2000 in the United States was 2.83, while the average GPA for female high school graduates was 3.05. (10) This continues in higher education. Not one institution in higher education in the United States is reporting that males have equal or greater GPA than females. Even when females are a minority of students, such as at the School of Engineer- ing at the University of Kansas, or at the University of Wisconsin Plat- teville, females still get better grades. For example, with information provided by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs at Truman State University, the gender gap for seniors was 3.13 for men and 3.39 for women. For four classes over three years, not one class showed men’s GPA scores equaling or even approaching the women’s GPA scores. (11) We have found only one university in a post-industrial country where male students received better grades than female students. (12) Fewer boys expect to graduate As high school seniors, fewer boys expect to graduate from college than girls. In 1980, the same percentage of boys and girls expected to complete college. Shortly thereafter, a gender gap began to appear and the gap grew steadily wider. By 1999, 60% of high school senior girls expected to complete college, while only 50% of high school senior boys expected to complete college, according to “The Gender Gap in College Expectations” by John Reynolds, Florida State Uni- versity. (13) Basically, there are 2 million smart young men missing from college every year. That is, there are 2 million boys not in college who 19 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

test at the same or higher levels as girls who are currently enrolled in college. Educational Testing Service researchers Warren Willingham and Nancy S. Cole (former President of ETS) are quite direct when they write, “Based on a wide variety of tests and a number of large nationally representative samples of high school seniors, we see no evidence of any consequential difference in the average test performance of young women and men.” (14) The phenomenon began around 1980, and the graduation gap grad- ually grew wider so that by 2004 males were less than 40% of all college graduates. The phenomenon is also international, occurring in most post-industrial advanced nations such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and countries in Europe. It impacts families from upper socio-economic levels, and boys attending quality secondary schools as well. Ruling out other theories. There have been many theories as to why young men do worse than young women in college. Those theories include: - Males are underachieving. - Parents have lower expectations of their sons. - An increase of low income and minority students in schools accounts for the problem. - Dysfunctional families and social issues in families cause the problem. - Parents are not raising their sons correctly. - Boys are not behaving well. - The problem is the boys’ lack of verbal skills. - Since they mature later, males should attend college later in life. - Female teachers are a problem, single sex schools are the solution We can rule out these theories. Here is the evidence.

20 Males are not underachieving. While males do get lower grades, they test at the same level as females. SAT scores as well as scores on a host of other tests show that males and females test at roughly the same levels. Of note, there are two areas of gender difference in test scores. Males score higher in spatial tests than females, and females score higher in verbal and language skills. Males continue to earn higher average scores than females on ACT’s mathematics and science tests, while females continue to earn higher average scores than males on the English and reading tests. (15)

Parental expectations are just as high. While boys receive lower grades than girls in high school, parental expectations for boys remain as high as for girls. According to a study by Alan E. Marks, of the Department of Psychology at Oglethorpe University, he asked students “when you were in high school, in general, what was the lowest grade that your parents regarded as acceptable?” The mean average for boys was 2.50, and the mean average response for girls was 2.44, actually slightly lower than for boys. (16)

There is no connection with an increase of minority and low-income students. While the problem is greater in the United States, the problem exists in other post-industrial societies where there are few minority students, such as New Zealand. The problem also exists in other post-industrial societies where there is much less inequality in wealth, such as Finland and Norway.

Parents raise their boys as well as their girls. There is simply no documentation or research that indicates that parents raise their daughters with good academic habits, and then raise their sons with poor academic habits. Boys get lower GPAs even when their sisters do well in school. There is no precise indication what parents do wrong in raising boys.

There is no connection with social problems in families. The issue exists in two-parent traditional families. No study indicates that there is a gender difference with students from single-parent families.

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Boys are not behaving well. All of the studies across time and generation indicate that boys behave better today than boys in previous generations. Com- pared to previous generations of young men, the crime rate is down, drug use down, and pregnancy rates (among other indicators) are down. There is no reporting from the work place that young men perform any worse than young women at work.

Boys need more verbal skills. Females have better verbal skills than males because of their neurology. But this has always been the case, even when males were the majority of college students. For example, data from the Uni- versity of Massachusetts at Amherst indicates that even when boys score higher on verbal SATs than girls, their GPAs are still lower. (17)

Maturity helps, but does not close the gap. Males do mature later in life than females, with the average young man’s brain now not fully developed until his mid-twenties. Older male students, and this is equally true of older female students, do better in college than young men still in their teen years. Unfortu- nately, the gender gap in graduation rates is wider for students older than age 25. So postponing college for males until their mid or late twenties, or even later, does not close the gender gap in graduation rates, as men are less likely to attend college as they grow older.

Female teachers are a problem, single sex schools are the solution Some 85% of teachers in K-6 or elementary schools are indeed female. And there is indeed a problem with female teachers understanding how boys learn and how they learn differently from girls. But there is also a problem with male teachers understanding how boys learn and how they learn differently from girls. The bottom line, there does not appear to be any difference in grades to boys by male teachers versus female teachers - - both male and female teachers give boys worse grades. With respect to single sex schools, the evidence and research are decidedly mixed. So there is no agreed upon sound evidence that an all-male school is the solution for boys. For us as parents, if we had to do it over again and had the opportunity, we would have sent our son to an all-male middle school. But probably not a single sex elemen-

22 tary school, and definitely not a single sex high school or university (if one existed). The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), our government’s leading research body in education, has documented that boys get worse grades than girls. But NCES, at this point, has no intention of finding out why. (18) This issue affects millions of students. It is a larger and more serious issue than many other issues in education or in society. And yet our government- - not the Department of Educa- tion, not Title IX, not the Senate Education Committee, not the White House- - has no interest in finding out why boys get worse grades than girls. Summary Males overall are equally as intelligent as females. Male students overall test at the same level as female students. Male students learn as much as female students. And yet male students in high school and college receive worse grades than female students. Colleges accept fewer males than females, retain more females than males, and graduate many more females than males. A few people however have found out why boys get worse grades than girls, and have found the solution. The good news is that the solution costs nothing and takes no extra teacher time. The solution benefits girls as well as boys. It solves our nation’s skilled worker shortage, our STEM crisis, and provides the key to economic prosperity for our nation in this century.

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24 Chapter 3 The Boys Are Fine

“The responsibilities of age – harrumph! They are nothing compared to the responsibilities of youth.” - Harold Bell Wright (1)

Yes, we have to have a chapter on why half of the world’s population is fine. - We were at the world’s busiest airport, Atlanta’s Hartsfield, and saw a big poster in the terminal celebrating “The year of the girl.” There is no year of the boy. - National Public Radio did a segment on the ‘Y’ chromosome, with a debate between two researchers, one predicting that the Y chromosome - - and thus males - - would disappear sometime in the distant future. The other researcher defended the validity of the Y chromosome. Neither one however elaborated on the positive qualities of the Y chromosome. - A mother of a boy, unfortunately a mother with the ability to get printed in the Washington Post, questioned natural boy behavior and wondered aloud that “my 4 year old loves toy guns and I don’t know how to parent that.” - When our son Willie was in fourth grade, we had a parent-teacher conference with his teacher. The first thing she said was, “Wil- 25 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

lie, stop fidgeting.” - And of course, millions of boys have been overdrugged to try to minimize their natural hormonal structure. This led female psychologist Marilyn Wedge to write an article, “Why French Kids Don’t Have ADHD” in Psychology Today, noting that basically the French are more likely to consider boys’ behavior as normal male behavior while boys’ behavior in the United States is more likely to be considered a medical disorder. (2) Unfortunately, boys in the second decade of this century (it will change in the next decade) are widely regarded as bad, underachieving, unmotivated, or irresponsible. In fact, the boys are fine. - The boys are fine in the military. Generals repeatedly confirm this. - The boys are fine in the workplace. No employer says young men underperform young women in the workplace. - The boys are fine in the streets. Crime is down compared to previous generations. - The boys are fine in church, synagogue and mosque. - The boys are fine on the playground and in sports. The only place where the boys are accused of being ‘bad’ is in school. Other than that, the boys are fine in school. It is our schools which are bad. Like the rural one school house of 100 years ago, today’s factory school model is obsolete and in need of transformation for the societal needs of the 21st century. The accusations are false All of the accusations are either false, or they are just normal male behavior. Here are some examples. Crime is down. Yes, males do commit more crime than females. This has been the case- - forever. Today’s young men commit less crime than previous generations of youngsters.

26 You know the man who said this.

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Girls have always had higher language skills. Every year the media goes gaga over the supposedly “new” finding that boys lag behind girls in language skills. This has been going on for 10,000 years. The testing service ACT scores for language skills for boys were lower than that for girls as far back as 1967. (3) We cannot find a year in which boys’ language skills were equal to or greater than girls’ language skills. Boys are actually smarter today Boys as well as girls are actually smarter today. James Flynn has found that IQ goes up an average of 3 points every decade. Boys do risk more With just one X chromosome, boys risk more. They get hurt more. They die, at every age, more than girls. This has not changed over the eons. Why boys get more D’s and F’s Boys in elementary and secondary school do get more D’s and F’s than girls. With just one X chromosome, it means there are more boys on either end of the bell curve in intelligence than girls. Overall, boys learn as much and test as well as girls. Boys have to create the 21st century Like their forefathers were 100 years ago, boys today exhibit different behavior from their fathers as the boys adopt the new behavior of the 21st century. This new behavior will become universal for everyone in society. Summary While there may be much hand-wringing and worrying about young people by adults, especially about the boys, disparaging youngsters has happened for every generation. The boys are fine. There is no evidence that boys themselves are a problem. There is much evidence that our schools and colleges are the problem.

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30 Chapter 4 The Solution: Grade Learning, not Behavior

Society “Gets ahead, in other words, by discarding the theory of today for the fact of tomorrow.” H.L. Mencken

Lynn Mack was teaching a math course at Piedmont Technical College in South Carolina. A young African American man failed to show up for the final exam. But Lynn Mack really wanted him to pass the course. So she put the final exam in the college testing lab and told them to give it to him if he shows up within seven days. Two weeks later he shows up. But Lynn Mack really wanted him to pass the course. So she told the testing lab to just give him the exam. He gets a 97. He aces the exam! The solution works! In this case, the college kept a good math student, whom society needs to keep in college. Most faculty are horrified by this story and indicate they would have failed the student, preventing yet another African American male (our most underrepresented people in college) from completing college. Most faculty members would have failed this outstanding math student, in a subject where we need more students to excel. Some faculty even proposed the absurd theory that the student

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spent the two weeks studying and thus had an advantage over other students. This ridiculous idea postulates that if every student spent just two more weeks studying math America would have no math problem and the U.S. would rise in our miserable global math standing. The solution to STEM, gender inequity, and getting enough skilled workers in society is easy, does not cost anything, and does not take any more teacher time. In fact, it takes less teacher time. The solution is to eliminate grading based on behavior. All students should be graded solely on their learning and knowledge, not behavior. Grading based on behavior has detrimental effects for both female students and male students. Currently grading is not based solely on learning and knowledge. Instead, grades are assigned to a great extent by behavior instead of learning and knowledge. Graded behavior includes: - Attendance in class. - Coming to class on time. - Turning homework and coursework in late. - Not doing assigned homework or coursework. - Taking exams and tests late. - Other behavior deemed inappropriate by school authorities, including disagreements, acting out, clothing, chewing gum, bringing a pet to school, using a cell phone, etc. - Out-of-school behavior, such as actions taken after school. - Illegal behavior, including theft, downloading music, and destruction of property. The mission and purpose of schools and colleges in the 21st century should be about learning and knowledge, not about behavior. There are no beneficial effects from including behavior in grading. The negative effects are numerous and troubling. One student at Duke University was flunked simply for being on a sports team. That was

32 Not enough boys in the pipeline. The solution to our nation’s economic prosperity is to have millions of more smart boys- - those boys who test at or above the level of students already in college- - admitted and graduated with a four year college degree. That can only be done by grading based solely on learning and knowledge, not on behavior.

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the only reason. Because he was a senior, he could not graduate. His parents sued Duke University and the student was consequently allowed to graduate. Other students prevented from graduating based on their behavior are not so lucky. In 2009 the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents passed a regulation allowing universities to discipline or even expel students for behavior outside the campus. If that rule were in place for Julie, she would not have been able to graduate from college. You see, she sat down at a lunch counter in the 1960s with African-Americans, which was against the law at the time. These are extreme examples, but unfortunately even the extreme examples occur with too much frequency. The negative effects to society are more serious. What happens every day in every school and in every college is that students are penalized for turning work in late, missing class, or not doing the work. This results in millions of students being prevented from entering or graduating from college, and with disastrous consequences for society. It means that we tell students who know English and math that they do not know English and math. And it means we tell other students who do not know English and math that they do know English and math. It means that Grade Point Average (GPA) is not a measure of academic achievement. It instills the wrong values in our students. One day Jason took a final exam in class. The teacher called him up to the front of the room and told him, “Jason, I’ve been teaching this class for 20 years, and no one has ever gotten all 200 questions correct. You got all 200 questions correct. Because you missed some classes, I’m giving you a ‘C’.” When this kind of incident happens enough, one leaves. Jason left his university studies. The most outstanding American physicist of the 20th century, Robert Oppenheimer, was attending a university in Great Britain in 1925 when he tried to poison his instructor. The university put him on probation and ordered him to see a counselor. America and the world would have lost one of its most outstanding physicists if that university had expelled him based on behavior. Grading based on behavior has disastrous consequences. Grading based solely on learning and knowledge retains more of our best and brightest students. When schools and colleges grade based solely on 34 There were 2.3 million fewer males in higher ed than females in 2012. Infograph by Lyndsay Rogers.

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learning and knowledge, we will see millions more of our smartest students graduating from college, more of them entering STEM professions, and more of them able to fill jobs that require college educated skilled workers. We will be able to achieve economic prosperity for our nation in this century. There are negative implications for penalizing students for behavior, such as late work, for both male and female students. Female students entering the workplace find that the behavior that was rewarded in school is not sufficient in the workplace. In school, a female student with good behavior can get a significantly higher grade than her learning and knowledge warrants. In the workplace, however, good behavior is far less important than productivity and profitability. Another consequence for our female students is that we do not help them learn more. We tell our female students they have learned more than our male students, and then our female students, parents, teachers and institutions actually believe that. We then ignore all the evidence that our female students learn no more than our male students. And as result, educators do not explore how to help their female students learn more. So grading based on behavior effectively prevents educators from helping their female students learn more. Studying the issue for the past ten years, we have discovered that one of the primary reasons why smart students are not entering college in sufficient numbers, and not graduating from college in sufficient numbers, is that teachers and faculty penalize students for late work, including homework and coursework. (1) We first discovered the solution over ten years ago. We were sitting in our living room at 1 a.m. on a Saturday night discussing the vexing issue with one of the boys we mentored, Devon Wiley. Devon went to school the next week and asked his teachers for cumulative grades- - and he got them! It was the first evidence we had on the solution. Subsequent literature research and experiences with other teachers have only confirmed the solution. In 2007, under the leadership of Paula Hogard, then at the University of Tulsa and now at Penn State University, the Board of Directors of the Learning Resources Network (LERN) became the first national educational association to support grading based solely on learning and knowledge, not on behavior.

36 Other educational experts (e.g. Harris Cooper) have shown there is no relationship between completing homework and test scores. The Toronto School Board District in 2008 approved a policy prohibiting teachers from penalizing students for late homework, and with “progressive” penalties for late coursework. (2) Grades don’t measure what students know “Grades…. are often not accurate measures of what students know,” writes Dr. John Woodward, Director of Research and Development for the NCA Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. He writes, “In theory grades could be one of the best indicators of student learning, if certain conditions were met. However, in practice, teachers include many factors that are not related to what students know when grading those students.”(3)

Woodward supports the contention that grades should not be based on behavior unrelated to learning and knowledge, recommending: 1. Grades should not be based upon attendance, punctuality, or behavior in class. 2. Grades should not be used to reward or to punish students. The purpose of the grade is to represent what students have learned. 3. Homework completion should not be a part of the grade. For many reasons homework completion is not an indicator of what was learned.

Teachers give less than half of students an appropriate grade. Part of our work is teaching teachers. On the whole, we find teachers dedi- cated, earnest, well meaning- - and also good teachers. But they get an ‘F’ on grading. They flunk when it comes to evaluating student learning. That’s not based on our opinion- - that comes from a book co-authored by Nancy Cole, former president of the Educational Test- ing Service. In comparing grades and test scores, Educational Testing Service researchers Warren Willingham and Nancy Cole (4) found:

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Boys Girls Grades and test scores roughly the same 44% 47% Grades are significantly better than test scores 20% 33% Test scores are significantly better than grades 36%* 20%* * This is where the problem is. For a significant portion of the student population, the students test much higher than their grades. The primary reason they receive lower grades is they are penalized for late work. This keeps them from either entering or graduating from college. The problem is now affecting a growing number of smart girls. The rate of growth of dissatisfaction with schools is now higher among girls than among boys. Coates’ interview with a psychologist indicates that he is seeing the consequences of this dissatisfaction among girls at a much higher rate now than in the past. Late students test just as well. Studies confirm that the group most penalized for late work scores about the same on a variety of tests as other students, including the ACT, SAT, and College Board Advanced Placement exams. Homework is a problem. An important study is one done by the Edina, Minnesota, public schools. It is important in these respects: 1. It pinpoints homework as the determining factor in the GPA gap. 2. The study reports on numerous testing measures, showing that boys and girls score roughly the same on a variety of tests. 3. The study is comprehensive in nature, providing data from a single school district that both correlates with national data, and shows clearly the relationships with a specific case study. (5) There is no link between homework and test scores. Since homework constitutes a significant factor in Grade Point Average (GPA), it is not surprising that Harris Cooper, a leading researcher on homework, reports that “The correlation between time spent on homework and class grades was +.47 for Tonglet (2000) and +.21 for Cooper et al.

38 (1998).” (6) What this means is that homework scores are a primary factor as to why some students get lower grades than others. But there is no link between homework and test scores. Dr. Cooper also reports no significant correlation (+.07) between time spent on homework and standardized achievement test scores, noting “No strong evidence was found for an association between the homework-achievement link and the outcome measure (grades versus standardized tests) or the subject matter (reading versus math).” Having homework count towards one’s grade only began to be universal in schools with the Baby Boomer generation of students. Before that generation of students, homework was routinely not counted as part of one’s grade. You will see many educators claiming that high school grades are a “predictor” of success in college. By success, or “academic achievement” they mean grades. This is a circular argument, since colleges also grade based on behavior. So grades are indeed a predictor of grades. But the evidence shows that grades are not a predictor of learning. Business measures outcomes: Welcome to the 21st Century Even without gender considerations, schools and colleges would be pushed to grade solely on learning and knowledge rather than behavior. That’s because business and work is moving from measuring “inputs” (time, behavior, etc.) of the last century to measuring “outcomes” in this century in terms of productivity and work. Job descriptions are being rewritten to describe outcomes rather than activities. The increasing number of teleworkers and workers from a distance can only be measured by work outcomes. Hours and daily supervision is virtually impossible, even if it was desirable, which it is not. In the working world, performance outcomes must be results oriented, and measurable. Accountability is greater. Instead of time clocks and inputs, the test of whether someone is doing the job instead is increasingly being measured by the outcomes, by whether something was accomplished.(7) In the last century of the factory, attendance and behavior was important, even more important than knowledge. You did not need to be smarter than the person next to you on the assembly line. But you 39 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

did need to be just as on-time, and just as well-behaved as the person next to you on the assembly line. Grading in school- - like the curriculum, tardy bells and even how the school building looked just like a factory- - was meant to prepare students to work in the factory. But we don’t live in the Industrial Age of factories anymore. Businesses understand that. Now it is time for our educational institutions to understand that as well. Thus, the move from grading based, in part, on behavior to grading solely based on learning and knowledge also is outcomes and results based. As more educational institutions adopt a grading system based solely on learning and knowledge, you may not even see the issue of gender and bias against males publicly given in the rationale. The Solution is Working At the time of this writing, implementation of grading based solely on learning and knowledge is finally gaining a foothold in education. In 2009 we received the first evidence that the solution works. A high school teacher in Florida who grades solely on learning and knowledge sent us the grades for her 100 students by sex. Male students had a GPA of 3.02 while female students had a GPA of 3.08, no significant difference. Some teachers have been grading without including behavior. They report positive results.(8) Other teachers, in blogs and other online comments, have had a good experience. Tom Schimmer, in his blog post “Enough with the late penalities!” says “Late Penalties lead to inaccuracy, which leads to deflated grades, which distorts the students’ achievement; their true ability to meet the intended learning outcomes.”(9) In the fall of 2014, The Denton, Texas, Independent School District implemented a grading policy based solely on learning and knowledge. Vicky Christenson, director of secondary instructions, curriculum and staff development explained, “The changes we are implementing next fall are tied to our beliefs about learning, assessment and grading. If we believe that grades should accurately reflect what a student has learned, then our grading and assessment practices should align with that belief. That is why we have separated out giving a grade for behaviors that are not part of the standards. “We still value behaviors such as meeting deadlines. We will 40 still expect those behaviors; we will model those behaviors for our students, correct, and when appropriate, provide consequences for students who do not meet deadlines. But, we will not be penalizing a student’s grade which should only report their learning,” Christenson told the local newspaper that spring. (10) The solution works in admitting students to college as well. The New York Times reported what happened at Dickinson University when Robert Massa became head of admissions, “Mr. Massa reshaped Dickinson in one year. Of the freshmen admitted in 2000, 43 percent were male… This year, Dickinson admitted an equal share of the male and the female applicants.” (11) In a follow up email to us, Mr. Massa explained, “Prior to my arrival in 1999, SATs played a smaller part in the admissions process at Dickinson (this was true in the nineties). Grades were by far the major criteria, and since girls have better high school grades than boys, a much higher percentage of women were being admitted than were men. Just before I arrived, 75% of the women were admitted vs 50% of the men, in spite of the fact that male accepts had significantly higher SATs -- by about 30 points -- than did female admits. This past year, men and women were admitted at equal rates, with males again scoring slightly better on the SATs and women performing slightly better in class. (12) Summary We teach teachers. And in our courses that are a part of a graduate program in adult and higher education, we grade solely on learning and knowledge, not on behavior. In every course some teacher shows up late. And in almost every course some teacher turns in the work late. And that’s just fine. We do not find it takes any longer to grade a paper or score a test in October than in September. So we have found that the solution works in practice. We just wish the faculty we teach would treat their own students the way they wish as learners to be treated. In our book The Pedagogy of the 21st Century (13) we predicted that by 2030 teachers will be prohibited by law from grading based on behavior. We affirm that prediction. But it would be better if schools and colleges just implement the solution without being mandated by the government to do so. One way or another, the solution will be implemented in our nation’s schools and colleges.

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42 Chapter 5 Teacher Objections: “But, We’re Teaching Responsibility Here”

“Please God, make Coates’ and Draves’ prognostications come true.” Prof. David Calhoon, Black Hills State University, Spearfish, South Dakota

Educators almost always give two reasons for penalizing students for late work and for refusing to grade students solely on learning and knowledge. Interestingly, wherever we go, the two objections are commonly raised by educators using the same words: - “We’re teaching responsibility here.” - “We’re preparing students for the workplace.”

Both of these beliefs are not grounded in fact. These beliefs come from the value and belief system of the last century; the century of factories and the factory model of the school. We will delve more into why educators have these objections, but let’s first present the evidence that disproves these two objections.

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“We’re teaching responsibility here.” There is no evidence to support this claim. First, values and habits are formed early in life. When high school and college teachers claim to be teaching responsibility, as they do, (1) we need to understand that values and habits such as responsibility are learned much earlier in life, by age 10, 11, or as early as age 8. (2) Even driving habits are learned by this age, even though the child does not taking driving lessons until a teenager. Second, the GPA gap never closes. If teachers were indeed teaching responsibility, then the GPA gender gap between boys and girls would close over a period of time. Some 84% of teachers say boys are more likely to turn their work in late than girls, which is also supported by looking at students’ grades. (3) But, the gender GPA gap never closes. That is, the so-called “responsibility” is never gained. There is a gender GPA gap starting as early as sixth grade and the gender GPA gap never closes, not even for seniors in college where male students (the most responsible of all males) still get worse grades than female seniors. So, penalizing students for late work never has the intended consequence of teaching them “responsibility.” “We’re preparing students for the workplace.” There is no evidence to support this claim either. While workers do have to turn work in on time in the workplace, there is no gender problem in the workplace with regard to showing up on time and turning work in on time. First, students who submit late work at school show up on time at their job. Some 71% of students in college also hold down jobs at the same time. There is no evidence that students who turn in school work late show up late at work or turn in their work-work late. Educators have told us that boys who simultaneously are enrolled in school and have part-time jobs show up on time for work and turn in homework late. Thus, there is no problem in the workplace, only in academia. Second, there is no male gender problem at work with responsibility. If indeed males’ turning in school work late had an impact on their performance in the workplace, then we would see employers favoring 44 No college or university in the United States could graduate Win- ston Churchill today. Fortunately his educational institutions did not determine his bad behavior would prohibit him from university studies. Churchill’s bad behavior reputedly continuing in adulthood, but did not stop him from saving the world for democracy.

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female workers over male workers. Clearly, employers report that some of their employees show up late for work or complete their work late. But, there is no evidence in any studies that those late workers are the same people as the students who turn in school work late.

There are no studies that young men perform more poorly than young women in the workplace. We have interviewed human resource professionals and they indicate there is no problem. There is no perceived problem of boys in the workforce on the part of employers, workers, or even educators. There are no citations or references on the web as to males performing less well at work. We are only able to document evidence that women perform at the same level in the workplace as men and most commentary on workplace gender issues try to confirm that women perform up to men in the workplace. In addition, we asked human resource executives if there is a problem of either gender showing up for work late or submitting work late. No human resource executive has documented any problem. We interviewed staff at two human resources associations and the president of a national employment agency. (4) Third; actually, males show up more on time than females at work. To be clear, all the evidence suggests that females perform just as well at work as males, just as males perform academically just as well as females in school. And while employers might report that there is no difference between females and males showing up on time, three studies conclude that actually, males show up on time at work more than females. The most recent survey is from a 2010 study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Standards, Department of Labor, under the leadership of Sec- retary Hilda Solis. The study showed that women are 2-3 times more absent in the workplace than men. This discounts (takes into account) time spent on child care, health issues, and family. So, even after sub- tracting absences due to health, child care, and family, women are still 2-3 times more absent in the workplace than men. (5) Fourth, for STEM jobs, “responsibility” does not appear to be an issue in hiring. The problem is not that there are no responsible engineers or computer scientists, the problem is that there are not enough skilled (college-educated) engineers and computer scientists. There is no 46 “No late work. I have a gun!” This is not funny. This is not good. Above, your co-author restages a photo of an actual university professor posing on his web site. The warning was the actual wording beneath the photo of the professor. At the time of this printing, the professor is now a dean.

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evidence that we have a surplus of irresponsible engineers or computer scientists or chemists.

No change in on-time work From interviews with teachers who currently do not penalize students for late work, they report that most students still turn in homework and coursework on time (6), and that the pattern of lateness does not change regardless of whether there is a penalty or not. Thus, there is no evidence that most students will regularly turn in work late. In- stead, the evidence suggests that if the work is due on Friday, the same majority of students will turn the work in by Friday. Teachers spend too much time on student behavior Teachers today are under the mistaken impression that behavior is totally willful. Instead, much behavior is based on one’s neurology, hormonal composition, physical disability, brain development, or other hard-wired and natural cause. Punishment does not help an individual to change his or her neural abilities. And, behavior is irrelevant to learning and knowledge. Teachers, schools, and colleges should not measure or correlate behavior with learning and knowledge. Way too much time and resources are spent by teachers, schools, and colleges in trying to manage, change, measure, judge, and punish behavior. This valuable time takes away from actually helping individuals to learn. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) provides data showing that teachers focus on behavior way too much. According to the NCES, teachers themselves report that they feel most capable in managing behavior in the classroom. So, this is the skill set that most teachers are most proud about. And the skill set that most teachers feel the weakest is that related to technology and the Internet. Teachers in the early part of the 21st century have their priorities reversed. They are least skilled in the technology of the Internet; the area that has the most potential and capability of helping students learn in this century and, they say they are most skilled in managing behavior; the area that is the most irrelevant in helping students to learn.

48 Why Teachers Teach “Responsibility” We were driving in northern Wisconsin one day when our car broke down and we barely made it to the Little Star Garage in Manitowish Waters to have it repaired. Started way back in the 1950’s, the repair shop still had a pit instead of a car lift; a hole in the garage where the mechanic walks down underneath the car. When we went to pay, we noticed this quotation on the pricing board, “To educate a man in mind and not morals is to educate a menace to society… Theodore Roos- evelt.” It suddenly became clear to us why teachers teach “responsibility” in schools and colleges. When Theodore Roosevelt wrote that quotation, the United States was in the last stages of being an agrarian society; one in which half of the population lived on family farms. The rural and small town society in which people rarely travelled more than eleven miles away from home was such that morality and moral character were essential social mores to the success of rural and small town civilization. So, teachers in the one-room rural schoolhouses taught morality and moral character. But, they did not teach what you and I would regard as morality or moral character. They did not mean just vague and broad values like not stealing or not lying; virtues throughout the ages. By morality and moral character, they also meant specific kinds of behavior for those times. They taught behaviors that; once again, were essential to the success of rural and small town society. Going outside without a hat on, moving away more than eleven miles, putting your parents in a home for the elderly, driving or shop- ping or working on Sunday, not standing by your oral word - these were all immoral behaviors not to be engaged by anyone with moral character. They were behaviors that you and we engaged in all the time and do not see as wrong. By the standards of your great-great grandmother, you and we are immoral. Let us illustrate. Julie’s grandfather once bought 300 acres on which to farm. He found a place down by the creek that was the best place to build his house. Then, he invited his brother to locate his house anywhere he liked on the farm. His brother, knowing Julie’s grandfather, had picked out the best spot down by the creek; said he wanted the spot down by the creek. Julie’s grandfather - unwilling to go back on his word and not wanting to be seen in the community as someone not honoring his word and wanting to uphold his moral character - allowed his brother the spot down by the creek for his house. 49 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

That is moral character. That is something that few of us would do today. But, in order to maintain relations in business and in community life back then, it was necessary to honor one’s word. Not as many people could write, lawyers were fewer and more expensive, and business was conducted with neighbors one saw almost every week. So- cial cohesion demanded honoring one’s word. And so, parents and teachers taught morals and moral character; hitting their children and students to help instill moral character in them. A good parent, a good teacher, was a person who hit children. We know now that hitting students does not instill moral character, nor anything else beneficial. We know that 100 years ago, hitting students caused millions of them to drop out of school and work in the newly created factories where they did not get hit. We now have laws in most states and most post-industrial nations against hitting students in school. Like teachers back then, teachers today in the last stages of the Industrial Age teach “responsibility.” And by responsibility, teachers mean certain and specific behaviors, including showing up, showing up on time, doing the work, and turning work in on time. Instructors teach “responsibility” because the specific behaviors meant by “responsibility” were essential to work in the factory and the office of the last century. Teachers do not teach the morality and moral character that the teachers of 100 years ago taught because those behaviors became obsolete. In fact, in the last century, it was a sign of success to move more than eleven miles away from home or getting the promotion and big job at the corporate headquarters. In living 100 years ago, there was “no place like home” and in the 20th century, a good person was someone with “get up and go,” a “go getter,” the opposite value of the agrarian age. Likewise, the smartest students of today will become - must become - knowledge workers, not factory or office workers. They will work not in an office, but in whatever location and environment allows them to be most productive and most profitable for their company or employer. They will not need to show up on time because their employers will want them to work at their own peak work time, not on a factory or office 8-5 schedule. They will be paid not by time input, but by productivity output. They will get more pay for doing something in less time, not more time. 50 Just as you and we are not moral in the sense that our teachers meant 100 years ago, so our young people are not and will not need to be “responsible” in the obsolete meaning of the factory and office of the Industrial Age. Teaching students to show up at 8 a.m. is just as obsolete as teaching them not to move more than eleven miles away from home. It is not that morality and responsibility will disappear or be considered irrelevant in this century. There are likely to emerge other kinds of meaning to morality, moral character, and responsibility. It is just that adults born in the last century do not know what values should look like in the Information Age of this century. For example, at the time of this writing, most adults would argue that downloading a copyrighted movie is “piracy,” immoral, and should remain illegal. Students understand that downloading multi- media such as movies is an absolutely essential economic activity for any knowledge worker and must be considered both moral and legal. Even as a different set of values emerges and morality and responsibility get redefined, we must not confuse behavior with learning and knowledge. Summary Assessing learning and knowledge, not behavior, is the proper concern of teachers, schools, and colleges in the 21st century. Grading on the basis of behavior no longer has any function in our schools and higher education. Instead, it has created a distorted and dysfunctional assessment of student learning and knowledge that is harming students, society, and the workplace. It also is the source of an enormous waste of educational resources in terms of teacher and administrative time; time that schools cannot afford to waste. The elimination of grading on the basis of behavior is essential in properly assessing a student’s actual learning and knowledge. In this century, the proper assessment of a student’s learning is a critical precondition to helping that student learn more, graduating our smartest students from college, and preparing the most qualified workforce for our society.

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52 Chapter 6 This Happened Once Before: The Historical Parallel

“Children never forget.” - Virginia Woolf, in To the Lighthouse

This is not the first time boys have been labeled bad in our history. Boys were called bad exactly 100 years ago, and for the very same reasons. One hundred years ago, society moved quickly from the Agrarian Age, with 50% of people living on a family farm, into the Industrial Age of the 20th Century, when 35% to 50% of wage earners were employed in the factory. This transition happened between 1900 and 1920. Today society is moving quickly from the Industrial Age of the last century into the Internet or Information Age of the 21st Century, in which the most important work sector is knowledge workers, people who work with their brains and the Internet. When change happens, boys and a few adult males are the first to adapt to the new environment, and the first to adopt the values and behavior of the new environment. The research (1) suggests that with only one X chromosome, boys’ genes are more likely to mutate and

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adapt to the new environment first. And with their superior spatial skills, combined with their variability and greater risk taking than females, males are also more adept at the new technology. So Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, the Wright Brothers were involved with flight, and over 2,500 men formed automobile companies, many inventing various automobile features. Boys quickly gravitated to the automobile and other new technologies of the time. At the same time, the boys adopt the new values and behavior that the new technology promotes. Because most adults and society have not yet accepted the new technology and new cultural values and behavior, boys are both belittled and deemed bad as main- stream society fights change and tries to hold on to the status quo and the values and behavior of the status quo. So initially boys are belittled as wimps. The Gibson Girl In 1900 the role model or ideal woman was “The Gibson Girl,” so named after the artist Charles Dana Gibson, who did drawings and artistic cartoons with The Gibson Girl. The Gibson Girl was attractive, of course. But she was also intelligent, strong, and assertive. By contrast, men in 1900 were portrayed as wimps, the same as they were portrayed in the early years of the 21st century. The Gibson Girl was often accompanied by a man. But the man was smallish, passive, and relegated to a secondary indecisive role. In one drawing, The Gibson Girl and her man are in a carriage. The Gibson Girl is sitting upright, with reins in hand, driving the carriage. The man is beside her, bent over, and holding a small pampered lap dog. In another drawing, a group of Gibson Girls are standing around, taking turns looking through a magnifying glass. Through the magnifying glass they look toward the floor where, in the middle of the group, there is a miniature man. (2) The same image appeared in books, and later movies about that period. In one movie, the famous comedian Red Skelton plays a young man Joe. “Joe, inventor in an American Small Town of 1895 has problems with his new invention, a car, driven with a gasoline motor. Ev- erybody is making fun about his ‘crazy invention’. Only his girlfriend

54 Illustrations of The Gibson Girl portrayed the model woman as strong, and men as wimps.

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believes in him.” (3) Like in the movie, for many adults the transition in technology, economy and cultural values was difficult and painful. If we look back 100 years ago, we see the experience was emotionally traumatic for adults. Mr. Y.A. Taylor of Black Mountain, North Carolina, lived in a part of the country that saw the transition from the Agrarian Age to the Industrial Age take place later than the rest of the country, so we were able to interview him about the changes from farm to factory jobs. He told us in an interview: “The small farmer sort of disappeared. One day they were just gone. The large farmer stayed on the farm, and it became more mech- anized with not so many mules and horses. When people lost their farms, adults took it hard. They often became distraught. It was very difficult for them.”(4) And so boys, adapting to the new environment and adopting the new technology, economy and values, then are deemed bad. Boys create the new economy Y.A. Taylor was a young man when the job opportunities shifted from the farm to the factory. He grew up on a farm and worked long hours on the farm. But when he and other young men had an opportunity to work in a factory, they took the factory jobs without hesitation. He described the attraction to us: “Young men in a factory could earn 10 cents an hour. On the family farm you weren’t paid money. And, in a factory job, you were paid in cash on pay day at the end of the week, so you saw the money on a weekly basis. Construction paid 15 cents an hour.” “On the farm there were long hours, but also the weather was often poor, so you were working in the hot sun, or in the rain, or in the cold. For factory jobs, it was almost all inside work.”(5) Boys were characterized as being “bad” for their Industrial Age behavior. In the famous musical The Music Man, Professor Harold Hill tells the parents of River City, Iowa, what they already know, that their young boys have been exposed to new and immoral influences.(6) Oh, we got trouble. Right here in River City, and around America. But boys did not just play pool and say awful words like “swell.” They

56 Jazzsinger. Watch the first six minutes of this, the first talking movie, made in 1927. His mother says “he thinks differently.” His father does what every responsible parent- - and teacher- - did by giving him a whipping, the effect of which was to have the boy run away from home.

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also got bad grades in school, and then they dropped out of school in huge numbers. Good teachers hit their students Some 100 years ago, good teachers hit their students. Good parents hit their children. Hitting a child was believed to instill moral character. It was also believed to be a motivation for better behavior. Moral character was the defining value of the agrarian age, and so when children, especially boys, defied the agrarian values and adopted industrial age 20th century values, they were hit. In the first “talking movie picture” in the United States,The Jazzs- inger, made in 1927, Al Jolson as a child is punished for singing secu- lar rather than solely religious music. Even when the child threatened to run away from home, his father whipped him one more time. His father, a religious man, believed he was being a good father by whipping his son. The problem was that hitting students had absolutely no positive effect on learning, motivation, or even behavior. Instead, millions of children, two-thirds of them boys, dropped out of school. A Chicago social worker and child labor inspector, Julia E. Johnsen, went into the factories and surveyed over 500 children in the factory. She asked them if their family did not need the money, would they prefer the factory or school. Some 80% chose the factory. As one young boy noted about school: “They hits you if ye don’t learn, and they hits you if ye whisper, and they hits you if ye have string in yer pocket, and they hits you if yer seat squeaks, and they hits you if ye scrape yer feet, and they hits you if ye don’t stand up in time, and they hits you if yer late, and they hits you if ye forget the page.”(7) Substitute “yell” for “hit;” verbal punishment for corporal punishment, and this is what too many boys experience once again in school. Johnsen’s work was reported to the United States Congress in 1924, and soon states enacted laws to outlaw hitting students, eventu- ally affecting schools in most states in America. What hitting did to students was at least as or more emotional in nature than physical. The student was labeled “bad” when he or she was hit. Today students are labeled as “bad” for lateness. The nega- 58 tive self-esteem, combined with the humiliation from others, is dev- astating for many students, and we again have millions of so-called drop-outs today for very much the same reason. In the 1920s, society finally recognized the value of the automobile, the factory and the Industrial Age, and with it boys and young men regained their positive image in society. Like Grandfather, Like Son By coincidence, our son, William A. Draves V, or Willie, was born exactly one hundred years after his great grandfather, William A. Draves II. The other similarities between WAD II and WAD V are not coincidental, however. Both were 14 at the turn of the century. Both were boys during the transition period from one age to another, and thus both have similar characteristics. WAD II was a happy boy who loved to play. From his diary, we learn that he would often wake up late, by his own account, and he would often come home from high school and play with Dan, the family horse. He also liked to play and build with his “dynamo,” an early engine. So grandpa was into technology.(8) Grandpa went to the university, but he dropped out just before graduation. His circumstances were similar to several million boys of today in that he could get a job in industry without the university credentials. Our son Willie grew up a century later, a mirror time period from that of his great grandfather. He has many of the same characteristics as his great grandfather. His circumstances, environment and situation are very similar to his great grandfather’s. Willie is not alone. As we look around at his friends, at boys online, at newspaper accounts of trends among boys, we see the same characteristics as millions of other boys today. History Repeats Itself And so today the historical parallel repeats itself, and once again boys are labeled as being bad.

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The decades of the 1890s and 1990s were very similar, according to historian H.W. Brands. “Fear and resentment pervaded the poli- tics of both decades. Each time, the sense of sliding over a cliff into an alien future prompted unprecedented efforts at heel-digging, and it produced a conspicuously conspiratorial brand of political rhetoric. In the 1990s, the mantra was traditional values… In the 1890s, the mantra was also traditional values, which in this case meant the way of life of American farmers, those sons and daughters of the soil who had nurtured the nation from its youth and who still represented its last best hope for the future.” He adds, “Something happens at the end of a century. Rules are altered, boundaries are breached, and fundamental attitudes are changed.”(9) Between 1990 and 2010, Homer Simpson was the best recognized male personality on television in the country. Our son’s favorite emoticon is an image of Homer.(10) Homer is not a real person, but a cartoon character. He is not real bright. Looking over his son Bart’s shoulder as Bart types on his keyboard, he says things like, “Wow, the Internet is on computers now.” While this is technically true, we all can see that Homer doesn’t get it. His wife Marge is smarter than he is. His kids are smarter than he is. Most of all, however, Homer is a wimp. Sometime in the first decade of the 21st century males as wimps began to morph into males as nerds. On television, there was the un- social detective in Monk, followed by Psych, followed by an autistic STEM researcher in The Big Bang Theory. But in real life, boys pioneering new technologies and new values in this century were still regarded as bad. The boy who took apart the first iPhone, which ran only on AT&T service, was regarded as bad. Shawn Fanning, the 18 year old college dropout who invented Nap- ster, the technology on downloading digital music, was regarded as bad. Aaron Swartz was so regarded as bad that he was threatened with 35 years in prison for accessing information free to MIT students. He committed suicide in 2013. The government then made actions like his legal. And Edward Snowden gained international fame or infamy, depending on your view of 21st century privacy and individual rights. Summary In the 2020’s, society will have finally recognized the economic necessity of the boys’ 21st century values and behavior. And with it boys and young men will regain their positive image in society. At the same time, society will recognize that more of our children require 60 a four year college degree in order to provide economic prosperity in the workforce, just like society in the last century recognized that more of its children required a high school degree in order to provide economic prosperity. But as of this writing, that has not happened yet, and so boys continue to be punished for their behavior and 21st century values. The most common way in which smart boys are punished is with bad grades and denied access to college and a college degree.

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62 Chapter 7 Why Women Don’t Go Into STEM

“There is new evidence that it is a good idea to trust women’s choices…” Susan Pinker, The Sexual Paradox

Every young woman who wants to go into STEM should- - no must- - go into STEM. But so should every young man. Quite simply, the solution to the STEM crisis in the United States is to stop prohibiting smart males from getting a four year college education. Smart males will fill the STEM need if they are allowed to enter and graduate with a four year degree. In the United States, women do not go into STEM. We should welcome and invite, but not demand, female students to enter science, technical, engineering and math (STEM), as practicing professionals. And we should not expect female students to enter the STEM professions in the same proportion as male students. To be sure, every female who wants to enter a STEM profession should not only be encouraged but assisted in every way. We have a shortage of professionals in the STEM areas. But equally, every male who wants to enter a STEM profession should also be encouraged and assisted in every way. 63 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

There are four considerations why we should not expect the pro portion of females to significantly exceed 20% of STEM professionals. 1. Females in STEM have not grown significantly. The first reason is that while females are a greater proportion of college graduates, and have been for the last thirty years, they have not become a significantly greater proportion of practicing STEM professionals. A study in the United Kingdom showed that while males entered the STEM fields in fewer numbers, the percentage of women in those fields did not increase over time.(1) Susan Pinker notes that women are 2.8 times more likely than men to leave science and engineering careers, despite the study by Cath- erine Weinberger that has shown that women with computer science or engineering degrees earn 30 to 50 percent more than the average female graduate.(2) When the United States issues a special H1-B visa to skilled STEM workers in other countries to come to the United States, some 73% of those H1-B visa workers are college-educated males, not females. These professions include nursing, so the male percentage without nursing would be even higher.(3) Also contributing is the fact that many of the female PhDs who enter scientific fields leave soon after they begin working. A study by the Chronicle of Higher Education found that 75% of female STEM graduates become teachers, not practicing professionals in science, technology, engineering or math. By contrast only 25% of male STEM graduates decide not to practice. A 1995 survey of Americans with PhDs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics found that single men and single women with PhDs participate about equally in the scientific workforce. But a married female PhD is 11% less likely to work full time than a married male PhD. If the woman is married with young children, then she is 25% less likely to be fully employed in science or technology than a married man with young children. (4)

These girls at the county fair have a good chance of going into veterinary medicine. But they are only one-fourth as likely as male veterinary medicine students to choose to practice food animal science where they would take care of pigs and chick- ens.

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2. There are neurological tendencies. There are neurological factors as to why females might not consti- tute more than around 20% of STEM practitioners in the post-industrial world. The 20% benchmark comes from Michael Gurian’s work. He suggests there are about 20% of members of either sex, based on neurology, with a gender characteristic of the other sex. This benchmark receives confirmation by a number of data points (e.g. women in continuing education computer classes, female pilots, young women studying traditionally male occupations, etc.), including the percentage of women in many STEM professions. Doreen Kimura, author of Sex and Cognition, did extensive work and found that females have lower spatial ability than males, and that the lower spatial ability of most females is due to a lower testosterone level than males. Females also have a higher verbal and communication ability than males, and a greater tendency towards empathy than males, which tends to lead women to favor non-STEM occupations. As Doreen Kimura notes, “In normal young men and women, spatial ability is systematically related to testosterone (T) levels.”(5) Other research and statistics, such as Gender and Fair Assessment by War- ren Willingham and Nancy Cole, of the Educational Testing Service, support with data what Kimura explains. Dahlia W. Zaidel, Ph.D., De- partment of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles says “Her laboratory has consistently formulated interesting and critical questions in this field, and has generated the best, most reliable studies.”(6) We are not able to find credible evidence in the literature that refutes Kimura’s findings. To be sure, the neurological factors do not prohibit women from becoming STEM professionals. There are countries, and have been countries, where women are 50% of STEM professionals. And any given woman may have just as high a spatial ability as a man, just not more than around 20% of women. 3. Women tend to not want to enter STEM. The second tendency is that women tend to not choose to enter STEM professions in the same proportion as men. Coates found that the percentage of engineers who were women varied by country based on the level of democracy and economic prosperity of the country. In less democratic and less economically prosperous countries, the proportion of female engineers was greater than 66 This White House ad, trying to encourage young women to enter a STEM profession, uses the wrong approach to motivating females.

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20%. This was true for Bulgaria (50%), East Germany (28%) and the Arab Sector of Israel (50%). In more prosperous and democratic countries, the proportion of female engineers was lower, around 20%. This was true for the United States (20%), United Kingdom (18%), West- ern Europe (21%) and the Jewish Sector of Israel (28%). Interestingly, when East Germany merged with West Germany the proportion of female engineers in Eastern Germany dropped from 50% down to the proportion in the former West Germany. (7) Inde- pendently, another researcher, Susan Pinker, agrees, concluding, “the richer the country, the more likely women and men choose different types of jobs.” A National Science Foundation (NSF) funded study of why female engineering graduates do not become practicing engineers found the top reasons were related to the women’s choices rather than any male chauvinism or sex discrimination in engineering.(8) The top reasons were that the female engineering graduates said they did not like engineering, followed by a desire to start their own business, they didn’t like the culture, and with the fourth top reason as being they never planned to enter the engineering profession. For women who entered the engineering profession, but left, the top reasons were 1) wanted more time with family, 2) no advancement, 3) lost interest, and 4) didn’t like daily (engineering) tasks- - in that order. Complicating things further is that too many well educated women are simply leaving the workforce. Between 1993 and 2006, one study says that 0.1% of women in the workforce left it, amounting to a loss of 1.6 million skilled workers. (9) Many educated women are leaving the workforce to raise children, because they want more free time, and because they can afford it as many of them have educated husbands earning good incomes. A related emerging issue in the future will be the cost to society of educating women for careers, especially high cost training such as for the medical profession, and then having those professionals opt out of full time work. The cost of educating a part-time doctor is the same as the cost of educating a full-time doctor, Dr. Karen S. Sibert wrote and then told OnPoint Radio host Tom Ashbrook. (10) A high profile example of women choosing traditional female occupations is Mayim Bialik, who plays Amy Farrah Fowler on the Big Bang Theory. Like her character, Ms. Bialik actually has a Ph.D. in neuroscience. Unlike her character, but like most other women edu- 68 cated in STEM, Ms. Bialik chose a more traditional female occupation than to practice neuroscience. Danica McKellar, a star who played “Winnie” in the TV series The Wonder Years, graduated summa cum laude from UCLA in mathematics. She had a paper published in Britain’s Journal of Physics A: Mathematics & General, (with UCLA professor Lincoln Chayes and student Brandy Winn) which provided a mathematical proof for a theorem dealing with magnetism in two dimensions. And she was the only undergraduate invited to speak at Rutgers University’s biannual Statistical Mechanics who wrote a proof at a very young age. But at the time of this writing Ms. McKellar was not a working mathemati- cian: she was listed in Wikipedia as being an actress, film director, author and education advocate. Women practicing in a STEM profession are not uncommon, but it is unrealistic to expect them to be more than 20% of many STEM professions, such as engineering, computer science, and food animal veterinary medicine. Hedy Lamarr Hedy Lamarr, a famous movie actress in the 1930s and 1940s, was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world at that time. Being Jewish, and growing up in Vienna, during World War II she raised money for the allied war effort. On a single day she raised $4 million, which was a good deal of money then. When she learned that allied submarines were being tracked down by the German torpedoes, she developed a mathematical formula that would create irregular radio frequencies to better avoid detection. She patented it and offered her invention free to the war effort. Some 50 years later her invention was used in spread spectrum technology, the technology you and I use today for many of our communications. We were discussing Hedy Lamarr one day when Julie said, “You know why she invented it? It was out of her empathy and compassion for people who were being killed in the war, that was her motivation.” Most females are motivated by mission, helping people, and empathy, choosing work in those professions that offer greater internal reward for work that contributes to the well being of people in a very direct way.

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4. Interventions, such as STEM camps, make no difference. There are over 400 organizations participating in a massive effort in the United States to encourage young women to go into a STEM profession. The government and these organizations are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the effort, over a period of several decades. And yet the effort has made no difference. Gender diversity efforts have not only failed to work, they have also been counterproductive. They have had the effect of worsening, ignoring or diverting attention and resources away from solving larger, more pressing and more critical educational and economic needs in order to get more STEM workers for business. STEM camps make no difference. That is, the same proportion of girls who attend STEM camps go into STEM as in the general public, not more. Coates also found that programs encouraging elementary and secondary school-age girls to become practicing STEM professionals had little impact. One such study of Camp Reach, a middle- school engineering outreach program for girls concluded, “While a higher fraction of the Camp Reach group chose engineering majors upon college entry, the difference did not reach statistical signifi- cance. There were no significant differences in the engineering self- efficacy and other measures of efficacy between the Reach and control groups.” (11) In fact, this STEM camp that found, from its own evaluation, that it made no difference- - won a national award. Yes, the STEM camp won a national award for making no difference. Creating laws or funding restrictions based on gender diversity is not working. For example, currently the Perkins Act in the U.S. requires career centers and other federally funded post secondary job training programs to attempt to get 20% of students in a traditional gender occupation from the other sex. But career and technical training centers are not able to meet those goals, and the goals themselves are being questioned. Julie’s math and biology scores as a child were so good that her school had her to skip a grade after Sputnik in America’s effort to try to catch up with the Russians in science. Today she likes power tools, studies medicine, understands auto repair, and tinkers with computers. But she chose education and other help professions for her work.

70 Gender Approach All Wrong “We’re doing gender diversity recruitment all wrong,” noted Bar- bara Nicol of the Ohio Board of Regents after a gender diversity seminar we did for the 56 career centers in Ohio. “We have been trying to promote people entering a field that is traditional to the opposite sex. That doesn’t motivate either females or males. What we need to do is to rework the message to be appealing to the sex we are trying to recruit. That’s a whole different approach.”(12) Almost all of the current approaches to gender diversity convey the wrong message, present the wrong image, or do not use motivations that motivate women. The list of wrong approaches is long, and includes: - Suggesting that merely being in a traditional male occupation is a reason for women to enter that study or occupation - Targeting females with messages and images that motivate males - Not using motivations that resonate with females when targeting females - Showing single images of women - Overplaying pink and purple colors in targeting females - Raising the profile or highlighting the gender issue and many more…..

Summary Instead of expecting women to perform the same with respect to science, technology, engineering and math professions as men, understanding gender differences between males and females offers education an opportunity to maximize the skills and strengths of all our students. The reality is that less than 20% of engineers are going to be women, and that will not meet society’s need for more STEM workers. Susan Pinker, author of The Sexual Paradox, agrees. “A 50-50 gender split in these fields does not exist anywhere,” she notes.

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Gender diversity is not the answer to meeting society’s needs for more STEM workers. Again, any young women wanting to go into STEM should. But so should every young man. We need to get more men into engineering, and more women into nursing. Not the other way around. Pinker offers the conclusion, “There is new evidence that it is a good idea to trust women’s choices instead of pushing them to study what doesn’t appeal to them.”

72 Chapter 8 Where Feminism Went Wrong

“Misguided feminism is harming our young men.” Christina Hoff Sommers, The War Against Boys

Feminism went wrong when Gloria Steinem decades ago said that boys should be raised like girls. Betty Friedan, author of The Fem- inine Mystique, was virulently opposed to that notion, and said so. Friedan was a mother of two boys (and one girl). But her view did not prevail. Instead Steinem’s remark marked a turning point for feminism, moving from a position that women were equal to men to one that suggested that female traits were superior to male traits. There are three major myths that today’s Third Wave feminists have effectively gotten society to embrace: 1. female traits are better than male traits, 2. girls are shortchanged more by our schools than boys are, and 3. there is no biological difference in hormonal and neurological brain make-up between the sexes that affects learning and ability. We are feminists, or post-feminists, or Second Wave Feminists. We support gender equity in both education and in the workplace. We support Title IX. We support and work towards equal pay for equal

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work for women. Our organization, founded in 1974, has had gender parity on our Board of Directors since its inception. Find a corporation or even a college with that track record, there are not many. Support for women’s rights is in our family history. Our grandmothers marched in Washington DC as suffragettes. Aunt Tillie Thorkelson was Treasurer of Johnson’s Wax in the 1930s, one of the few female corporate executives of that time. When Amelia Earhart came to Milwaukee, Tillie insisted her niece Alice attend and sit in the front row, so she could see that women could accomplish as much as men. We will argue that we, along with our third colleague on our senior management team, discovered and pioneered in 1998 an invention which will be one of the primary tools for closing the gender pay gap, the virtual office. With the virtual office, both women and men can work from home and not have to decide between children and work. For women, the virtual office means the ability to meet the demands and time for both work and the family. With the virtual office, men work from home and have more of a role in the family without having to sacrifice their careers. The Bias Against Women in the Workplace There is still, unfortunately, a bias against women in the workplace today. Women still do not have equal pay for equal work. But the issues of gender in the classroom and gender in the workplace are two different issues. Female students are not being shortchanged in our schools and colleges. And favoring female students in the classroom has no significant effect on reducing the bias against women in the workplace. There is simply no causal connection between the two. Instead, two wrongs do not make a right for women, men or society. If one looks at the country that has narrowed the gender wage gap the most, that country would be Sweden. And what people in Sweden say is that they did three things to narrow the gender wage gap: first, provide maternity leave; second, provide paternity leave; and third, mandate that half of the country’s elected officials be female. No one says that gender bias against boys in school has helped to narrow the gender wage gap. In fact, Sweden and other countries with less of a 74 wage gap also have less of a gender gap against males in school than does the United States. Here in the United States the gender gap in education has been growing over the past three decades, and yet there is still concern and statistics about the wage gap not closing. To be clear, being biased against males in education does not help females in the workforce. What is also regrettable is that Third Wave Feminists are pushing less for equal pay and more influence in the workplace, and pulling harder to maintain gender inequality in education. In 2014 there was a lot of media hype about computer scientists at Google, Facebook, Apple and other companies being 70% - 80% male. This appears to be a normal or expected percentage given the neurological differences between men and women, as well as the data on how women make career choices in advanced democratic nations. Nevertheless, USA Today writer Jessica Guynn called the Facebook ratio “stark.” and other media piled on. Google revealed to have 80% of its tech workers male. Instead of Third Wave feminists demanding more female tech workers, or more females on Google’s board of directors, they requested, and received, a $50 million donation for STEM camps. They got more money for the very thing- - STEM camps and education- - that makes no difference in the workplace. So the Third Wave feminists’ strategy appears to be to maintain gender inequality in education, favoring girls in school, and preventing boys from achieving their goals in education and the workplace. From advocating equality to an anti-male bias The struggle for women’s equality in society has been waged for several centuries. Women’s historians say the First Wave Feminists were concerned primarily with the right to vote. The term First Wave was first used by Marsha Lear, writing in The New York Times Maga- zine in 1968. At the same time she also used the term “Second Wave feminism.” (1) Then Third Wave feminists, led by Gloria Steinem, came along. Third Wave feminists believe female values and behavior are superior to male values and behavior. They believe there are essentially no brain differences between females and males that impact learning. 75 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

And they believe males should behave like females. Steinem famously said, “We’ve had a lot of people in this country who have had the courage to raise their daughters more like their sons. Which is great because it means they’re more equal, and whole women who are now standing up for themselves, is why we’re having this program. But there are many fewer people who have had the courage to raise their sons more like their daughters. And that’s what needs to be done.” (2) This set off a whole generation of Baby Boomer parents who tried to raise their girls like boys, and their boys like girls. We tried it as well. Like millions of other parents, we did not allow our sons to play with plastic guns. They instead made toy guns out of sticks. Then they configured a gun with their fingers. (3) Then we stopped trying to raise our sons like girls. Raising boys like girls has been a three decade long exercise in futility. But along the way society embraced the notion that female traits were better than male traits,(4) that girls were and are shortchanged more by our schools than boys are, and that there is no biological difference in hormonal and neurological brain make-up between the sexes that affects learning and ability.(5) The mistaken belief that girls are shortchanged by our schools has led to gender bias against boys, and to the celebration of increasing gender inequality in favor of females in schools and colleges. The best work on this background has been done by Christina Hoff Sommers in her book The War Against Boys. Sommers writes that the American Association of University Women (AAUW) published a report in 1990 called “How Schools Shortchange Girls.” One book re- viewer, Del Meyer, notes, “Sommers states that it took The New York Times six years to question the validity of the reports and, thereafter, states that the AAUW was completely wrong. By then the damage, including a Gender Equity in Education Act in 1994, was already done.” (6) This, of course, happened during a period of time, one that began in 1980 and continues today, that girls were being given better grades than boys and were a growing majority of graduates in college. We predict we are now in the last furious throes of Third Wave feminists defending and forcing these three myths on society. In one of the most egregious opinion pieces, Columbia University professor Kimberle Williams Crenshaw attacks President Barack Obama’s 76 support for My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative to assist more African American boys to further their education, in an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times called “The Girls Obama Forgot.” African American males, of course, are the most underrepresented sector of society in higher education, way behind African American females in college graduation. (7) At the same time, Third-Wave feminists seek to defend their myths. In a recent interview with Time magazine, the actress Shailene Woodley was asked if she considered herself a feminist. “No,” said Ms. Woodley, 22. “Because I love men, and I think the idea of ‘raise women to power, take the men away from the power’ is never going to work out because you need balance.” This caused a storm of defen- sive reactions from some feminists. (8) Summary Today there are three major feminist myths. Those myths are (1) female traits are better than male traits, (2) girls are shortchanged more by our schools than boys are, and (3) there is no biological difference in hormonal and neurological brain make-up between the sexes that affects learning and ability. These myths are still largely accepted by a majority of people in society, including educators, business leaders, the media and even parents. These myths explain why educators dis- regard the evidence and choose a belief system that is not in keeping with reality. The myths will be replaced by the facts, probably by 2030, but the sooner the better.

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78 Chapter 9 Inside the Male and Female Brain: Teachers Really Need Sex Ed

“Boys will be boys. And even that wouldn’t matter if only we could prevent girls from being girls.” - Anne Frank

In 1920, M. V. O’Shea, Professor of Education at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, published one of a series of books on education and parenting. Referring to adolescence as “the crucial age,” he describes the rapid physical changes that occur at puberty, and of youth he writes, “The brain could not, of course, remain dormant while all the other organs [are] undergoing metamorphosis. It is the last to receive adolescent stimulus, but the change is most profound when it does come. Cerebral areas that have lain dormant up until this time now make ready for functioning. . . “. He also notes of brain development that “When an organ is expanding with extraordinary rapidity, it cannot expend as relatively large an amount of energy in action as under normal conditions. . . .When it is largely drawn upon at one point, the amount that can be employed at other points must be decreased. (1) While the language is quaint and the conclusions are based upon observation and anecdote, the modern field of neuroscience has,

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through the use of sophisticated technology and empirical methodolo- gies, come to much the same conclusions as Dr. O’Shea, and has gone even farther in examining how biology impacts behavior both inside and outside of the educational setting. Through the use of neuro-imag- ing and brain scans, we are now able to know more than we have ever known about the brain and how it works. Even more illuminating is the fact that we can literally see the differences in how the male brain and the female brain function. Brain biology accounts for the differences The biological differences in the brain account for many of the gender-based differences in behavior we see in the classroom and in the workplace. Much of what has, in the past, been attributed to cultural or societal biases, in fact, are strongly influenced by biological differences. Our complex system of societal relationships did, undeni- ably, lead to the institutionalization of systematic, discriminatory, gender-biased practices in education in the past. For example, Dr. O’Shea writes, “In the matter of education, too, we have given the boy much more freedom than we have allowed the girl. We have said to the former: ‘Go as far as you like in the pursuit of knowledge. . . .Go deeply into science or history or economics or mathematics, or literature or whatever attracts you. The more deeply you go, the more highly we will regard you.’ But we have said to the girl: ‘It will be better for you to study light subjects, as art and language and literature. It is not quite the thing for a girl to try to master such subjects as biology or chemistry or engineering or agriculture and so on.’” Even so, Dr. O’Shea notes in 1920, women were beginning to “break the artificial restrictions” and were entering the fields of math, science, and “even engineering” in increasing numbers. “The history of modern education tells an illuminating story of woman’s ascenden- cy in educational activities and achievement. Even after women were admitted to colleges on a par with men, they were not considered to be capable of attaining a high degree of scholarship. In a brief period, though, they have climbed to the highest point reached by men, and now they are crowding ahead of them.” Indeed, the academic achievements of women were threatening to many conservative collegians - so threatening that the governors of the Phi Beta Kappa society proposed that the number of women admitted should be arbitrarily limited. Their rationale was that “unless a check is thus put upon women, they will soon outnumber the men and the society will become a feminine organization.”

80 Two students at the University of Vienna in Austria. Males and females are equally intelligent and overall test equally. But males and females have important differences in their neurology and hormonal structure that account for The Fundamental Difference between male and female learning abilities.

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Gender issues today This basic argument which was erupting one hundred years ago is essential to understanding some of the issues that face us today. Gender issues have not disappeared, but they are profoundly different from those of the early part of the twentieth century. The pendulum has swung so far in the direction of supporting girls and women that it can be quite risky to suggest that there may be differences in how males and females learn or that, even worse, there may be things that boys can do better than girls. No such risk exists in asserting that there are things that girls might do better than boys, however. To a great extent, the remarkable achievements of women in the past three decades are the result of a conscious effort to eliminate discriminatory practices that might pose barriers for women. The awareness that the first half of the century did, indeed, place intentional roadblocks in the path of women was a key to righting the system. If we are to successfully address some of the fundamental flaws in our educational processes, we must be able to go beyond the knee-jerk reaction that every institution in our society remains biased against women. In the early 20th century there was a profound shift in gender roles in the United States. Women got the vote. Women were accepted into colleges and universities; they could drive cars, smoke cigarettes in public, and drink beer. They could bob their hair and show their ankles. They could be decision makers and leaders in the business world. The world was turned upside-down, and these changes were very threatening to the traditionalists. Change is always hard to accept, and discrimination was real and oppressive for women. Women no longer disadvantaged by schools By the middle of the twentieth century, women had made great strides toward equality in education and work. By the end of the twentieth century, there was no difference in what women could choose as a career and what men could choose. Women were now doctors, attorneys, pilots, Secretarys of State, Presidential contenders, Vice Presidential candidates, senators, governors, engineers, corporate CEOs, professional athletes, and combat soldiers. Women scientists outnumber men scientists, female physicians outnumber males, there are more women with Bachelor’s degrees and Master’s degrees than there are men, and there are equal numbers of men and women with Doctoral degrees. Overall, women have surpassed men in terms of 82 In Sex and Cognition, researcher Doreen Kimura reported that spatial ability is directly related to testosterone. She found that males receive three surges of testosterone, one before birth, one shortly after birth, and one during the teen years. After each surge in testosterone, the gender gap in spatial abillity increases.

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completing secondary and post-secondary education with the gender gap almost completely reversed. In 2006, 10.3% of males and 8.3% of females dropped out of high school. In 2005/2006, women earned 62% of Associate’s degrees, 58% of Bachelor’s degrees, 60.0% of Master’s degrees, and 48.9% of Doctorates. In 2016/2017, women are projected to earn 64.2% of Associate’s degrees, 59.9% of Bachelor’s degrees, 62.9% of Master’s degrees, and 55.5% of Doctorates.(2) Yet society persists in the notion that all women are disadvantaged both in school and in the workplace. As a society it is essential that we take a long and objective look at our notions of gender bias and how this impacts the way we educate our children. We need to open our minds to the idea that education is not a gender competition; it is a necessity for our survival. We may need to consider some new ideas: boys and girls learn differently, and we will have to teach them differently so that both girls and boys are successful in school. As we dissect the tangled threads of belief that have dominated society for the past century, a more realistic image of gender and education will emerge, and with it, a more viable approach to education. Biology vs Culture In his 1977 book, The Dragons of Eden, Carl Sagan was one of the first writers to describe the evolution of the brain in language that made the concepts accessible to non-scientists. The brain, from the most primitive structures (the limbic system) to the most advanced (the neo-cortex) is comprised of many areas of specialty of function that govern how the individual processes and understands information. The Dragons of Eden, which won the Pulitzer Prize, was a revelation for most readers. The idea that some of our behaviors are still guided by primitive structures deep in our brains was a revolutionary idea.(3) As exciting and informative as Sagan’s work was, current neuroscience research allows us to have an even deeper understanding of the human brain. Sagan, like the majority of us, drew no great dis- tinction between the male brain and the female brain. Only in the last decade have we come to realize that there are profound differences in the structure of the male and female brains, and that stimuli and information are processed differently and even in different areas of the brain, based on gender. The brain, as Sagan so rightly asserted, evolved over thousands of years. Its primary function was to allow humans to adapt to the environments they inhabited - to survive - to propagate the species. This evolution of the brain meant that, depend- 84 ing upon gender roles in assuring survival, the male and female brains evolved somewhat differently. Each gender had areas of specialty in assuring the security of the family. Those evolutionary differences are still there today, just as the most primitive functions of the human brain that reside in the limbic system are still there, and they are still influencing our behaviors and perceptions. In modern society, many of the needs that those differences evolved to meet are no longer there, but the brain has not changed as rapidly as our culture. The Impact of Neurological Differences The human brain becomes masculinized or feminized before birth as a result of being exposed to testosterone and estrogen among other hormones. If the brain receives more testosterone in utero, it develops into a male brain, and more estrogen will result in a female brain. The hormones are produced by the mother, based on the chromosomal structure of the developing fetus. There is no brain that is wholly masculine or feminine, but there is a huge spectrum of difference between the male and female brains. This does not mean, of course that all women behave exactly alike or that all men behave identically. There is a broad spectrum of possible behaviors within the male and female brains. For example, most men are uncomfortable talking about their feelings, but many can do so quite easily.(4) What is most important to understand is that there are measurable, quantifiable differences in how most men and women respond to the same stimuli, and this is biologically based, not culturally determined.(5) Here are some examples:

In this diagram, there is a line at an angle and below it is a set of 15 lines. The task is to look at the figure and in 10 seconds identify the line in the set that is at the same angle as the line at the top of the diagram. The test consists of twenty diagrams. Men score higher on this test than women, and it is theorized that this is because the male

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brain is wired for spatial tasks. In past studies, 65% of women have scored between 0 and 13 correct answers while 60 percent of men scored 18 to 20 correct answers. One theory suggests that exposure to higher levels of testosterone before birth gives men an added advantage because the hormone may stimulate the development of the right hemisphere of the brain. This is the side that contributes most to spatial awareness. Women, on the other hand, outperformed men on tests of spatial memory. Respondents were given 60 seconds to memorize the location of objects in a box. Then, some objects were moved and respondents were asked to identify which ones. Points were earned for correct answers and deducted for wrong answers. Women performed better on this test than men, with women averaging 46% correct answers and men only 39%. Some scientists believe that women score higher on spatial memory tests because the corpus callosum, the part of the brain that links the right and left hemispheres, is a fifth larger in women. This means women can process visual and other signals at the same time more easily than men. There is also a theory that estrogen levels in women give them an added advantage in spatial memory.(6) Overall, males and females are equally intelligent Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen, in his study of autism, conducted a large number of experiments to study brain function. The two tests we have just reviewed were part of his study. In spite of measurable differences in performances on a range of neurological tests, scientists agree that there are no gender-based differences in intelligence between men and women - only gender-based differences in specific areas of function. Women scored higher on tests measuring empathy. Men scored higher on tests measuring systemizing. These differences in how the brain is wired most likely play a major role in how students approach learning, and thus, it is important to take these differences into consideration in the classroom. Also, it is important to remember that men and women don’t always fit neatly into their respective groups. A University of Cambridge study found that 17% of men have a ‘female’ empathizing brain and 17% of women have a ‘male’ systemizing brain. Further, Baron-Cohen in his book, The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain, notes that there are other measurable differences. Men have 4% more brain cells than women, and about 100 grams more of brain tissue. Men have more gray matter, but women have more white matter. Women also have more dendritic connections between brain cells. A woman’s brain has a larger corpus 86 collusum, which means women can transfer data between the right and left hemisphere faster than men. Men tend to process more in the left brain while women have greater access to both sides. Women tend to use both sides of the brain to process language while men tend to process more often in the dominant hemisphere - typically the left side. This gives women a distinct advantage in language. Women have a larger deep limbic system than men. This gives them the ability to be more in touch with their feelings and to express them than men. (7) It is also the case that the brain matures in a different sequence in males and females. Verbal skills mature much earlier in girls, as does the ability to understand non-verbal communication. For boys, maturity in abstract and spatial reasoning occurs earlier than in girls. Thus, in our contemporary educational system, we are requiring both male and female students to excel in areas where they are not developmentally ready to do so. A Closer Look at the Male Brain At one end of the spectrum is the most masculine brain possible. Such a brain would be low in serotonin, a neurotransmitter that plays an important role in memory, emotion, sleep and wakefulness; low oxytocin, a hormone that is important to emotional behavior; a small corpus callosum and a small language center. The amygdala would be enlarged and have few neural pathways to the frontal lobes, and a small hippocampus with low-range pathways to emotive centers. In such a brain, there is not a lot of cross-communication between hemispheres. There are fewer aural neurons, so loud noises are not a problem. Consider the typical swashbuckling hero portrayed by John Wayne, a man of few words and much action, characterized by lack of emotion, aggressiveness and even impulsiveness. “He is very spatial and mechanical - he relies on objects moving in space with mechanical design - cars. . .guns, bullets, his own fists - enjoying more right hemisphere cortical use and less left”.(8) Such a stereotype illustrates the extreme end of the spectrum of the masculine brain. While few individuals are as overwhelmingly imbued with the extreme characteristics portrayed here, the behavior of most males represents a less extreme version of the action hero. The male brain triggers behaviors and responses based on its structure and neurochemistry.

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Some practical implications of gender differences In understanding the structure and chemistry of the brain, we have the tools necessary to better understand some of the behaviors we ob- serve in the classroom. Here are some differences in the male brain that neuroscientists have discovered and that can have a tremendous impact on learning from Boys and Girls Learn Differently by Michael Gurian and Patricia Henley.(9) • “Female brains excel at memory and sensory intake, while boys do better at spatial tasks and abstract reasoning. Boys tend to move emotive material ‘down’ in the brain to the more primitive brain stem, while girls move it up to the most advanced upper regions of the brain. This means that boys, whose brains are more task-focused and who actually are more fragile than girls, are more likely to become aggressive or withdraw and are more subject to being overwhelmed by stimuli. They cannot as easily overcome problems and move on to learn effectively. By contrast, girls can respond more flexibly to stimuli and are more prone to processing pain and seeking help from others.” Compe- tition motivates boys but too much stress will result in the “fight or flight” response (stand and defend). • Girls respond with “tend and amend.” They turn to each other and build social networks to defend themselves.  Non-verbal communication is sometimes too subtle for boys. Many studies have found that girls fare better than boys in decoding non-verbal cues. (Hall, 1978). Although the percentages vary, communication studies suggest that much of what we communicate is based on non-verbal cues. Multiple studies have found that a large percentage of communication is non- verbal. As much as 93% of communication may be delivered by non-verbal cues such as facial expression and inflection (Mehrabian, 1971). Although percentages vary, it is possible that male students may be at a disadvantage when communication is verbal.  A study by the Institute of Child Health in London found that at school entry, boys were 70% below the mean for girls in recognizing some non-verbal cues. Although these differences diminish over time, women remain more skilled in recognizing facial expressions and other non-verbal communications.

88 • Boys need to move around. Fidgeting, wiggling, and foot- tapping actually help boys focus. • A resting female brain is as active as an activated male brain and thus has a learning advantage. • Six times as many girls as boys can sing in tune. Girls hear better from birth, especially in the ranges of the female voice. Women not only hear better, but the ear responds more quickly. (10) • Boys are less bothered by noise. • Boys hear loud and low sounds better than high-pitched or soft sounds. (11) • Not hearing can lead to loss of attention. • Boys are not strong auditory learners. • Males and females see differently, with boys doing better in brighter light and girls excelling in dim light. • Males and females even taste differently, with females more sensitive to the bitter and preferring sweet tastes while males prefer salty foods. • Hormonal differences between male and female were not as sharp a million years ago as they are today, since population growth results in more testosterone in men to prepare them for increased competition. • Testosterone production varies throughout the year, and it is lowest in the spring. Some educators have speculated that this may in part account for lower ACT and SAT scores reported for males who take their tests in the spring.(12) • The male and female brains mature in different sequences and at different rates: • Boys are three times more likely to build a bridge out of blocks at age 3. • Areas related to targeting and spatial memory mature 4

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years earlier in boys than in girls. • 3-year old girls could interpret facial expression as well as or better than 5 year old boys. • Language and fine motor skills mature 6 years earlier in girls than in boys.(13) • Girls are much quicker on timed tests than boys. Although a recent study of 8,000 people carried out at Vanderbuilt Uni- versity found that females handle timed tasks more quickly than boys, it found no overall intelligence difference by gender. The difference becomes pronounced in elementary school and is most pronounced among pre-teens and teenagers. This biological difference can put boys at a significant disadvantage in many academic situations.(14) The Fundamental Difference Overall, males and females are equal in intelligence. They share most intellectual functions and to the same level. Young men and young women also test overall at roughly the same level. But there are two significant differences in cognitive skills that greatly impact the learning of both female and male students. There is so much scientific evidence, based on neurology and hormonal differences in the brain, that it is both impossible and counterproductive to ignore or rationalize these two differences. Females are superior to males in terms of language skills. This includes both verbal and written language skills. It does not mean every female is superior to every male; but overall, most females have superior language skills than most males. The research suggests that females process language information using both sides of their brain, while males use only one side of the brain. They also process information in different areas of the brain. At the same time, females also have better neural connections between the areas of the brain devoted to emotion and to language, thus making it easier for females to express emotion.

90 Males are superior to females in terms of spatial skills. It does not mean every male is superior to every female; but overall, most males have superior spatial skills than most females. Doreen Kimura, in her book Sex and Cognition, cites the evidence that spatial skill is linked to testosterone. She notes that studies have found that males receive three surges in testosterone levels. One surge is before birth, one in infancy, and one in the teen years. After each surge, tests show that the males’ spatial skills increase over that of females’ spatial skills at the same time. Standardized tests administered by varying testing agencies over decades show this difference in cognitive skills between females and males on a consistent basis. The scientific evidence about these two significant differences is so compelling, and the implications for enhancing both the learning of your male students and your female students so clear, that we call these two ying-yang variations “The Fundamental Difference” in how and why your male students learn differently than your female students. As we have just stated, overall, males and females - - men and women, young men and young women, boys and girls - - are equally intelligent. There is no credible study that shows otherwise. Re- searchers on gender and intelligence make a point that the two sexes are equal in intelligence. Equally important, young men and young women also test overall at roughly the same level. In their classic work, Gender and Fair As- sessment, Educational Testing Service researchers Nancy S. Cole and Warren Willingham state, “Based on a wide variety of tests and a number of large nationally representative samples of high school seniors, we see no evidence of any consequential difference in the average test performance of young women and men.” It is essential to understand that learning happens differently for males and females. Only when this happens, can we as a society assist both our girls and boys to learn more and be able to perform optimal- ly in school. The task will require setting aside some of our cultural myths, educating ourselves and teachers about the neurology of learning, and developing specific strategies to create a more comfortable environment for learning.

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In understanding gender and learning, there are a couple of additional important concepts related to the fundamental difference between female and male cognitive skills. Variability Variability is the range of possible values for any measurable characteristic, physical or mental, of human beings. For every gender characteristic you will read in this book, you undoubtedly have or will encounter someone of the opposite sex with the same characteristic. In addition, people will have the gender characteristic in different amounts or proportions. Twenty percent cross-over The twenty percent cross-over concept is the finding that about 20% of one sex will have the characteristic or activity generally associated predominantly of the other sex. There is nothing abnormal in this. It is fascinating that in looking at the statistics for an activity predominantly associated with one sex or the other, the percent of the other sex participating is so often close to 20%. Summary Gender characteristics are tendencies associated with one sex or the other. Scientists say that sex is almost always either/or. One is either male or female. Gender, however, is not either/or, as noted by Dr. Leonard Sax in Why Gender Matters. Gender characteristics are tendencies. When we speak of male characteristics or female characteristics, we are talking about tendencies. Not every female student will behave with entirely female characteristics, and not every male student will behave with entirely male characteristics. Nevertheless, most males will exhibit male characteristics, while most females will exhibit female characteristics.

Chapter 10 Boys in the Classroom: Why Boys Do Less Work

“I prefer to endure all sorts of punishment rather than to learn to gabble by rote.” – Albert Einstein

Probably the two greatest issues for teachers, and challenges for parents of boys, are: • Male students are far more likely to turn work in late; (1) • Male students, in general, do about 30% less course work than female students. The most important thing to understand is that while males may turn in work late and do less course work, they test the same as female students. (2) That is, males learn the same amount and gain the same amount of knowledge as their female counterparts. Male students get worse grades than female students. This begins at or before the sixth grade, and continues right through to the senior year in college. There is no closing of the gender gap. From the research, we know that the gender gap in GPA is due to gender based behavior. The two biggest issues are turning work in late and doing less work. Most all of the research on work centers on secondary education, where norm referenced test scores administered by external testing 93 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

agencies can be compared with grades and homework time. As our educational system is essentially the same from secondary through undergraduate study, with the same grading criteria and the same experience in gender discrepancies, and the same anecdotal experiences being reported by higher education faculty and secondary school teachers, with the same problems being reported, there is no evidence that the issues of male students in college are any different from the same issues of male students in high school. Girls do more homework “Gender Difference and Student Learning,” an important study done by Dr. Yi Du, Ph.D., Director of Research and Evaluation at the Edina, Minnesota, public schools statistically documents that girls do more homework than boys. The Edina study found that in grades 8 through 12, significantly more females reported spending at least one hour doing homework daily than males. Females in grade 9 and 12 outnumbered males in spending three hours doing homework daily across four years. In the junior year of high school, the study reports males did about one-third less homework and senior males did just one-half of the homework that female students did. (3) Sue Hallam of the University of London, working with Lynne Rogers of the Open University in the United Kingdom, also studied the gender differences in approaches to studying among high achieving students. Rogers and Hallam found that “the boys reported doing less homework than the girls.” (4) Writing in Educational Psychology, Jianzhong Xu also found that girls do more homework, reporting that girls “reported that they spent more time doing homework, were less likely to come to class without homework, and considered homework less boring.” (5) We received one email from a high school boy who reported that he works 16 hours a week, does no homework, and studies about four hours for every test. This illustrates the behavior of literally millions of other male students. - Males are oriented to the work place. This student, and male workers in general, must report to work on time and must do an adequate amount of work, as he continues to have a job that is almost half-time.

94 The oldest ‘boy’ the authors interviewed was Langdon Divers, 102 years old. When he was in high school in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, he was the only student to pass the final physics exam. Every other student failed the exam. But because Langdon did not turn in his workbook, the teacher flunked him and passed all the other students. As he was a senior in high school, Divers had to retake his entire senior year, including all the courses he had passed. “He didn’t handle that very well, did he?” Mr. Divers rhetorically asked us, the emotional hurt obviously still there after 80 years. When he attended the University of Wisconsin, he encountered a more positive approach from the faculty. His professors allowed him to skip courses for which he already knew the subject matter, moving him on to more advanced courses.

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- Males are not oriented to homework. This student, and male students in general, does less homework than females. - Males are oriented toward tests. This student, and male students in general, studies for the test. All of the research shows that males and females approach homework and coursework differently. Why males do less coursework Educators at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom studied why boys do worse on homework than girls and found that boys often ‘batch’ their time, so they will work less frequently on homework, while girls will work more consistently and steadily. This could be part of the explanation as to why more boys than girls turn in homework late. Females work more regularly and consistently, while males tend more than females to work in spurts, separated by periods of rest. It may be that the neurological reason behind the ‘batching’ of time for males is based on the male need for more brain rest, and more frequent brain resting. This would be consistent with another of the findings of the University of Southampton researchers. They also found that males often view “home” and “work” as very separate. That is, work takes place outside of the home, while home is a place to rest and not do work. We know that historically male work has primarily taken place outside of the house. Females, by contrast, apparently do not place such a dichotomy between home and work, and do not view them as opposites or contradictory, say the University of Southampton researchers. Sue Hallam of the University of London, working with Lynne Rogers of the Open University in the United Kingdom, studied the gender differences in approaches to studying among high achieving students. Rogers and Hallam suggest that boys study differently, and use time more effectively, than girls. “The findings suggest that overall high achieving boys have better studying strategies than high achieving girls. They achieve high standards while doing less homework.” (6)

96 Females and males overall are equal in intelligence, but they have different variability.

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Writing in Educational Psychology, Jianzhong Xu provides more supportive conclusions. “Compared with boys, girls more frequently reported working to manage their workspace, budget their time, and monitor their emotions.” (7) While the conclusion of this study appears at odds with the conclusion of the Rogers/Hallam research about study habits, they both have in common the finding that girls and boys approach and do homework differently. We suggest that both conclusions are consistent and true. That is, females’ approach to homework yields greater success in completing homework, while males’ approach to homework yields greater time-efficiency and knowledge acquisition in preparing for tests and exams. Females are studying to get good homework and course grades, which they do; while males are studying to get good test and exam scores, which they do. In fact, teachers show this same gender behavior when they become learners. So male teachers, when they become learners, also do 30% less coursework than their female counterparts. (8) Do female students study more than male students because they need the extra time to learn the same amount of material, or do they do it for another reason? There is no research concluding that females need to study more than males to acquire the same learning and knowledge. Coates suggests that smart females do not need to study more than males, and that females study more than males to please the instructor and get good grades. She suggests that at some point smart females will also begin to view the extra time spent on homework and coursework as wasted time, and points to some anecdotal evidence that this is beginning to happen with smart female students.

Males tend not to do easy work Surveys of students of both sexes indicate that their biggest problem with school is that it is not challenging enough, with 85% of students describing secondary schooling as “boring.” Thus, it is important to distinguish between the quantity of work required for students to do, and the quality or level of challenge required for students. More work does not equal more challenge. Smart students, especially smart boys, are far more likely to view attaining a level of learning and knowledge as a hurdle to be jumped over - - once. And after attaining that learning or knowledge, they are

98 more likely to want to move on to a new challenge.

For example, if you asked students to add 2 + 2 some 100 times and turn it in, female students would think it a stupid exercise but they would do it. Male students, however, would be more likely to simply refuse to do it, no matter what the consequence. We did this exercise with educators, and the male educators were far more likely to refuse to do the “stupid” exercise than their female counterparts. Smart male students often simply reject or refuse to do work which they regard as busy work. “I preferred to endure all sorts of punishments rather than learn gabble by rote,” is how Albert Einstein as a student phrased it. (9) Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computer, noted that as a university student “after six months I couldn’t see the value in it.”(10) Einstein and Jobs are representative of millions of male students in college every year. In fact, males are motivated by new challenges, where females are far less so. Utah State University instructor Jennie Chamberlain once experimented in her class by giving homework to students for a chapter they had yet to read or cover in class. All of the boys completed and turned the homework on time, while many of the girls had problems doing work that had not yet been covered in class, she reported. (11) Males will accept punishment When they feel something is stupid or wrong or a waste of time, males tend to accept punishment rather than change their behavior. Julie Jorgensen, a mother and CEO of her own company, decided with her husband that they would penalize their son for late homework by taking something out of his bedroom each time he turned in his work late. After two weeks, the only things left in his bedroom were his bed and his books, Ms. Jorgensen reported. (12) This attribute apparently does not change even in adulthood. For example, Douglas Ward, a North Carolina teacher, refused to give standardized tests to his mentally deficient students who would only flunk and feel a sense of failure. Ward refused to administer the tests even though he knew he would be fired and would probably never work as a teacher for the rest of his life. (13)

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Will this be on the test? Information is now endless, and there is no end to studying. So the question that faculty hear frequently is, “will this be on the test?” This question may not always be asked by a student seeking an easier path to studying and work. It may be an attempt to understand what is critical, what is important, and what is merely nice to know. Given the infinite nature of knowledge today, one of the things we as teachers want to do is to help our students understand what is critical to know.

Boys turn work in late Males, especially boys and young men, tend to turn in school work late more often than young women. We know that the issue is limited to formal schooling. Boys do not show up late for work as compared to girls. Males turn in assignments and complete projects on time in the workplace in the same proportion as female workers. There are no research studies showing that males perform less ably or work in a less timely manner in the work place. We have interviewed about a dozen state, national and local human resource officials and none report any gender difference in the workplace. There is no relationship between turning in school work late and showing up or turning in work late in the workplace. The issue is isolated to the school and college setting. There are clues as to why males turn in school work late. • We know that the male brain matures later than the female brain, so that memory develops later for males than females. • We know that males are oriented to the work setting rather than the school setting. • We know that males reject or have a low regard for repetitive school work they already know. Changing world of work Julie tells faculty that “their real world is not your real world.” Indeed, the rules for success in the world of work in the knowledge- based information age of the 21st century are changing quite dramatically. Boys and young men adopt the new rules of the new technology

100 and new century before others in society.

From inputs to outputs The measure of productivity in the work world is changing. As we note: “In the last century, what you put into your work mattered. How much time you put in, how much energy, how much devotion, even pain was a highly respected input. And if you put your time in, and if you were busy and active, you were declared productive.” (14) The last century saw the 40 hour work week, hourly pay, time clocks, and overtime. Workers had supervisors who oversaw their activities. In this century, increasingly business executives are measuring performance by outcomes rather than inputs. And the measure of compensation or pay is increasingly a set of measurable outcomes, not pay for time. The rise in contract workers, distance employees, intranets, project management and the decline in supervision time all point to this change. In this century, producing something in less time will be seen as more valuable, and thus worth more, than producing the same thing in more time. With male students oriented to the workplace, they increasingly are geared toward accomplishing objectives in less time, not more time. The value of time How we perceive the value of time is changing in the new economy of the 21st century as well. In the last century, the more time that was devoted to an activity, the better. Anyone working a 12 or 14 hour day was automatically perceived to be productive. Anyone working a 3 hour day was automatically perceived as being less productive or even lazy.

Our educational system is largely based on the notion that more time means more learning. The Carnegie Unit upon which credits and degrees are based is a time measurement. A Ph.D. is often

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viewed as an academic who has “put in her or his time”, or “paid one’s dues”. A continuing education unit (CEU) was based on time.

In contrast, we noted in our book Nine Shift: Work, life and education in the 21st Century: “In this century, conserving time is rewarded. If a project is accomplished in less time, the worker is rewarded by having additional time. It is a win-win situation as the organization gets the task accomplished sooner, and the worker gets extra time to either produce more, or have as leisure time. Getting work done in a shorter amount of time is good. Getting work done quickly is rewarded.” (15) Geared to the new economy and the work place they will shortly enter, males are more likely to view doing school work for something they already know as instilling the wrong values, values opposite of what their prospective employers will want in the work place. We have written about boys: “They instinctively know that they will be rewarded for the opposite behavior in the workplace, and that in the workplace they will be rewarded for learning something quickly and moving on. So smart boys often will do poorly on a homework assignment yet do well on the test. They understand the test is the measurement of whether they learned something.” (16) In the last century, we viewed knowledge as finite, so that the more time one spent on it the more one learned. In this century, we know that knowledge is infinite and keeps growing faster than we can learn about it. In this century, learners will need to move on to more advanced knowledge as soon as they can.

Boys are not lazy and unmotivated Many teachers believe that males, especially boys and young men, are lazy and unmotivated. This is not the first generation of males to have this charge leveled at them. From a historical perspective, it would, however, be the first time the charge has held up to be true.

102 Let’s look at the evidence. • Young men in the military have not been reported to be lazy and unmotivated by their commanders. • Boys, as a gender, have not been reported to be lazy and unmotivated at work by employers. All employers would like all their employees to be more motivated and energetic, but compared to females, no employers report that boys or male workers are less motivated or less energetic. • Male sports teams do not perform any less well now than female sports teams. • Even the crime rate for males in the mid 1990’s to mid 2000’s is reported to be down over previous generations of boys. • Boys test equally with girls. Only in the academic setting are boys and young men said to be lazy and unmotivated. Even in school boys test equally with girls in almost all areas except language, keeping in mind that males have never had higher language skills than females. Boys and young men do “appear” to be lazy and unmotivated in class. For example, • Boys and young males either have higher incidences of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and autism, or we have identified more cases of ADHD and autism than ever before. • A greater percentage of boys and young males receive medication than any previous generation. • Like the generation of their great grandfathers 100 years ago, they exhibit a measure of wandering and exploring and a seeming lack of purpose as they encounter an entirely new economic and technological age. • Boys today almost surely mature at a rate that is slower and takes longer than previous generations, resulting in maturity that does not arrive until the mid to late -20’s. • Boys today, and to an extent girls in Generation Y, are - - and perceive themselves to be- - more socially awkward than previous generations. • Girls today, like their great grandmothers 100 years ago, are perceived by the media to be more talented, smarter and more assertive than boys. • There are clearly more boys than girls at the low end of the intelligence and academic achievement spectrums; and presumably more on the lower end of the motivation spectrum

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as well. • And they definitely like to play more than girls. As we have noted elsewhere, all young primate males play more than young female primates. This is certainly not a recent trend. We do know that all generations of youth are judged to be less able by their elders. John Willetts, who served in the U.S. military during World War II, told us that in 1939, his generation was publicly regarded as physically unfit and inadequate for adulthood. Less than two years later, his generation was, of course, saving democracy and creating the “greatest generation” label for itself. We do know that the new technology, the transition from one economy to another, the ADHD, autism, medication, slower brain development and maturation rate, social awkwardness, and need to play more than girls all are realities “in play” for male students today. They certainly contribute to the appearance in the classroom and in the academic institution of being lazy and unmotivated. We suggest however, that the facts demonstrate otherwise. We suggest that male students in fact are performing at the same level academically as female students, as demonstrated by their test scores and performance in the work place. We also suggest that if we have or exhibit preconceived notions of laziness or lack of motivation, male students will not respond positively to their teachers. Summary The twin issues of doing less work and turning in work late is not attitudinal or a willing disrespect or neglect on the part of a male student. It is most likely hard-wired. The statistical prevalence of the numbers across time and across societies is so substantial that there is no other conclusion that can be reached. Punishment, in most cases, does not work. We know that most faculty and teachers punish late and incomplete work with lower grades and yet, the gender gap in GPA never closes or even narrows. The most important thing for us to understand is that while males may turn in work late and do less course work, they test the same as female students. That is, males learn the same amount and gain the same amount of knowledge as their female counterparts.

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Chapter 11 For Parents of Boys: Never Give Up

“Never, never, never give up.” Winston Churchill

You, as a parent, are probably the most important factor in the educational success of your son. We are not psychologists, doctors, or parenting experts. We are educators. This information is what we know- - and what other educators and literature report- - on how you can best support your son throughout his education. The three critical things you can do are to trust your son, advocate on his behalf, and provide never ending emotional and moral support. Never give up. And then, never give up. If you do those three things, your influence on your son’s chances in school will, against all odds and seemingly all evidence to the contrary, become more important in determining your son’s educational success than his teachers, administrators, schools, friends, grades, test scores, or badminton championships. Again, this information is specific for smart boys getting bad grades. If your son is getting good grades, this may not be applicable.

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If your son has a hard time learning, these suggestions may help, but there may be more going on. Note to Mothers For about 80% of you, you will be the primary parent advocating for your son. Mothers of boys, it turns out, get it. As a mother of a boy, you are more likely to understand your son and understand his situation at school, than your husband and/or your son’s father, more than educators, and more than other women. Most of the best research and best books on this issue have been written by women; many of whom are mothers of boys. It may not be fair that you may need to bear more of the parental burden than his father, but it will probably be more effective if you do. You have more empathy and that’s that. His father plays a critical role and if he is able to take half of the duty, great. If not, we hope you will understand that this is not about you and his father; it’s about your son. Note to Fathers For about 20% of you, you will be able to take half of the duty or even a majority of the task of advocating for your son. But, if you are like the majority of fathers who either don’t get it, see yourself as the breadwinner in the family and that’s all you can do, or are trying hard, but just don’t see what your son’s mother sees, here are some things to keep in mind. 1. Your son is watching you. You are a role model for your son, regardless of how much or how little time you spend with him and regardless of what you say or don’t say to him. He is likely to pattern his behavior and attitudes and goals based on his perception of your behavior, attitudes, and goals for him. 2. The “it’s a tough world out there son” approach doesn’t work. And it’s not true. For almost every boy, the real world is a lot easier to deal with than school. Being dismissive or saying “Deal with it,” “toughen up,” or “when I was in school…..” will not help him succeed educationally. He is being as tough as he can be. And, if that was the answer, there would not be millions of parents up at night worrying about their sons and school.

106 When your authors entered the seminar room of the American Industrial Hygiene Association, they immediately understood the association’s members were largely male. Providing wire doodlers, playdough and other fidgeting tools helps males, no matter the age, concentrate better.

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3. Support your son’s mother. Your son’s mother probably has it right. Her hunches and intuition are probably correct. Her more empathetic approach will probably be more effective than a traditional male approach. 4. Trust your son, support your son. You may not be able to charge down to the school, nor be able to convince the principal, nor figure out whether your son is having a good day. But, you can step back and resist the urge to blame him. Do not try to solve everything or provide the answer (there are no easy solutions here). And let your son know with a nod, wink, or quietly ignoring some minor indiscretion of his, that you do indeed trust him and support him. And if we have not mentioned it before, never give up. This is a long road, a long haul, a long battle. Trust your son Trust is just the prerequisite to everything else. If your son does not feel you trust him, it’s hard to see anything else working. Your son will make mistakes. Your son will err at times, even all the time, in his judgment. He may test your “unconditional love” or whatever they call it. “I have never met a boy who didn’t want to be good,” Father Fla- nagan of Boys Town says in the movie by the same name and Father Flanagan dealt with some tough boys in the Great Depression. As teachers of teachers, we know that way too many teachers do not trust their students. Way too many teachers believe every child lies. Do not believe your son is guilty unless you have absolute proof. Do not convey the message, either verbally or nonverbally, that you suspect your son of something bad, unless and until you have the evidence. If your son feels you trust him, he will know he can succeed educationally. He will know you are on his side. Provide never ending emotional and moral support This is probably the most critical factor in your son’s educational success. This is a long game. If you experience a quick vic- tory, you will be very lucky. Expect your son to need your emotional and moral support until he is age 30. Do not expect his need for your moral support to end at age 18. Your mindset; what you 108 have to tell yourself is to never give up. If you never give up, the chances are great to overwhelming that he will not give up. And, if he does not give up, the chances are great that he will meet with success, which we define as him getting a four year college degree. Advocate for your son When our son Jason was in high school, he had the opportunity to also take classes at the state university; a well known university in our town. He received excellent grades from the university, but was given failing grades in high school and was not eager to complete high school. Julie made a bargain with him that if he graduated from high school, she would make sure that the principal got fired. Unfortunate- ly, that was easy to do given the principal’s misdeeds and well within the calculation she made before offering the bargain. Jason graduated and the bargain was consummated. You may not need, nor be able, to go to the same lengths, but you will want to do what you can to advocate for your son with his teachers and schools. The first thing to do is to get a benchmark of how well he is doing. Find out his test scores. This, for most all students, is a good- - or at least best- - measure of how much he is learning. His grades, as we have noted, are not a good measure of how much he is learning. If his test scores are better than his grades would indicate, then advocacy for your son is probably warranted. Whether that advocacy works with his teachers and schools is less important than the fact that your advocacy will work with him- - giving your son more confidence and more willingness to succeed educationally. There are various techniques and strategies you can take to advocate for your son. None of them are guaranteed to work. Some work in some situations. Some work with some educators. Some won’t work because you are not perfect, your son is not perfect, and for sure, his teachers are not perfect. But, some might just work for you or you might figure out another strategy that works. And, as we have noted, what might be more important than succeeding with your son’s school is to succeed with your son. So, here goes. Get a teacher or counselor on his side In all cases and with all educators, you should initially work on the assumption that the educator wants your child to succeed and has his best interests in mind- - until she or he demonstrates otherwise. 109 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

Work with your son’s teacher Again, initially work on the assumption that the teacher wants your child to succeed and has his best interests in mind- - until the teacher demonstrates otherwise. There are several things you want to convey to your son’s teacher: • You and she have the same goal in mind. You both want your boy to learn and to get into college.

• You don’t want to create more work for the teacher; you want to create less work for the teacher by working with him or her.

• By trying alternatives, you and the teacher can find a win-win solution that achieves the same objectives. In all instances, you want it to be clear that you are not seeking to lower the academic standards for your son. Your son, like all smart boys and most students, want more academic challenge, not less. Aca- demic challenge is not the same as busywork; all students want less busywork. It also doesn’t hurt to hint or imply that you can help make the teacher succeed more, or look better by having one less problem and one more successful student. Teachers exhibit the same gender behavior as their students As we teach faculty, we have experience and factual evidence that teachers, when they become learners, exhibit the same gender characteristics as their students. In just about every class we teach, one or more teachers request to turn their work in late. They give the same reasons as their students give, only they regard their reasons as legiti- mate. As we do not penalize for late work, a greater percentage of the teachers turning work in late are female; consistent with other evidence. Our colleagues who also teach faculty also report this behavior. Teachers exhibit the same gender behavior as their students. Fe- male teachers exhibit female gender characteristics when they become learners and male teachers behave like their male students when the male teachers become learners. We studied our unit quiz results by the sex of the teacher taking them and found that female teachers took our 110 four unit quizzes an average of 11 times while the male teachers took our four unit quizzes an average of 6 times. The quizzes have a pass rate of 80%. But, the female teachers kept taking the quizzes even after scoring 80% (or better); trying to achieve 100% on each quiz. The male teachers, like their male students, were more likely to stop taking the quiz after reaching the pass rate of 80%. There was no bonus or additional reward for getting a higher score. Thus, just like their students, the females spent much more time on class work than the male teachers; with no evidence that they learned more. Responses to Teacher Beliefs Here are some possible responses when a teacher states one of her beliefs as fact: “You gotta understand, I got 30 (24, 38, 14, etc.) children in my class.” Parent response: “Yes, I know it is challenging. I have only one child in your class and I want him/her to get the support he/she needs. Let’s see what strategies we can come up with that will help both of you. I know he/she wants to do his/her best and we’ve talked about this at home. I think there are a few easy things we can agree on that might help with my support, your support, and his/her cooperation.” “He has to take responsibility for himself.” Parent response: “That is something that everyone has to learn. My child is x years old and you know, children develop at very different rates. We work on this a lot at home too. He/she really wants to succeed; but developmentally, may not be ready for what you are expecting. Some x year olds are, especially girls, but many are not, especially boys, who, as you know, mature a bit later. Pushing before the child is developmentally ready can have a very negative impact on academic performance, as I’m sure you know, and neither of us wants that.” “There must be accountability.” Parent response: “To be accountable, I know my child needs to learn to accept the consequences of his words, actions, and decisions and I know you have to be consistent and fair with the rules. What works for us at home is to make SURE he or she knows what will happen if a specified behavior occurs. It is important to our child for you to be encouraging and firm, but not punitive. That’s what has gotten the best 111 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

results. Let’s see if we can agree on some specific consequences that are appropriate for my child.” Parents should make sure the outcome fits the offense. A consequence is an outcome that should derive directly from an action, so it should be logical. For example, if the child forgets to make his/ her bed, he/she is not grounded for a week. It is more likely that he/ she will have to make up the bed after school, instead of getting to do something fun immediately after s/he gets home. Too often at school, the consequence is far more than it should be for the nature of the offense, or it is an academic “punishment” for a behavioral transgres- sion. “There must be consequences.” Parent response: It is really important to understand that a consequence is not a punishment, it is an outcome, and it can be positive or negative. We don’t have enough emphasis on positive consequences at school and we try to make sure we provide a lot of encouragement at home; pointing out positive outcomes to our child’s behavior. If a “consequence” is too harsh; if it becomes a punishment, it can actually create resentment and lead to problematic behavior. We work on this at home. What we do is try to help our child see the relationship between his actions and the outcomes. So, if our third grader jumps in a puddle; rather than scolding him, we say, “You jumped in a puddle and now your shoes are soggy. Your feet are going to be cold.” Or, to our middle schooler, “You studied really hard and you did great on your spelling test.” This is both encouraging and demonstrates a positive consequence. Helping our child link his/her behaviors to the outcomes works great for us. Helping him to link outcomes to behaviors works much better than punishment and allows natural consequences to impact future behavior. We can help at home by setting up some consequences that we enforce that will make it easier for you at school. If this doesn’t work, we can talk about it again. I think a team approach will really work with my child. (This can result in parent/child discussion of a problem at school and the “consequence” can be minor, but obvious, like a 15 minute earlier bed time if the child is late for school). “I’m teaching responsibility here.”“He will encounter this in middle school/high school, college.”

112 Parent response: It is good to prepare kids for what they might encounter at the next level of school, but one reason we don’t see this as typical in his/her current level is because a lot of children at this level are not developmentally ready for “XYZ.” I don’t think my child is developmentally ready to do what you are asking. “He will have to show up on time and turn his work in on time in the workplace (or “We’re preparing students for the workplace.”) Parent response: 1. That is interesting. My son has a job after school and he is AL- WAYS on time. The consequences of missing work are real and the rewards are tangible. That is a very different experience from school. I am worried about his academic success at school more than about what he will be experiencing in a few years when he is working full time. 2. What is more important to me is that he/she made an “A” on the substance of this paper or on the exam or whatever. That tells me my child has learned what is expected and that you have done a good job of teaching him/her. To lower his/her grade because of late work doesn’t reflect what you have taught or what he/she has learned and that is really not academically honest. I think it would be better for him/her to learn the consequences of not showing up on time at work the “hard way” when he/she gets a job and be allowed to earn the grade his or her work justifies now. Your Child’s Rights The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was put in place to make sure that every child with a diagnosed disability gets the help he or she needs throughout their education process. Parents have significant rights as advocates for their child, both before any evaluation is done as well as afterward if the child is determined to have special needs. It is important to understand these rights and exercise them whenever necessary to assure that their child is receiving the accommodation they need. Parental advocacy is essential for school success.

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Parents’ Rights Parents have the right to request in writing that their child be evalu- ated to determine whether he or she qualifies for special education and/or services. The school is required to gather information from parents, teachers, and others who might have insight or information into your child’s learning behaviors. Tests may be given, but the assessment must include all areas that may be affected by the suspected disability. • Teachers may recommend evaluation, but parents MUST provide written consent before any evaluation is begun. • If the school refuses an evaluation request, they must explain in writing the rationale and have support for their refusal. They must also provide you, the parent, with information about how to challenge their refusal. • If the school agrees that your child may have a learning disability, they must provide an assessment at no cost to you. • You have a right, as a parent, to have copies of all evaluation reports or other information related to your child. • You have a right to get an independent assessment from a qualified professional and to challenge the findings of the school evaluation team. • You have a right to have the assessment completed within 60 days of your written consent for evaluation. If assessment confirms that your child is eligible for special education/services, there are additional rights that are conferred for you and your child.

Rights of Children Who Qualify for Special Education and Ser- vices You and your child have the right to participate in a meeting with a team from the school to design an Individualized Education Program or Plan (IEP). The team will include your child’s teacher, a representative from the school administration who is qualified to manage special programs, and representatives from other agencies who may be in- 114 volved in transition services for children over age 16. • This meeting must be held within 30 days of your child’s determination of eligibility for special services. • The IEP must set reasonable goals and accommodations for your child. • Your child must be in the least restrictive environment possible. • Your child is eligible for assistive technology (such as books on tape, electronic organizers, etc.) if these items will contribute to better school performance. • The school must provide these devices and train your child to use them if they are required. • Parents should demand that accommodation, behavioral strategies, frequency of services, duration of services, etc. be clearly delineated and that criteria for assessment of the impacts of the accommodations be clearly stated. • Parents have the right to ask for an advisor to help you understand the process and your rights, and to have this advisor present at the IEP meetings. • Parents should make sure that accommodation is also provided to children to support participation in extra-curricular activities if this is needed. • Parents have the right to challenge the schools’ decision re- garding their child. If agreement cannot be reached, parents have the right to: o Mediation o A due process hearing (held before an individual or panel who is not employed by the state education agency or school) o A hearing in a court of law • Law requires that an IEP meeting be held at least once per

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year, but you as a parent have the right to request a meeting at any time you believe it is necessary. • Every 3 years, a re-evaluation is conducted to determine whether the IEP is still necessary unless the IEP team agrees that it is not necessary. • An excellent resource for parents is the National Center for Learning Disabilities: www.ncld.org. Confront unhelpful teachers with the facts If a teacher is simply resisting helping your son, it may not help your son, but it might help other boys to provide an uncooperative teacher with the facts and evidence when she or he poses a school myth as fact. It might also send the message to the teacher that she or he needs to be held accountable as well. Talk with other parents It helps to talk with other parents of boys in a similar situation. Compare notes, compare situations, find some similarities, see some differences, and support each other. If you feel you are alone, that’s not helpful. In talking with other parents; for sure, share bad experiences, but try to not let it devolve into a perpetual gripe session. That may lead to negativity and negativity does not usually lead to a better situation for your son. Try to switch teachers If things are just not working out with a given teacher, it might be in the best interests of that teacher, the school, and of course you and your son, if you explore with a school administrator the possibility of switching teachers. As usual, you approach this with a positive win- win approach for both the school and your family. Just as your boy, and every other student, has a certain learning style, a teacher has a given teaching style. Not every teacher can respond to every student. So, see if you have options. There is no question that the teacher is the most important factor in any students’ learning, so if it is just not working out with your sons’ current teacher, exploring switching teachers is another option to consider.

116 Consider another school Willie was sick, very sick. For three weeks, he was sick. His pe- diatrician could not diagnose the problem, so he sent us to a children’s hospital. We will always remember the doctor at the children’s hospital coming out after examining Willie and asking us, “Have you considered another school?” It took us awhile, but we did manage to get Willie into a different school. He thrived in the different school. We understand the ramifications, the sacrifice, and the difficulties of enrolling your son in a different school. Enrolling Willie in another school for us meant a financial sacrifice and 3 hours a day of driving time taking him to the new school. You make the best decision for your family. Virtual Schools Not every child is right for a virtual school. In fact, while we teach online and are avid supporters of online learning, for K-12 education, a distinct minority of children appear to thrive in a virtual school. Ask your son; he probably knows whether that environment would be right for him. And of course, you can just test attending a virtual school and see what he thinks. Different schools, same friends One issue you most likely do not have to worry about is having friends in your neighborhood while attending a virtual school or school outside of your area. Most children are able to keep and/or make friends locally while attending different schools. Home school Homeschooling is a solution. There are no grades at home, so no grading based on behavior. Parents might discipline their children for late work or other behavior, but the data suggests that colleges and universities admit homeschooled children based solely on their learning and knowledge. Parental behavior assessment of their children does not appear to be included in college entrance acceptance guidelines. Take it one semester, one year at a time As parents, we want to take it one semester or one year at a time. There may be some smart boys who get bad grades and then turn it

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around and coast for the rest of their academic careers. But, they are probably in the minority. More likely is that you and your son will experience ups and downs. Your son grows and develops and changes. His teachers change. He studies different subject matter. Middle school is different from high school, which is different from college. So, you take it one semester, one year at a time. If things are going well, back off, rest up, and monitor things without putting stress on your son. When things get bad, you come to the fore and do what it takes to support your son. Talking Tips for Parents What you say to your son can make a big difference in his feelings about himself and his chances for success. To repeat; you, as a parent are probably the most important factor in the educational success of your son. Once again, the following is not intended as medical, psychological, counseling, or any other professional advice or recommendation. It is provided as educational information only. 1. Ask your boy, “How was your day?” Do it every day and; of course, listen to his response. If you get too short a response for two days in a row, ask a follow up question. Do not always inquire about homework or school as the only area of concern.

2. Every day, tell your boy, “You are a good kid.” It’s best to tell him while he is alone and in a position to lessen any embarrassment. In his room, after the lights are turned off, is an ideal place and time for telling your son he is a good kid. One day, we were driving Sammie, then in middle school, home after an after school mentoring time. Usually, he jumped right out of the car and ran into his house, but this time, he just sat there. After about three minutes of silence, we remembered and told him he was a good kid, after which he quickly jumped right out of the car and ran into his house. We learned something that day. 3. Allow and encourage online work. Instead of saying “playing on the computer”, ask your boy “what are you working on your computer/laptop/pad/cell phone.”

118 4. Minimize punishment for behavior that does not hurt others. You have to be a parent; you should not ignore major offenses. But, try to focus on the big picture; the big errors, and let some of the minor slights slide. 5. Give him $10. Immediate, unexpected rewards are great reinforcement when he does something positive.

6. Let him know you are advocating for him. It is important for your boy to know that you are supportive and willing to help.

7. Let your boy know what is up with smart boys who get bad grades. It’s not an excuse for him, but it is a reality and by knowing he is not alone, and why he is having a tough time, just might help him cope with his situation better. For sure, we have overhead dozens of young men joke about their common experiences with school later in life. That joking is a way of dealing with a very painful experience.

8. Go with your hunch. As a parent, you know the most about your boy. Let your boy know you are not perfect either, but you are giving it your best shot. It might be the best thing you can tell your son.

9. Make sure you do #1 and #2 every day. Memorize and then execute those two messages every day. Don’t worry about his gruff response, his rebuff, or his poking fun of what you say. He needs to get the message every day. Summary To repeat, the three critical things you can do are to trust your son, advocate on his behalf, and provide never ending emotional and moral support. Never give up. And then, never give up. If you do those three things, your influence on your son’s chances in school will, against all odds and seemingly all evidence to the contrary, become more important in determining your son’s educational success than his teachers, schools, or any other factor.

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120 Chapter 12 Helping Female students learn more

“Today is your day. Your mountain is waiting.” Dr. Seuss

The current bias against boys in school also hurts girls. Gender is clearly one of the important early entry issues into moving from the factory model of teaching to the personalized teaching of the 21st century. In the current factory model, we treat female students the same as male students, and vice versa. Yet we know that female students learn differently, test differently, have different abilities when it comes to spatial and language skills, and have different neurological and hormonal brain structures. While there are issues with how male students are treated in school and college, the issues with female students are different, and no less fascinating. The issues with female students point out the inherent weakness of the factory model of teaching. There are two major challenges with female students in schools and colleges today. The first challenge with female students is that while young women get better grades than young men and even study more than male students, they do not learn more. The second challenge is that there is evidence that schools and colleges promote work

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habits that actually hinder women in the workplace. One of the myths that teachers have proposed to us in our courses is that by giving girls good grades in high school, they are able to get into better colleges and thus better jobs. This latter case is not true. What the evidence shows is that it matters less where one studies in college than what one studies. That is, a high school is not going to pay a woman tons of money to teach because she went to a better college than other teachers. And a company is not going to pay a woman less to be vice president because she went to a college not as highly regarded. So the issue for our daughters and female students really is about learning more, and doing better in the workplace. With respect to the first challenge, at first glance it would seem that female students should have higher academic achievement than male students given that they receive better grades, have higher retention rates in college, and are admitted to and graduate in higher numbers than males. But they do not have higher academic achievement. Apparently, the factory model of teaching, biased as it is toward female students, does not help female students learn more. In this chapter we explore why female students do not learn more than male students, and suggest some innovative ideas for helping girls, young women, and women learn more. Then we address the issue of gender pay equity in the workplace and offer some evidence that schools and colleges promote work habits that actually hinder women in the workplace. We will refer to female students variously as girls, young women and women, but these terms do not indicate any meaning other than possible differences in maturation and age, as illustrated by the evidence that girls’ brains do not mature fully until their early twenties. Terminology for females is very generational in nature. For senior citizens, the word “girls” is used to describe women of any age. For women of the World War II generation, the word “girls” is a term of respect, and one which they use to refer to each other. For Baby Boomer women, however, the term “girls” is perceived negatively as a demeaning term. Generation X women appear to embrace and/or accept a variety of terms, none of which appear to be demeaning. And Generation Y, which in a number of interesting ways is similar to the senior citizens of the World War II generation, also appears to use the term “girls.” As authors, we have no preference nor are we trying to 122 Unlike the White House ad, here’s an example of a positive image and motivator for girls.

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convey any subtle message other than occasionally be more precise (such as young women versus women) or more varied in our use of language from the somewhat academic terminology of “female students,” a term apparently no generation embraces in common usage. As we have repeatedly stated, males and females are overall equally intelligent. Males and females differ in ability in two areas: males have higher spatial ability and females have higher language ability. Male and female students overall test equally. Male students do not test as well as females in language areas. Female students do not test as well as males in spatial ability. This testing difference has existed for decades, during times of gender bias against females, times when females have been a minority of students, and during the last 30 years when females have been the majority of college graduates. Susan Pinker writes that Dr. Doreen Kimura, Canadian neuroscientist, Simon Fraser University, and the researcher who proved that testosterone difference explains spatial ability between the sexes, is “baffled as to how any serious scientist could deny the biological triggers of male-female differences.” (1) Female students get better grades because they are graded on their behavior, and the desired behavior is more characteristic of female neurology than male neurology. When others say that female students have better or higher “academic achievement,” they are referring to grades, not test scores. Why do girls study more? Studies done by Dr. Yu of Edina School District and others indicate that female students study more than male students. A Canadian study agrees, saying about males that “They hand in less homework, are less likely to get along with teachers, and are less interested in what they are learning in class.” (2) The estimates vary, and they also vary in K-12 education by grade level, with seniors in high school having the largest discrepancy. We use a percentage cited in the Edina study of 30% as a reasonable discrepancy. It is clearly not 5% and not 70%, so the number also is one that indicates the relative difference in a visual or image sense. Do female students study more than male students because they need the extra time to learn the same amount of material, or do they do it for another reason? There is no research concluding that 124 Females tend to learn more with discussion, in groups, and collab- orating rather than competing with each other.

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females need to study more than males to acquire the same learning and knowledge. Coates suggests that smart females do not need to study more than males, and that females study more than males to please the instructor and get good grades. She suggests that at some point smart females will also begin to view the extra time spent on homework and coursework as wasted time, and points to some anecdotal evidence that this is beginning to happen with smart female students. The empathy factor The implications of Susan Pinker’s work suggest that female students, possessing a neurology and hormonal make up that results in more empathy than males, is also a reason why female students study more. That is, female students want to please the instructor, because that pleases the student, and quite possibly, Pinker infers, there is an internal hormonal reward in additional ocytocin for female students. Pinker writes, “Women, on average, showed more activity in the more recently evolved part of the limbic system, the cingulated gyrus (where Tania Singer found evidence of individual differences in em- pathic reactions to pain in others).”(3) The work of Simon Baron-Cohen provides a biological explanation for why females rank meaningful work and contributing to the benefit of others so highly, and power and money lower on their list of goals than males do. (4) The empathy factor is also a logical explanation as to why more women become primary care physicians than laparoscopic surgeons, a type of surgery which involves spatial ability and where male doctors predominate. It is a logical explanation as to why more female veterinary students go into small pet practice with cats and dogs than in large or food animal veterinary medicine. The 5 bad learning habits for women There is evidence that suggests that female students acquire bad learning habits in school that hurt their work, productivity and success in the work world. These negative work world traits are rewarded and reinforced by schools, colleges and universities. In her book, New Girl on the Job, author Hannah Seligson interviews 100 successful women in the workplace and from her interviews finds five bad work habits of wom- 126 en, all of which are rewarded and reinforced by schools. The five bad work habits are: 1. Perfection “Women are more likely to define competence as perfection,” writes Seligson. (5) She suggests in the workplace that competence - getting a job done and then moving on - is more productive and profitable for one’s employer than perfection. 2. Lack of priority For too many women, everything is important. “You just need to get 80% of everything done” maintains Seligson, who interviewed over 100 successful career women on why many women do not do as well as men on the job. (6) 3. Too detailed Women focus too much on details. Minor details often have little or no effect on profitability, often taking up too much time and costing money. In the work place, a focus on major items rather than details is most often more valuable. 4. Failure seen as bad Failure in the work place is, and should be, seen as an important avenue to success. Making mistakes is not the same as underperformance. Underperformance is consistent. Making mistakes, especially for the first time, is common and acceptable. Superior workers make mistakes. Managers and leaders in the workplace make big mistakes. It is just that superior workers and profitable leaders do not make the same mistakes, nor consistent mistakes. They learn from mistakes and then create success. 5. Work martyr Seligson says that too many women feel an obligation to be the last one to leave the office. That often leads to an expectation that the woman will be the last one to leave the office, and then to the delega- tion of extra non-essential work. The combination of being a work martyr, being focused on details and perfection with a lesser sense of priority, makes for an employee who is not as productive, profitable or successful, concludes Seligson. Innovative ideas for helping women learn more All of these bad work habits named by Seligson originate as bad 127 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

learning habits, formed, reinforced and rewarded by schools. We suggest these innovative ideas for helping female students to both learn more, and acquire better work habits that will be rewarded more in the work place. 1. Revise homework and coursework to pass/fail. Homework and coursework grading should be revised to pass/fail in order to devalue the perfection of an ‘A.’ There is nothing wrong with excellence or getting a perfect score. But it is required neither in school nor in the workplace. Excellence should be measured by the level of academic challenge achieved, not by the perfection of lesser academic challenges. 2. Challenge female students to spend less time per module, and to tackle more challenging modules. Female students should be spending less time studying per module or unit of material. For example, Coates has found research that Israeli women take the lowest level of math to qualify for engineering or high tech jobs in college. They do better than men on the low levels of math competency. They could do well in higher-level math, but make lower grades. So, female students choose to do better on low-level material than to do adequately on higher-level knowledge. This choice, the study concludes, limits the future options of smart female students. Instead, smart female students should be challenged to tackle more challenging work. Female students should reallocate valuable time from repetitive work that does not result in any greater learning or knowledge to spending that valuable time on more challenging material which does lead to greater learning and knowledge. This is not difficult to do, and teachers can accomplish this by rewarding the passing of harder tests more than getting ‘A’s on easier work. 3. Do not reward behavior. Female students should not be rewarded for behavior, such as turning work in on time. This behavior is almost certainly a function of neurology rather than conscious will. Women do not fidget as often as men because they have 15% more serotonin, not because they are more responsible. Rewarding behavior has numerous negative consequences for female students. - It tells many female students they know something when in fact they 128 do not. Teachers and schools should not tell a female student that she knows a given level of knowledge when she does not. Willingham and Cole report that about 30% of female students and just 20% of male students get significantly higher grades than their test scores would indicate. At the extremities, for students with extremely high grades and very low test scores, the gender difference is even more pronounced, with far more females than males. One female college instructor reflected, “We have two goddaugh- ters in Texas who, on paper, are doing quite well in school. One of them will graduate from high school with a B- C report card, and she’s quite frankly functionally illiterate in both math, writing and basically anything you would consider academic. But her grades do not reflect it. She is a very nice child - she attends every day and turns her work in on time - but basically has not learned anything in three years. And that’s scary, that’s very scary.” (7) - It is difficult to make up a knowledge gap when a student does not know it exists. Giving students good grades when they have not learned the material sufficiently masks academic achievement. The student will not know to make up a knowledge gap, because there is no way to identify that knowledge gap. - Telling female students they know something when they do not hinders them in the workplace. They will reasonably expect more rewards in the workplace than they may qualify for. And they may be confused by the reward system in the workplace that is different from that in school. In most work places involving knowledge jobs, employers do not consider attendance and turning work in on time as sufficient for reward, such as raises and promotions. 4. Reward failure. Teachers often reward elementary school children for failure, and are to be commended for that (as well as many other positive peda- gogical practices elementary school teachers employ). But from middle school through higher education, failure is rarely rewarded. This is of particular concern for female students, because females tend to be risk averse and lower risk-takers than males in general. 129 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

There are good biological and evolutionary reasons why females over the past 10,000 years have been more reluctant to take risks. Tak- ing care of infants, historically the role of the mother, is not the place where one usually should experiment. Preventing risk with young ones more likely will lead to their achieving adulthood. But in today’s work place, risk is a prerequisite to innovation and invention. Failure often leads to success. Teachers at all levels should reward failure by offering and encouraging the following: - Re-taking of tests, so that students can retake quizzes and tests over and over again until the material is learned; - Reworking of papers and other homework and coursework, so that all students can improve upon their work by redoing it. This should be done not just for failing work, but even or especially for average or passing work. - Quizzing out of tests. Allowing and encouraging all students to try to quiz out of a test encourages them to move up academically to higher and more challenging levels of study. Ways to Teach Girls Differently From our courses and workshops for teachers, here are our top ways to help girls learn more. Notice that they are a combination of a) emphasizing female strengths and at the same time b) assisting them with those areas where females generally have more difficulty than males.

1. Give lots of practice with multiple choice tests. Female students do not do as well as male students on multiple- choice tests. Give them more practice with multiple-choice tests.

2. Move on to a challenge; spend less time on what they already know. Female students will benefit from more challenges, and especially new challenges. When a female student has accomplished or mastered a given area of learning and knowledge, move that student on to more difficult material. In Israel, for example, girls who are enrolled in the lowest level of math necessary to qualify for studying science and 130 engineering, even though they could have been successful with more demanding courses.(8)

3. Measure how long you can be on a task. Female students are able to stay on a task longer than male students before needing a break, but even females benefit from mental and/or physical breaks every 15-20 minutes. Be sure to provide plenty of breaks to maximize attention and retention.

4. More small group work time. Females tend to learn more by interacting with others in a group setting. Females often learn by the process of communication, and discussion is one way women learn.

5. More oral presentations. Females in general have good communication skills, so oral presentations are a good way for female students to share what they know.

6. Provide indirect lighting. Your female students will be able to focus better with indirect lighting, while your male students need more light and more overhead light.

7. More hands-on manipulative exercises for spatial ability. Females do not have as good of spatial ability as males, so more hands-on practice and manipulation for spatial ability might assist them in this skill area.

8. Engage in less competition. While males learn more in a mildly competitive situation, females learn more by working together on the same team rather than in a competitive situation. Summary Gender equity in education will help girls as well as boys. Young women do not earn more getting into a good college, they earn more going into fields that pay more.(9) Parents of girls, and teachers of young women, need to move beyond misplaced improper grade favoritism towards our young women and focus more on both helping our female students learn more, and 131 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

also be better prepared for the workplace. Just as gender equity in the workplace is good for men as well as women, gender equity in the classroom is good for young women as well.

132 Chapter 13 For Educators

“…if we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow…” – John Dewey

The pressure to create gender equity in education will only get stronger year after year. Educators are in the middle of this change. For us educators we need to heed the words of Mahatma Ghandi, who said, to change the world change yourself. There are two things that educators can do right now:

1) Change the grading in your own courses; 2) Teach your male and female students differently. Change the grading in your own courses Individual teachers have the authority and academic freedom to grade their students based solely on learning and knowledge. If you are unsure of whether you as a teacher will be penalized in some way for grading based on learning and knowledge, ask your superior whether you will be affected negatively by changing the way you grade. It is almost certain you will be reassured that you will not be penalized for grading solely on learning and knowledge. You might want to get benchmark data before you change your grading. Simply tally the GPA of all of your female students over the past one to two years, and divide by the number of female students.

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Do the same for your male students. Then compare the overall GPA for your female students with that of your male students.

Let your students know at the beginning of the next course, and begin grading based solely on learning and knowledge. Continue to set deadlines, but do not penalize for students who turn work in late. Do not penalize students for missing class. Focus more on tests and other learning outcomes. Try not to worry about concerns until they become a reality. Teachers who have switched to grading solely based on learning and knowledge have reported no serious negative downside, and they are pleased they changed their grading. Teach your male and female students differently There are a number of tips, techniques and strategies you can incorporate in your teaching to help your male students learn more. Some of them will be easy, some hard; some can be immediately adopted, others will take awhile; some are very practical, others conceptual. Some of them will help your female students to learn more as well; others are pretty specific to your male students. None of the tips will hinder the learning of your female students. From the list of hundreds of good teaching techniques, we have selected these for one of two reasons. Many were chosen because they are specific to helping male students learn. Others were chosen because, while they may be seen as “just good teaching”, and be helpful to your female students as well, nevertheless they are so important in the learning of your male students that they need to be stressed here. It might be a bit difficult for even the most committed teacher to adopt them all. Choose those which apply to your discipline, your teaching, and your students. Enacting any of them will help your male students to learn more. 1. Visualize your young male student as 2 years younger. In terms of brain development and neurological maturation, a young man in your class is two years younger than his age. So if you have a 20 year old male, visualize his cognitive maturity level as comparable to an 18 year old young woman. Then reset your expectations accordingly.

134 The GPA by Gender data at one university, from the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. There is no school district, college or university reporting that males have an equal or higher GPA than females.

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2. Create abstract problem solving and moral debates. “Males like abstract arguments, philosophical conundrums, and moral debates about abstract principles,” says educator and author Michael Gurian. (1) Create some exercises and assignments that involve abstract problem solving, moral debates and other philosophical issues to engage your male students more. 3. Allow stress reducers during tests. Allow all your students to be able to use stress reducers during tests. Music, with headphones, may be a stress reducer for some of your students. White noise might also help some students to concentrate better. Having a pet in the classroom actually increases the test scores of all students. One training center in Ohio trains dogs to accompany autistic children to class, so that they can calm down and focus more during the class. 4. Allow choice of window or window-less room during tests. National testing agencies allow some students with disabilities to choose whether they want to take a test in a room with, or without, a window. The physical environment impacts up to 25% of learning, according to a U.S. Department of Education study. 5. Show young male students how to fidget. Eddie Ennels, instructor at Baltimore City Community College, says teach young men how to fidget. Allowing male students to fiddle or fidget silently actually increases their ability to concentrate. Encourage your male students to doodle, squeeze a nerf or ‘stress’ ball, or fidget silently. Men never grow out of the need to fidget. 6. Allow failure. Failure is learning misspelled, says Laura Burkey. (2) Some educators say we only learn from failure, not success. Males will be more apt to fail at a given task than your female students. Allow failure, and give all your students a second or even third chance at tasks and assignments to redo their work and improve. 7. Imitate the work world. Male students generally respond enthusiastically to “real work world” situations. Anytime you have an opportunity to frame or position an assignment in a more work world setting, do it. Sometimes that might mean actually engaging the work world, other times imitating it is sufficient. Consider assignments involving a project,

136 apprenticeship situation, engagement with a mentor, interview with working people, supervision by business people, or other opportunity for your students to interact with a real work world environment. 8. Provide very detailed and specific instructions. All your Generation Y students (those born 1980 to 1999) actually want and need very detailed and specific instructions. Whenever giving assignments, be far more detailed than you think is necessary. Gen Y lives in a world with so many different meanings, so many different interpretations, and so many opportunities for misunderstanding. They interact with people from different cultures with different assumptions. As a result, they want and require a great deal of specificity. 9. Do not use cursive. When communicating with students, especially young men, do not send messages in handwriting using cursive. Whether you are marking papers, writing on a blackboard, or even sending an email, do not use cursive. A decreasing number of your students are able to read or write in cursive. Boys began to drop writing and reading in cursive several years before girls, but now many if not most of your students cannot read or write cursive adequately. 10. Allow typing instead of handwriting. Handwriting takes considerably more time and energy. And handwriting uses certain muscles that may be strong and well developed for adults, but handwriting is hardly ever used by younger generations used to keyboarding. For essays and other extensive writing assignments in class, consider allowing students to type instead of using handwriting. 11. Offer tough new challenges. On occasion, give a tough new challenge or assignment. Make sure the assignment is intellectually tough, not merely busy work or time consuming work. Your male students will likely rise to the challenge and find the new challenge exciting and engaging. 12. Make expectations clear and rewarding. Make expectations for your course clear. Males are more likely to see expectations as single fixed points or hurdles for which they can say “done that.” If expectations keep growing, goals keep receding, and success is measured by ongoing continual work past a perceived goal, then your male students are likely to lose interest and feel there

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is less integrity in the expectations.

13. Make the first assignment easy. Creating initial success helps to establish a positive self image and a can-do mood in your students. Especially your male students need time to adjust to the new environment of your classroom, begin to feel comfortable, settle the limbic system of their brain, and then tackle the cognitive challenges ahead. Getting tough early may be intimidating, and an early sense of failure or being overwhelmed often cannot be made up by students later. A number of faculty have discovered that starting off with the most rigorous assignments often leads to lower retention, not higher retention. 14. Spend the first week creating a safe environment. Online faculty experts, such as Dr. Mary Dereshiwsky, COI, of Northern Arizona University, indicate that spending the first week of an online course in creating a safe environment increases student involvement and discussion. The recommendation is from online course experiences of faculty, but it is equally applicable to the face- to-face classroom. Lacking in social cues compared to their female colleagues, your male students are going to need more specific and obvious reassurances. Males also have to settle down the limbic system in their brains, and feel unthreatened and consequently, emotionally comfortable, before they can learn. 15. The more student orientation, the better. The more time you spend in student orientation, the better. So says online faculty authority Dr. Rita Marie Conrad, as well as other online experts. Courses in which faculty spend more time in student orientation have a greater retention of students. This finding is based on online courses, but can easily be seen to be relevant for traditional classroom teaching as well. There is technical orientation, logistical orientation, behavior or process orientation, and of course subject orientation. 16. Every 15 – 20 minutes, have some physical activity. For the traditional classroom, all students benefit from a little physical activity 1-3 times during the class period. But your male students need that physical activity even more to help them concentrate and learn. Every 15-20 minutes, have some physical activity that takes only 1-3 minutes. Some examples:

138 - Turn to your neighbor and ask her/him ….. - Rearrange the chairs (for small group discussions, or some other activity) - Have your students stand up while you make a particularly important point. - During question time, have each student toss a small nerf ball to the next student asking a question. - Have students stand up and take a seat somewhere else in the classroom. 17. Ask male students for tech help. This is a win-win technique. Some of your male students will be nerds and techies. Asking them for tech help with your course engages them and solicits their commitment, demonstrates to other male students you value their expertise, and you actually gain some online tech help that will enhance your course. The biggest benefit is that it makes a statement from you as teacher that you value your male students and their contributions. 18. Simulations and animations All Gen Y students learn more with simulations and animations, but the engagement and interaction is particularly helpful to the learning of your male students. Whether the simulations and animations are created by you, or else you obtain permission to use them from their creator, consider one for as many units of your course as possible. 19. Drag-and-drop Drag-and-drop exercises have been proven to be an excellent learning tool. Online expert Bill Horton of Denver says that when students do drag-and-drop exercises with the cursor they learn more than if they just heard or read the same information. 20. Offer challenges to find resources Consider challenging your students to find other simulations, animations and drag-and-drop exercises relevant for your course. More of your male students will tend to take you up on your challenge, resulting again in more engagement, commitment, and learning. 21. Discussion rubrics. Discussion rubrics are criteria for how you score discussion. They were invented for online discussion, but you can create a rubric for an in-person discussion as well. The rubric gives your students criteria so they know what a valuable comment is. It also gives you a guideline

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for establishing gender neutral scoring of discussion.

22. Weekly surprise. Mary Dereshiwsky of Northern Arizona University has developed a technique of offering a weekly surprise in her online classroom. Whether it is a poll, a treat, a trivia question, or some other surprise, the technique creates a level of expectation and interest for your students each and every time they come back to your online classroom. 23. Praise initially and subtly. Initial praise goes a long way in motivating your male students. When that praise is made in front of the rest of the class, either in the online or physical classroom, make that praise more subtle and less overt. Here’s an example of subtle praise: “So, Tomas asks a good question- - What do the rest of you think about that?” Here’s an example of overt and over-the-top praise that can subject the male student to embarrassment and even ridicule from others. “Wow Tomas, terrific insight!” Note that we indicate that the same words of praise would be quite appropriate when delivered privately one-on- one with the male student. 24. Offer rewards Offered sporadically and unexpectedly, rewards enliven the class atmosphere, keep students stimulated, and motivate some of your male students. Rewards should almost always be minimal and token, including candy, small toys, pictures, links to fun web sites, and minor privileges. The rewards actually benefit the learning of all your students, not just those ‘winning.’ 25. Never punish. You might fail to reward, but do not resort to punishment. Punishment is probably the biggest disincentive and inhibitor of learning in our business. If you must do something, instead of punishing some students, reward others for their good work. Punishment will lower your retention rate, turn off students, and create a level of fear that you do not want in your classroom. It is not just those students who get punished that suffer, other students will be negatively affected as well. 26. Do not be negative. Be positive. Be overly positive. Being enthusiastic and positive reinforces learning and helps everyone in your class. Be aware of how your students might perceive your words and actions, as their

140 perceptions may be very different for your intentions. You might not think you are being negative, but your students might. Studies indicate that you and I think we are smiling most of the time, when film shows we are only smiling a very small part of the time. So your perception is not the “right” one; your students’ perceptions are what matters. If you do not think of yourself as having a personality of enthusiasm, then consider creating an alter ego, a second identity, one in which you are enthusiastic and positive. Remember, this is not about you. It is about helping your students learn more. We’re positive you can do it! 27. Expect high level performance. Australian professor Philip C. Candy, in his book Self Direction for Lifelong Learning, says: “Educators who hold high expectations for their students tend to convey these through complex and subtle patterns of interaction, which commonly result in the learners living up to these expectations, and in the process, developing a more positive image of themselves.” (3) 28. Provide help with frustration. Male students may be more apt to experience frustration in your course. When the learner is unhappy about some situation, focus on how the student feels about the situation, not the situation itself. Listen fully. Try not to provide the answer or make a point, and sympathize with the person’s point of view, even if you don’t agree with it. When a student expresses frustration: a) Don’t contradict the person’s views; b) Don’t use logical explanations; c) Don’t ridicule the person’s view; d) Convey your positive regard for the person. (4) 29. Never be overcome by emotion. It is fine to express emotion. It is great to be passionate. But when your emotion overtakes you, pause, take some deep breaths, and do not be overcome by your emotions. For male students, with fewer emotional tools to draw upon, your emotional response may be reframed as a threat or aggression, which is the cue to turn off the cognitive brain for a male. (5) 30. Be wrong. One of the most successful teaching techniques with male students is to give in over a minor point to get past an argument or mental block. You can say you are wrong, or admit you don’t know, or offer

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a compromise statement like “I had not thought of that,” or “I didn’t think of it that way.” In terms of learning, the technique allows the student to ‘win the battle’ while you ‘win the war’ in terms of the student accepting or learning the larger point. Internally, it allows the student to think or do it ‘his own way’ and yet, to reach the same conclusion as you, the teacher, wish him to reach. 31. Do not threaten, even humorously The college classroom is one of the most stressful places and times in life for most male students. In a study of Carleton College alumni recollections, nightmares about college was the most commonly cited way that alumni said provoked memories of student life. (6) Do not threaten, even humorously. There is no humor in it for a young male student. 32. Utilize virtual worlds Virtual worlds like Second Life give your male students a chance to exercise their spatial skills, as well as role play in a “real” world situation. Consider creating an assignment in a virtual world. Have an adjunct instructor, graduate student or a student in your class monitor or create the assignment if you are not familiar with virtual worlds. Julie Coates reminds us that for Gen Y the virtual world is a real world, and that many of your students will actually either make a living, or make their work more productive or profitable, by using a virtual world to enhance their work in the physical world. 33. Create content It is said that over half of teenagers have already created content on the web. For Gen Y, they are not just consumers of information on the web, they are also producers of information on the web. When given the challenge to create content for your course, your students are likely to be more involved and committed, and learn more. 34. Pre-course quizzes Male students are particularly goal or benchmark oriented. They want to know where they stand, and where they need to be. Pre-course quizzes help all your students to establish a beginning knowledge benchmark, from which they can gauge their learning during your course. Pre-course quizzes also help you to know what areas your students need more help in and where they are already proficient.

142 35. Adapt video games Allow and encourage male students to play computer games and online games. Explore whether an assignment could involve playing a video game. Video and online gaming is almost certainly an important work skill that your students will use in their professional work. For example, Dr. James Rosser, a surgeon, plays video games between surgeries. He did a study of other doctors who play video games and found that surgeons who play video games make 37% fewer mistakes than surgeons who do not play video games. (7) 36. Understand young men’s peak learning times Every person has a peak learning time, and it is not the same hours of the day for everyone. Many young men do not learn as much in early morning classes, and learn more in the afternoon, evening, and even late at night. In fact, one study found that 20% of all adult employees work best in the evening, and 6% are most productive overnight. Take into consideration peak learning time when holding classes, presentations and giving exams. 37. Have them teach each other Probably the most effective learning strategy ever devised is to have the learner teach someone else. By having your better students do peer teaching and sharing with others in your class, both those teaching and those learning will increase their knowledge and expertise. In peer teaching, other students will likely also have a different style that will complement that of your teaching style, thus enhancing the ability of your students to learn more. 38. Provide ungraded self quizzes Ungraded self quizzes, a built in feature of most online classrooms, are a new tool that students almost universally praise for one reason: immediate feedback. Students like to receive immediate feedback, because it gives them instant analysis of where they stand and what they have achieved. Ungraded quizzes are popular because there is no penalty and thus no stress for students. By creating ungraded self quizzes for each unit of your course, you create immediate feedback on your students’ learning without taking any of your time to score the quizzes. 39. Is there anything I should know? Ask one question at the beginning of every new course. Ask each student, in a way in which his or her response can be private, “Is there anything I should know about you that will help you learn more?” A

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good way is to have this question on a sheet of paper or an email, so that the student response will be confidential. One professor reported that a young man in her class then confessed he was hard of hearing in one ear, telling her he had never told any other teacher about it. From then on, the professor made sure she stood where he was able to hear her during the course. 40. Make your courses hybrid. Every face-to-face course in this century needs to be hybrid, sometimes called blended, taking advantage of all of the resources of the Internet. The research indicates that students learn more in a hybrid class than either in a totally face-to-face class or totally online class. Make your courses hybrid immediately.

41. Add one of your own. If you are able to send it to us, do so by emailing it to the authors at [email protected]. Summary Pick and choose which of the above work for you and your students. You are a professional teacher. Choose those that fit your students and subject matter. All of these ideas have been proven to be effective and are cited by more than one teaching authority. At least one of them, we are sure, will make a big and positive difference for your male students.

144 Chapter 14 Conclusion: End the Gender War, Celebrate Our Boys

We are researchers, parents of boys, mentors of young African American men, teachers, and educators who teach teachers. We are also futurists. So, here is what will happen. The one thing we cannot predict that is so crucial is how fast it will happen. The prosperity of a society is determined very early in the new economic era; waiting means falling behind as a society. We are confident and positive that gender equality will prevail in our schools and colleges. You should be confident and positive. Achieving Change Change will come from many different directions. It will come from parents, from business, from government leaders, from researchers, and educational institutions. But, it may also have to come from the courts and/or from Con- gress. We needed legislation to give African-Americans more equality. We needed Title IX legislation to give girls and women more equality. We needed legislation to ban teachers from hitting their students. We may very well need several lawsuits brought by parents of boys. And we will need state and/or Congressional action to make it illegal to grade based on behavior. That legislation, we predict, will 145 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

come by 2030. But, everything and anything we do as citizens, parents, business people and educators before then will help our nation move forward further, faster. A Growing Movement “Change comes very slowly; but then, happens all at once,” David Carr wrote in The New York Times recently. In this period of economic and society transition, that is exactly how change happens. With respect to grading and helping both girls and boys to learn more, change will come very slowly- - and then, happen all at once. There is now a growing awareness of the issues of grading, gender inequality in education, and the direct relationship of those two issues to the economic prosperity of our nation in the 21st century. Early educational researchers, such as Michael Gurian, Christina Hoff Sommers, Doreen Kimura, Warren Willingham, and Nancy Cole, did pioneering work on the issue near the closing of the last century. Then, we discovered the solution; grading based solely on learning and knowledge, and highlighted it in our book, Nine Shift: Work, life, and education in the 21st Century, published in 2003. But now, more educational researchers are now investigating the issue of boys and grading. Christopher Cornwell of the University of Georgia (1) and Daniel and Susan D. Voyer of the University of New Brunswick (2) are just two of the research teams with recently published studies. Supplementing the research into grading is more research into the brain, how the genders learn differently, and the implications for helping our boys and girls learn and succeed more. (3) As more researchers get involved, all the myths will fall. For example, researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that boys who misbehave in school actually earn more than others. They conclude that school policies which reduce penalties for male behavior increase both educational attainment and earnings. (4) That awareness is leading to an emerging movement that will become a growing movement of parents, researchers, business leaders, government officials, and educators to demand that our nations’ schools and colleges grade solely based on learning and knowledge, rather than on behavior. 146 Grading based on learning and knowledge is inevitable. Take away the issue of gender inequality. Take away the issue of the shortage of college educated workers. Take away the other chap- ters in this book. Business is moving quickly to adopting outcomes as the standard for productivity in this century. Not time input, not behavior, not showing up on time, not even turning one’s work in on time. The key to profitability in a knowledge economy is productivity, and productivity is measured by outcomes and results. Education will change its grading because the “real world” in this century requires it. End the Gender War We need gender equity in both the workplace and in the school- place. Women need gender pay equity in the workplace. And males need gender equality in our schools and colleges. Let’s replace lose- lose gender war with win-win gender equity in both the workplace and in our schools and colleges. Gender equality in our schools and colleges will benefit young women just as much as it will benefit young men, business, society, and the economic welfare of our country. The elimination of bias in society has always been a win-win. Education is a competition, but not between the sexes or even areas of the country. It is a competition between nations. In the last century, America won hands down. In this century, the United States is falling behind other post-industrial nations. Young women are not competing with young men for education and the skills needed in adulthood. Every male college graduate is a “win” for women, just like every female college graduate is a “win” for men. Young women lose when they are not able to find a college educated mate. Young women lose when their society falls behind economically. There is even evidence that links sexual assault on campus to the dearth of males on campus. Colleges with a greater percentage of male students on campus report much lower sexual assault rates than campuses with lower percentages of male students. Robert Massa of

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Dickinson University was even quoted in The New York Times as saying that was one outcome of increasing the percentage of male students on the Dickinson University campus. (5) The greatest loss for young women is that they do not learn more. By refusing to understand that males and females learn differently, our educational institutions and teachers miss the opportunity to help females learn more. (6) Our biggest prediction Every prediction we have made about this century has come true. So, in case you missed it, here’s repeating our biggest and final prediction. We predict that by 2030, it will be illegal for teachers, schools, and higher education institutions to grade based on behavior, especially behavior that is gender based and hard wired. Celebrate Our Boys Finally, we really do need to celebrate our boys. We celebrate girls, and that’s great. Now, we need to celebrate the boys as well, in addition. We do not need a year of the boy like the girls have. We do not need teacher camps and nursing camps for boys. But, we do need to celebrate the amazingness of what the boys have done in creating the 21st century and whatever they create next. We need to do this for them. We need to do this for us. In your life, smile when you read or hear about a boy doing something good. In your communication with others, do not allow others to diss the boys without a response from you. When you interact with a boy, tell him quietly “nice job.” You will be positively influencing a boy and you will be- send ing the right message to others and yourself about the wonder and amazingness of the achievements that our young people are making in society and in our lives. It is an exciting time to be alive, to be able to learn about the future by talking with the elders in the community, and by watching the children. And it is a privilege for those of us who are parents and educators to be able to influence the youngest in society; those who are creating the society of the 21st century, who will lead that society, and who will teach the rest of the generations in this century. 148 You have read this because you want to make a difference, so we wish you the best in your important work. Have a great century. Take care of the kids!

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150 References

Chapter 1 America’s #1 Problem 1. Drucker Peter F. Managing in the Next Society. Truman Talley Books, New York, 2002, page 296. 2. http://www.jsonline.com/business/global-balance-is-tilting-back- 4c47bc9-139416458.html, February 15, 2012 3. Statistic from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 4. Leonardt David, Is College Worth It? Clearly, New Data Say, The New York Times, May 27, 2014. 5. Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018, Georgetown University. 6. Knocking at the College Door, Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (2008). Percent Change in College Enrollment. 7. Anderson Chris, Atoms are the New Bits, February 24, 2010, Sa- vannah, Georgia. http://scaddistrict.com/wired-editor-chris-anderson- to-speak-at-trustees/ 8. New Sources of Growth, Organization for Economic Cooperative Development, http://www.oecd.org/sti/inno/46349020.pdf 9. U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce: Census Bureau.

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10. Moretti Enrico, The New Geography of Jobs, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. 11. 2012 data: http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/generations-workplace-united-states-canada 12. 2020 estimate: http://info.hoganassessments.com/blog/ bid/171186/The-Generational-Workforce-of-the-Future 13. U.S. Census Bureau.

Chapter 2 Title IX Gone Wrong: Gender Inequality in Education 1. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72 2. Willingham Warren W. & Cole Nancy S. Gender and Fair As- sessment, Educational Testing Service. New Jersey, 1997, page 57. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers 3. Arum Richard. Academically Adrift. In an email to the authors on July 25, 2012, Arum provided the following GPA’s for students in the top CLA quintile (top 20%): women, 3.52; men, 3.43

4. http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/2014/01/29/illinois-quinn-education-state-pension-water-biotech-grants-small-business/5035127/ 5. http://heri.ucla.edu/DARCU/CompletingCollege2011.pdf “… just 32.9% of men earn a degree after four years as compared to 43.8% of women; a gap of 10.9 percentage points. As reported in Astin&Oseguera (2005) for the entering cohort of 1994, the gap in degree attainment at four years was 7.1 percentage points (32.6% vs. 39.7%). A good portion of the gender gap among the most recent cohort disappears by the end of the fifth year. At this point, 59.7% of women have finished college compared to 52.4% of men; a gap of 7.3 percentage points. Some of the shrinkage in this gap at five years is likely due; at least in part, to the higher proportion of men who graduate in fields such as engineering that traditionally take longer to degree. The gap in degree attainment shrinks further to 5.5 percentage points (58.1% vs. 63.6%) at the end of the sixth year, but was 152 4.4 percentage points (55.2% vs. 59.6%) for the entering cohort of 1994.” 6. We do not argue that every student should study STEM; only that the STEM crisis is at the heart of the skilled worker shortage in society. However, a degree in a STEM area does help get a job more than a non-STEM degree. The Huffington Post, July 22, 2011 notes “A recent study of the U.S. Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA), STEM: Good Jobs Now and for the Future, reports that those who pursue a science career, both enjoy lower rates of joblessness and earn 26 percent more than their non- STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) counterparts. STEM: Good Jobs Now and for the Future, By David Langdon, George McKittrick, David Beede, Beethika Khan, and Mark Doms, Office of the Chief Economist, July 2011. http://www.esa.doc.gov/ sites/default/files/reports/documents/stemfinaljuly14.pdf 7. “Caryn McTigheMusil of the Association of American Colleges and Universities analyzes Title IX’s effects on higher education; finding some remarkable progress: Women have not simply increased their numbers in academia (they’re now nearly 60 percent of under- graduates), but have also moved into fields once dominated by men, such as business.” Ms Magazine Media Advisory, October 8, 2007, also in Ms. Magazine. Fall 2007 issue.

8. http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/sei/edTool/data/college-02.html 9. Vincent-Lancrin Stéphan, The Reversal of Gender Inequalities in Higher Education: An On-going Trend. OECD, 2008.

10. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, High School Transcript Study (HSTS), 2000. 11. Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, Truman State University, Missouri. Truman GPA by gender for freshman, sopho- more, junior, and senior classes for 1999-2000, 2000-2001, and 2001-2002. Reprinted in Smart Boys Bad Grades by Julie Coates and William Draves, LERN, 2006. 12. The authors have found only one university in a post-industrial country where male students received better grades than female students. It was the University of Cambridge in the U.K. The university 153 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

commissioned a study on the gap and the committee concluded that women learn different from men. The research supports this conclusion and the authors argue that this would also mean that men learn differently from women. 13. Reynolds, John. The Gender Gap in College Expectations. Florida State University quoting Monitoring the Future Survey. Chart of High School Seniors’ Educational Expectations by Gender, 1976-1999, reprinted in Smart Boys Bad Grades, by Julie Coates and William Draves, page 19. 14. Willingham Warren W. & Cole Nancy S. Gender and Fair As- sessment. Educational Testing Service, New Jersey, 1997, page 57. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers 15. American College Testing (ACT), http://www.act.org/news/re- leases/2004/8-18-04.html. 16. Marks, Alan E. Gender and High School GPA, An Example of Co relational Research. Department of Psychology, Oglethorpe Univer- sity, 2004. www.oglethorpe.edu/faculty/. 17. SAT Scores (Re centered) and High School Grade Point Average for Entering First-Year Students by Gender. University of Massachu- setts, Amherst, Fall 1993 – Fall 2004. 18. National Center for Education Statistics. “We do have data that show lower grades for males than females in elementary and secondary schools, but we do not have reports at NCES that explore why there is an average grade differential.” Tom Snyder, NCES, email to authors, September 5, 2013.

Chapter 3 The Boys Are Fine 1. Wright, Harold Bell, The Calling of Dan Matthews, 1909. Harold Bell Wright was a bestselling author of the time. One of his books, The Shepherd of the Hills, led to the development of the popular tourist destination of Branson, Missouri. 2. Wedge, Marilyn. Why French Kids Don’t Have ADHD. PhD., Psychology Today, March 8, 2012. Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D. is a family 154 therapist and the author of Suffer the Children: The Case Against Labeling and Medicating and an Effective Alternative. Wedge writes, “To the extent that French clinicians are successful at finding and repairing what has gone awry in the child’s social context, fewer children qualify for the ADHD diagnosis. Moreover, the definition of ADHD is not as broad as in the American system which; in my view, tends to ‘pathologize’ much of what is normal childhood behavior.” 3. ACT statistics for 1969 show English scores at 17.0 for men and 19.4 for women. Science scores were 20.8 for men and 19.4 for women. ACT, Leonard L. Baird, Research Report Number 28, Janu- ary 1969

Chapter 4 The Solution: Grade Learning, not Behavior 1. Draves William A. & Coates Julie. Nine Shift: Work, life and education in the 21st century. Learning Resources Network (LERN), 2004. 2. Toronto School Board District, April 16, 2008, http://www.tdsb. on.ca/about_us/media_room/room.asp?show=allNews&view=detaile d&self=11565 3. Woodward, John. Using Grades to Assess Student Performance. University of Illinois, in Journal of School Improvement, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring, 2001. http://www.ncacasi.org/jsi/2001v2i1/using_grades. 4. Willingham Warren W. & Cole Nancy S. Gender and Fair As- sessment. Educational Testing Service, New Jersey, 1997. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. 5. Gender Difference and Student Learning, Report to Edina Board of Education, April 2002, Yi Du, PhD, Director of Research and Evaluation. http://www.edina.k12.mn.us/news/reports/GenderReport. pdf. 6. Harris Cooper, Jorgianne Civey Robinson, and Erika A. Patall. Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement? A Synthesis of Research. 1987-2003, Duke University, Review of Educational Re- search, 2006. 155 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

7. Nisen, Max. A post-GPA world: Why Google doesn’t care about hiring top college graduates. Quartz, February 24, 2014. 8. Interviews with faculty who do not penalize students for turning in homework late indicate there are no problems with the policy. Sissy Copeland of Piedmont Technical College has had this policy for several years without any problems. Bruce Jones of West Georgia College reported only one student out of 43 had academic problems with the no-penalty for late homework policy. Carol Ann Baily of Middle Tennessee State University provides bonus points for homework turned in on time, but does not penalize a student for late work. Robert O. Phillips of Eastern New Mexico University reports that students turn in homework in the same time pattern when there is no penalty as when there were late penalties. That is, most students turned in homework on time, even when there was no penalty for late work. 9. Schimmer, Tom. Enough with the late penalties. February 21, 2011. http://tomschimmer.com/2011/02/21/enough-with-the-late- penalties/

10. Tabor, Britney. DISD set to change grading system. Denton Record-Chronicle, April 23, 2014. 11. Lewin, Tamar. At Colleges, Women are Leaving Men in the Dust. The New York Times, July 9, 2006. 12. Robert Massa; email to the authors. August 1, 2006. “Prior to my arrival in 1999, SAT’s played a smaller part in the admissions process at Dickinson (this was true in the nineties). Grades were by far the major criteria and since girls have better high school grades than boys, a much higher percentage of women were being admitted than were men (in 1999, just before I arrived, 75% of the women were admitted vs 50% of the men, in spite of the fact that male accepts had significantly higher SAT’s -- by about 30 points -- than did female admits). For the first half of this decade, women were admitted to Dickinson at a rate that was between 4 and 8 points higher than men, but the SAT differential between male and female admits was much smaller -- about 10 points in favor of the men while the average class rank for women was top 13% vs top 18% for men. This past year, men and women were admitted at equal rates, with males again scoring slightly better on the SAT’s and women performing slightly better in class. The m/f ratio has fluctuated 156 between 42% and 47% male since 2000. It fluctuated between 35% and 39% in the last half of the 90’s.” 13. Draves, William A. & Coates Julie. The Pedagogy of the 21st Century. LERN Books, 2011, page 191.

Chapter 5 Teacher Objections: “But we’re teaching responsibility here” 1. When Denton, Texas Independent School District decided not to penalize students for late work, Steve Sullivan of Denton wrote a comment to the local newspaper saying; in part, “This is lunacy. Years from now, these students will enter college or the workplace with terrible habits established as a result. Who wants an employee who has learned that being punctual is not important, incomplete work is not penalized, or having multiple opportunities to “get it right” is expected?” From comments after the story DISD set to change grading system by Britney Tabor, Denton Record-Chronicle, April 23, 2014 2. Value formation in children. Every authority says it happens early in life. Here are just two of the references on value and habit formation in children. Research by Sociologist Morris Massey, “During our Imprint Period ages 0 to 7, we continue to soak up everything like a sponge; we pick up and store everything that goes on in our environments and from our parents and other people and events that occur around us. It’s imprinted into us.” “From Massey’s research, he suggests that our major values about life are picked up during this period of about age 10. In addition, he suggests that our values are based on where we were and what was happening in the world at that time.” http://changingminds.org/explanations/values/values_development. htm. From Habit Formation and Learning in Young Children, by Dr. David Whitebread and Dr. Sue Bingham, University of Cambridge, “The habits of mind, which influence the ways children approach complex problems and decisions including financial ones, are largely determined in the first years of life. We explain how various cognitive and metacognitive processes emerge within the young child

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before the age of seven years, enabling them to learn about the world and their specific environment and to develop as learners.” http:// www.kansascity.com/news/business/biz-columns-blogs/kids-money/ article321745/By-age-7-most-financial-habits-have-been-formed. html. 3. Coates and Draves survey of teachers. 4. A literature search found only one reference to the difference between work turned in on time and that citation said that girls were equal to boys in work timeliness. Interviews were also conducted by the authors with executives of an Illinois human resources association and a Wisconsin human resources association. Both executives knew of no gender related problem in the workplace with boys. Ac- cording to the owner and founder of a national employment agency and Kelly Girl temporary help, John Willetts of Fox Point, Wis- consin, over the course of several decades of observing young men and young women in the workplace, cites no significant difference between the punctuality and on-time performance between young men and young women. 5. Coates has discovered research that girls, deemed responsible in school, are actually “irresponsible” in the workplace in terms of ab- senteeism, dealing another factual blow that “teaching responsibility” and grading based on behavior has any positive effect. The evidence discovered is from the Bureau of Labor Standards, Department of Labor, under the leadership of Secretary Hilda Solis. The 2010 government study showed that women are 2-3 times more absent in the workplace than men. This discounts (takes into account) time spent on child care, health issues, and family. So, even after subtract- ing absences due to health, child care, and family, women are still 2-3 times more absent in the workplace than men. The study can be found at http://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/lf/aat46.txt Coates reports that two previous studies also reach the same conclusion; the earliest of which was done around 1990. All studies indicate that women perform at the same level as men in the workplace; just like boys perform academically at the same level as girls in school. For our purposes, what these workplace gender studies demonstrate is that faculty are not “teaching responsibility” and that grading based on behavior has no positive impact for either male or female students.

158 6. Teacher and blogger Tom Schimmer writes, “The flood is a myth! No, not that flood. The flood of assignments at the end of the year that you think you are going to get; it won’t happen, at least that wasn’t my experience. In fact, in every school I’ve worked in where teachers eliminated their late penalties, they did not experience the flood. As I said above, most students like deadlines and not having a late penalty doesn’t mean you don’t set deadlines and act when they are not met; just don’t distort their grade by artificially lowering it.” http://tomschimmer.com/2011/02/21/enough-with-the-late-penalties/

Chapter 6 This Happened Once Before: The Historical Parallel 1. See; for example, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, http://www. hhmi.org/biointeractive/evolution-y-chromosome. “… most of the Y chromosome is inherited from father to son in a pattern resem- bling asexual, not sexual, reproduction. No recombination means no re assortment, so deleterious mutations have no opportunity to be independently selected against. The Y chromosome therefore tends to accumulate changes and deletions faster than the X.” Wade, Nicholas. Male Chromosome May Evolve Fastest. January 13, 2010, The New York Times “…. the Y chromosome is the fastest- changing part of the human genome and is constantly renewing itself……The hallmark of the Y chromosome now turns out to be renewal and reinvigoration…” 2. See, for example, a web site about Charles Dana Gibson at http:// cdgibson.com 3. Excuse My Dust, 1951, plot summary at Internet Movie Database (IMDb), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043514/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ ov_pl 4. Authors’ interview with Y.A. Taylor, Julie’s father of Black Moun- tain, NC, July 2001. 5. Ibid. 6. Willson, Meredith. The Music Man. Music and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Meredith Willson and Franklin Lacey, 159 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

1957. 7. Johnsen, Julia E. Child Labor. United States Congress, House Committee on the Judiciary, March 28, 1924. Compiled by HW Wil- son Company, New York, 1924, page 145. 8. From the diary of William A. Draves II, 1904, unpublished, in the authors’ library. 9. Brands, H.W. The Reckless Decade, America in the 1890’s. St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1995, page 3. 10. This is an emoticon of Homer Simpson: (_8^(1) To see Homer, hold the book sideways.

Chapter 7 Why Women Don’t Go Into STEM 1. New Earnings Survey Data Set, 2001, Department for Skills and Education, United Kingdom. 2. Pinker, Susan. The Sexual Paradox. Scribner, New York, 2008, pages 64-65. 3. Data on H1-B visa entrants to the United States provided to the authors by the Commerce Department, United States Government. 4. Structural differences/choices. MIT Technology Review, Jan/Feb 2008. 5. Kimura, Doreen. Sex and Cognition. Page 122. 6. Dahlia W. Zaidel, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA reviewed Kimura’s work and writes, “Her laboratory has consistently formulated interesting and critical questions in this field and has generated the best, most reliable studies.” http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/kimura.html Zaidel also provides clarification and elaboration on Kimura’s spatial ability findings, noting “With paper and pencil tests, men score consistently higher than women on items that tap visuo-spatial abilities and this outcome is used to explain why men are better than

160 women when navigating their way around in outdoor space. But, as Kimura points out, women have very good visuo-spatial memory for items located in space close to the body. They know the location of items in the home, office, car, and so on, better than men. This is not because women have better memory in general than men; it is because there is space and there is space, and women do better in personal- rather in extra-personal space. Unfortunately, this ability is not tapped in standardized tests.” 7. Data researched by Julie Coates for faculty development seminar for the School of Engineering, University of Kansas, January 19, 2009, Lawrence, Kansas. 8. Fouad, Nadya A. PhD. & Singh, Romila PhD. Stemming the Tide: Why Women Leave Engineering. University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. “Women comprise more than 20% of engineering school graduates, but only 11% of practicing engineers are women, despite decades of academic, federal, and employer interventions.” 9. Barghini, Tiziana. Women leaving the workforce when husbands earn more. Reuters, March 8, 2012. 10. Dr. Karen S. Sibert, writing in The New York Times and then interviewed by Tom Ashbrook for OnPoint Radio on June 16, 2011 raised the issue of whether doctors who complete their education with taxpayer support have a moral obligation not to work part time, given the growing shortage of doctors. She argues that not working full-time is a waste of a medical education and a disservice to both patients and the profession. 11. Hubelbank, Jeanne. Long-Term Effects of a Middle School Engineering Outreach Program for Girls: A Controlled Study. WPI Evaluation Consulting, AC 2007-1106. American Society for Engi- neering Education, 2007. http://www.wpi.edu/Images/CMS/News/1106_LONG_TERM_EF- FECTS_OF_A_MIDDLE_SCHOOL_ENG.pdf 12. LERN Magazine, Fall 2013, page 16.

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Chapter 8 Where Feminism Went Wrong 1. Marsha Lear; writing in The New York Times Magazine from Not My Mother’s Sister: Generational Conflict and Third-Wave Femi- nism. Astrid Henry, Indiana University Press, 2004, page 58. 2. The Steinem quote appears in many places and sources, including: http://www.pbs.org/kued/nosafeplace/interv/steinem.html 3. The myth continues. See; for example, My 4 Year Old Loves Toy Guns and I don’t Know How to Parent That. Zsofia McMullin, The Washington Post, July 29, 2014. 4. For example, here is one reaction: http://www.freerepublic.com/ focus/f-news/981375/posts “The next step in feminist thought was that women were not just equal to men, they were better than men.” “Gender crusaders believe that if they can influence little boys early enough, they can make them more like little girls.” Pollack, William. Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1998), 94. The entire quote is from Closson, Don. The Feminization of American Schools. http://www. probe.org/docs/fem-schools.html 5. Even advocates for boys believe this myth. In 2014, The Boys Ini- tiative web site at www.theboysinitiative.org promoted the myth that the male brain is as adept at language as the female brain, lamenting, “One of the most startling findings in national assessments of student achievement is how far behind boys are in reading and writing.” 6. Del Meyer, Md., www.delmeyer.net/MedicalLiterature/bookshelf/ bkrev_WarAgainstBoys.htm 7. Crenshaw, Kimberle Williams. The Girls Obama Forgot. The New York Times, July 30, 2014. In opposing the initiative to assist African American young men, she writes; in part, “Perhaps the exclusion of women and girls is the price to be paid for any race-focused initiative in this era....Gender exclusivity isn’t new, but it hasn’t been so starkly articulated as public policy in generations…It amounts to abandonment of women of color….” Steinem herself wrote a scathing letter to the editor in support of Crenshaw’s position, and The New York Times felt compelled to accompany the letter with a drawing of a ladder with easy short steps for the boy climbing up and difficult wide steps for the girl on the other side of the ladder. 162 8. Meltzer, Marisa. Who Is a Feminist Now? The New York Times, May 21, 2014.

Chapter 9 Inside the Male and Female Brain: Teachers Really Need Sex Ed 1. O’Shea, M.V. The Trend of the Teens. Chicago: Frederick J. Drake & Co., 1920. 2. Digest of Education Statistics, Center for Education Statistics, Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Education, 2007. 3. Sagan, Carl. The Dragons of Eden. Ballentine Books, New York,1977 1977., 4. Gurian, Michael. Boys and Girls Learn Differently.San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2001. 5. BBC Science and Nature. Retrieved September 22, 2010, from BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/add_user.shtml. 6. Ibid. 7. Baron-Cohen, Simon. The Essential Difference: Men, Women, and the Extreme Male Brain. London: Penguin Books, 2004. 8. Gurian, Michael. What Could He be Thinking? How a Man’s Mind Really Works. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003. 9. Gurian, 2001. 10. Sax, Leonard. Reclaiming Kindergarten: Making Kindergarten Less Harmful to Boys. Psychology of Men and Masculinity Vol. 2, No. I,, 3-12, 2001. 11. Ibid. 12. Gurian, 2001. 13. Sax.

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14. Girls Have Big Advantage Over Boys on Timed Tests. Kennedy Research Center for Human Development, Vanderbilt University, 2006. Additional references: Hall, J. A. (1978). Gender Effects in Decoding Nonverbal Cues. Psychological Bulletin, v85 n4, p845-57. Mehrabian, A. (1971). Silent Messages. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Co. Svoboda, B. J. (2000). Mensight Magizine. Retrieved 06-23- 2008 from http://mensightmagazine.com/reviews/Svoboda/ boysandgirls.htm

Chapter 10 Boys in the Classroom: Why Boys Do Less Work 1. We surveyed teachers about whether their boys or girls were more likely to turn work in late. Some 84% of the teachers said boys, just 4% said girls, 8% said both, and 4% did not know. If teachers answered either girls or boys, they were then asked if turning homework in on time would improve (help) their grade. 96% of teachers replied ‘Yes’ and only 4% said ‘No.’ 2. Du, Yi PhD. Gender Difference and Student Learning. Report to Edina Board of Education, April 2002, Director of Research and Evaluation. http://www.edina.k12.mn.us/news/reports/GenderReport. pdf 3. Ibid. 4. Rogers, Lynne & Hallam, Sue. Gender differences in approaches to studying for the GCSE among high achieving pupils. Open Uni- versity, University of London in Educational Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1, March 2006, pages 59-71. 5. Jianzhong, Xu. Gender and Homework Management Reported by High School Students. Educational Psychology, Volume 26, Number 1, February 2006, pp. 73-91.

164 6. Rogers and Hallam. 7. Jianzhong Xu. 8. We studied, in our online courses for faculty, how many times males and females took our unit quizzes. The unit quizzes have a pass rate of 80% and can be taken as many times as the learner wishes. There is no extra reward for scores above 80%. For the four unit quizzes, female teachers took them an average of 11 times while the male teachers took them an average of 6 times. What happens is that when male teachers reach the pass rate, they tend to stop taking the quiz. However, even after reaching the pass rate, female teachers tend to keep taking the quizzes until the reach or approach 100%. 9. Highfield, Roger & Carter, Paul.The Private Lives of Albert Ein- stein. NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. 10. Pinker, Susan. Page 34. 11. Interview with Coates and Draves. Orlando Florida, 2002. 12. Interview with William A. Draves, 2005. 13. http://www.fairtest.org/individual-acts-resistance. North Carolina special education teacher Doug Ward could no longer bring himself to give the state’s alternative assessments to his students with severe disabilities. He was fired for his act of civil disobedience. Ward, who had been teaching special needs students for three years, said he did not want to give a test to his students that was invalid and that they could not pass. “Someone needs to use a little common sense and say, ‘I am just not going to do it,’” Ward said. 14. Draves & Coates, Nine Shift. Page 210. 15. Ibid. Page 213. 16. Ibid. Pages 213 – 214.

Chapter 12 Helping Female Students Learn More 1. Pinker, Susan. The Sexual Paradox. Scribner, New York, 2008,

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page 149. 2. Cit 16 Statistics Canada. The Gap in Achievement between Boys and Girls. March 9, 2006, www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/81-004- XIE/200410/male.htm. 3. Pinker. Page 118. 4. Baron-Cohen, Simon. Sex Differences in Mind: Keeping Science Distinct from Social Policy. Quoted in Pinker. Page 199. 5. Seligson, Hannah. New Girl on the Job. Page 158. 6. Ibid. Page 160. 7. College instructor from LaCrosse. Wisconsin on Wisconsin Public Radio, May, 2009. 8. Sullivan, Jacquelyn F. A Call for K–16 Engineering Education. The Bridge, Volume 36, Number 2 - Summer 2006. 9. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/11/ where-to-go-to-college-if-you-want-the-highest-starting-sa- lary/?hpid=z4 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/26/ the-college-majors-most-and-least-likely-to-lead-to-under- employment/?tid=pm_pop

Chapter 13 For Educators 1. Gurian. Page 45. 2. Laura Burkey. http://www.positivepath.net/ideasLB3.asp 3. Candy, Philip C. Self Direction for Lifelong Learning. Jossey Bass Publishers, San Francisco, 1991, page 391. 4. Draves, William A. Advanced Teaching Online. LERN, Fourth Edition, 2013, page 133.

166 5. Ibid. Page 136. 6. Study of Carleton College Alumni comments from 2004. Reunion book for the Class of 1971. 7. Marriott, Michel. We Have to Operate, but Let’s Play First. New York Times, February 24, 2005.

Chapter 14 Conclusion: End the Gender War, Celebrate the Boys 1. Sommers, Christina Hoff. The Boys Are Back. The New York Times, February 2, 2013, citing “Non-cognitive Skills and the Gen- der Disparities in Test Scores and Teacher Assessments: Cornwell, Christopher M. Evidence from Primary School. University of Geor- gia, David B. Mustard, University of Georgia and IZA and Jessica Van Parys, Columbia University, Journal of Human Resources, Winter 2013. 2. Voyer, Daniel & Voyer, Susan D. Gender Differences in Scholastic Achievement: A Meta-Analysis. University of New Brunswick, Psy- chological Bulletin, American Psychological Association, 2014, Vol. 140, No. 4, 1174–1204 3. See; for example, “High levels of physical activity are associated with better reading and arithmetic skills in the first three school years among boys.” Timo A. Lakka, Professor of Medical Physiology, Specialist in Internal Medicine, MD, PhD, Institute of Biomedicine, University of Eastern Finland, September 11, 2014. 4. Papageorge, Nicholas. The Economic Value of Breaking Bad Mis- behavior. Schooling and the Labor Market. Johns Hopkins Universi- ty, Victor Ronda, Johns Hopkins University, Yu Zheng, City Univer- sity of Hong Kong, Social Science Research Network, September 30, 2014. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2503293 5. Robert Massa, quoted in The New York Times, July 9, 2006 6. As far as what would help, Cornwell says “there’s probably no substitute for having a teacher being sufficiently aware of students as individuals and their individual needs.” From Why Girls Get Bet- 167 Smart Boys, Bad Grades

ter Grades Than Boys, “It’s soft skills, not test scores, says a new study,” by Anna North, BuzzFeed Staff, January 4, 2013, http:// www.buzzfeed.com/annanorth/why-girls-get-better-grades-than- boys#2wveef7

168 Join Parents of Boys Parents of Boys is a citizens group started by Julie Coates and William A. Draves. The two purposes are: 1. To give parents information to help their sons succeed in school, and 2. To advocate for gender equality in education by having schools and colleges grade solely based on learning and knowledge, instead of behavior. Anyone is welcome to join. There is no cost. Join us by going to ParentsofBoys.org or email [email protected] Gender in the Classroom Take our online course for teachers and parents - interact online with Julie Coates and William A. Draves. - dialogue with other parents and teachers - get more tips to help both girls and boys learn more and succeed more in school. It is a one-month online course. Log on as often as you wish, anytime. The course is offered 3-4 times a year. The cost is $145. It is sponsored by over 200 colleges, universities, schools, and other educational organizations throughout Canada and the United States. For information on how to register, email [email protected] or online at www.UGotClass.net

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170 About the Authors

Julie Coates is an educational researcher and one of the foremost authorities on learners and learning styles. She is author of Generational Learning Styles, the pioneering book on the subject. She is one of the nation’s foremost experts on gender and learning and she teaches faculty about Students with ASD (autism spectrum disorder), and Asperger’s. Coates has been interviewed by The New York Times, Psychol- ogy Today, BBC, and many other national media. She has given presentations all over the United States, including Harvard, as well as overseas, such as Russia, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Mexico, and Canada. She is a Senior Vice President for the Learning Resources Network (LERN), a national education association, and teaches in the graduate program in Adult and Higher Education for the University of South Dakota. Julie was born and raised in Black Mountain, North Carolina. She attended Cornell University, North Carolina State University, and pur- sued graduate study in public administration and adult education at Kansas State University where she earned her Master’s Degree. She was a civil rights leader in the 1960’s in Greensboro, North Carolina where the Ku Klux Klan tried to kill her. She has been called “one of the heroines” of the civil rights movement by an attorney with the U.S. Fair Housing Bureau, and she appears in the civil rights docu- mentary Change Comes Knockin. She has taught elementary school, ran one of the nation’s pre- miere lifelong learning programs, and mentored at-risk young African American males from single parent families.

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William A. Draves is a futurist, consultant, teacher, and President of the Learning Resources Network. He is co-author with Julie Coates of Nine Shift: Work, life, and education in the 21st Century, which accurately predicted the major shifts occurring in society in the first two decades of the 21st Century. Draves has authored six other books on education, including Ad- vanced Teaching Online (fourth edition, 2013), How to Teach Adults (fourth edition, 2013), and with Julie Coates, The Pedagogy of the 21st Century (2011). One of the most frequently quoted experts on lifelong learning by the nation’s media, he has appeared on NBC TV, NPR, CBS radio, BBC radio, and has been interviewed by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Advertising Age, Kiplinger, and many more media. Draves has done a TED-NASA talk and keynoted conferences all over the world, including Japan, Russia, Australia, Germany, the Unit- ed Kingdom, Mexico, and throughout Canada and the United States. He was the first person to discover that the Gen Y population is driving less than previous generations. Bill was born and raised in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, attended Car- leton College and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and holds a Master’s Degree in adult education from The George Washington University in Washington, DC. Maureen Geddes, vice president of the Ontario Speakers Associa- tion, calls him “a world class speaker” and educator Phil Housel of Kerrville, Texas says, “I’d trample my grandma to hear Draves speak.”

172 About Coates and Draves

Julie Coates and William A. Draves are two of education’s foremost futurists. They are the most quoted experts on lifelong learning by the nation’s media, having been interviewed by The New York Times, BBC, Washington Post, Psychology Today, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, NBC Nightly News, and Wired. Julie Coates and William A. Draves com, among others. Their classic work is Nine Shift: Work, Life, and Education in the 21st Century, in which they predicted the major shifts taking place in society today. Coates and Draves have keynoted conferences around the world, including Russia, Japan, Australia, England, Germany, Slovenia, Mexico, and throughout Canada and the United States. As parents, mentors, and educators teaching faculty, they have been studying gender equality in education for over 15 years. They were the first ones to discover why males get worse grades than females in education and the first to identify the solution.