We Need to Rescue Our Boys
In many societies young black men are faced with many challenges.
We are now at a critical intersection of race, social inequality and gender. The problem threatens to spiral into social anarchy if not properly addressed and this should be worrying for most of us.
We must urge our political leaders to find ways and means of rescuing our boys who for the most part are sliding into a state of underachievement and underperformance at all levels of the education system.
From as early as primary school there is concrete evidence which clearly distinguish our girls outperforming our boys in all the national examinations. For example, in Jamaica, the Grade Four Literacy and Numeracy Tests, as well as, the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) clearly points to girls outperforming boys.
The crisis affecting our boys is not unique to Jamaica. Other Caribbean islands are also experiencing similar issues. Developed societies such as the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Australia are also grappling with the plight of boys and scholastic underachievement as well as how to address the problem.
According to United States Department of Justice, 13 per cent of the American population is African American; however, African Americans alarmingly comprise 40 per cent of the 2.1 million male inmates. Sixty five (65%) per cent of all black inmates are aged 20-39.
Male underachievement is more a socio-political issue than an educational one. Social and cultural factors have continued to influence the various ways in which masculinity is defined not only in the Jamaican society but societies all over. Masculinity and what it means to be a man does impact on the education of our boys. Many boys view the school experience as feminine. Our boys’ life choices are severely circumscribed by the dominant notions of masculinity competing with “multiple masculinities” in the society. For many boys especially in a homophobic and transphobic Jamaican society they are forced to remove themselves from any association with the feminine or curriculum areas related to same. One glaring example of boys removing themselves from perceived feminine curriculum is the continuous poor performance of our boys in English Language in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination.
Boys who speak or attempt to speak Standard English are called derogatory names and ridiculed almost daily by their peers. The dominant notion of masculinity in the wider Jamaican society is one in which to speak Standard English is tantamount to being isolated by one’s peers and the accompanying question marks which undoubtedly will follow surrounding one’s sexual orientation. Not to be outdone our schools which mirror the wider society and space in which we occupy also suffer from this. Not surprisingly a significant number of our boys do not readily code switch between the languages, instead they prefer to use and remain with the language of what defines a man to be a man. Interestingly, even boys from a background of privilege and from homes where Standard English is spoken are now struggling with the English Language as we continue to see the intersection of class and gender and how this impacts the school experience for our boys.
Our boys learn from quite early that having an education is not vital to be successful in life. In fact if we assess success in terms of material possessions in the Jamaican context we will see that an overwhelmingly majority of those men who are successful are those who did not excel at scholastic pursuits. Many of these “successful” men in our society could be grouped in the greater in the categories of (high) school drop-outs and those who have run a foul with the law.
Related to the problem of boys underachievement is the issue of our failing schools. They are those among us who prefer not to use the term failing; however, these schools are just that because they are unable to produce pupils with high levels of literacy and numeracy which is a must if we are going to find creative means of overcoming our economic issues. The problem of failing schools is inextricably linked to poor leadership and management of those schools.
Throughout the Caribbean the issue of male underachievement is pervasive. In the Caribbean island of Barbados a similar problem of boy’s underachievement exists. In the Barbados Secondary Schools Entrance Examination (BSSEE) of 2011 of the 26 students who attained 100 per cent, females outnumbered males. Sixteen (16) females scored 100 per cent this examination compared to ten (10) males which is used to place pupils in high schools. In the previous year 2010, females also outperformed males in regard to those students scoring 100 per cent.
According to data from the Barbadian Ministry of Education the overall national mean in Mathematics was 58.72 as compared to 60.92 in 2011 and 51.4 in 2010, indicating a 2.19 per cent decrease in 2012 than in 2011. The performance for both males and females decreased slightly in 2012 over last year. For the females, it was 62.12 per cent in 2012 as compared to 65.18 in 2011, a decrease of 3.06 while for males in 2012, the overall performance 55.53 as compared to 56.83 in 2011, and a marginal decline of 1.30 percentage points. Interestingly, girls are now outperforming boys in the area of Mathematics which was traditionally a strong area for boys.
Barbados has adapted a sort of ‘affirmative’ action at the primary level to stem boys’ underachievement at that level. According to an official in the Barbados Ministry of Education
Boys who perform poorly in the Common Entrance Examination are given the opportunity to attend what is termed the ”most favoured or older secondary schools in Barbados”
Students who score highest in the examination are often placed in these older and more favoured secondary schools. However, if the high school offers 120 places, for example, the Education Ministry invariably sends 60 boys and 60 girls, although the girls’ scores are much higher than the boys’.
The interference of politics in the education system is the genesis of most of the ills affecting the school system. We interfere in terms of how school principals are appointment. Too many of our principals are political appointees. Consequently, the best and most suitable candidate is always denied the job if he/she does not have the political backing. Then again this is just the problem in the wider Jamaican society and therefore how could we expect better in this sphere.
Having said that we can all conclude that enough research has been done in the arena of boys, underachievement and under-performance and as such no more is required in order to address the problem. The time is now at hand to find solutions and implement policies and programmes to save our boys who will become irresponsible men if we do not rescue them.
Let us examine some of the solutions to the problem.
One way of attempting to address the plight of our boys who are now “disadvantaged” is by “recuperative masculinity politics which calls for a reasserting of masculine privileges in light of the fact that the specific needs of boys are subsumed under the priority given to girls and minorities. We need to thrive for gender justice in our education system so boys can benefit equally from the teaching/learning experience.
There is also the need to urgently recast our current gender policy. One way of doing so is to incorporate more men in the discourse to shape our national gender policy. It’s ludicrous to think that women only or a gender board dominated by women can advocate the needs of our boys and men. We also need to examine the possibility of creating so-called ‘boy-friendly’ curricula, assessment and pedagogical practices. We now know that boys learn differently than girls and therefore we should use this knowledge to refashion teaching methodologies that speak to both sexes in the classroom. Our teachers, colleges and universities should be challenged and given incentives to create or re-design new methods of teaching with a specific focus on boys. We need to create safe spaces for boys at our schools and engage them in meaningful discussions about notions of masculinity and get from them ideas and suggestions which could be implemented to address their issues.
The society also needs to revisit how we ascribe and contribute ‘successes to those endeavours which education is not necessarily a factor. The (undervalued) social currency which we now use to judge success needs to be revalued. We need to “make over” the education system with a macho view and “de-feminize” the education system.
We need to view the issue of male under-performance and underachievement with a sense of urgency and dispatch, if not; we are going to continue to witness the spread of a deviant strand of hyper masculinity sweeping across the education system. This reconstruction of masculinity is already manifesting itself in all our schools. Our boys are wearing their school pants well below their waist and at times exposing their undergarments. Our boys have altered their uniforms both the pants and shirts so much that we can almost see all the contours of their body. Those boys who wear the correct uniform are teased and referred to as “old”. For many of our misguided boys to be young is to wear tight fitted khaki pants/uniform. Our boys have become more violent in recent years even to the point of physically abusing female teachers. Male teachers over the years have endured physical attacks from our boys; however, this new attack on the female teachers by our boys should be viewed as a wake up call for school administrators and policy makers about the urgent need to rescue our boys. Boys are bleaching their skin as much as the girls now, in fact in some schools the majority of the “bleachers” are boys. I will not even mention the fact that body paintings or tattoos have all but taken over the skin of many of our students. I ask myself where are the parents; obviously the issue of parenting is for another time.
It is no secret that our boys are lacking in positive role models and therefore we need to employ more male teachers. However, we should not just employ more male teachers in a vacuum we need to ensure that all our teachers are people of impeccable character. We need to re-masculinise the education system and bring to the classroom a wide range of constructive behaviours and masculinities which would challenge the hegemonic notions of masculinity and facilitate our boys from all social classes and backgrounds to excel in their given field of choice.
The Caribbean and indeed the world needs to pause at this crossroads. Our societies will not have sustainable development until we fix the underlying social issues which contribute to male underachievement and under performance. There is an urgent need for huge investment of capital to stimulate urban renewal in many of our poorer communities. We need to invest more in our schools especially schools in the poorer neighbourhoods in order to better prepare our young black men for tertiary level studies and the world of work. President Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” a $200 million dollar five year imitative is commendable and must be expanded in an effort to rescue more black young men.
“You will have to reject the cynicism that says the circumstances of your birth or society’s lingering injustices necessarily define you and your future.”-President Barack Obama
Download The Jamaican Blogs™ App for your Android device: HERE
Remember to share this article on Facebook and other Social Media Platforms. To submit your own articles or to advertise with us please send us an EMAIL at: [email protected]
Well written, well researched article. An eye opener.
well written and the research base is valid. they need help
Well written, thanks for the enlightenment
This is a growing Crisis for boys, even in China. I feel the problem has “not been looked at” in terms of much differential treatment that increases as we go down the socioeconomic ladder and more time in those environments. If anyone looks in those areas, they cannot help but see how the numbers of boys problems diminish greatly as we go up the socioeconomic ladder, even there they also falling slightly behind their female peers. As we go down the socioeconomic ladder, the numbers increase greatly. We need to also look at “much differential treatment of boys and girls beginning from infancy onward through adulthood. It is amazing to me that such differential treatment has not be looked at by the researchers. I imagine there are two reasons:
1. The belief in genetics has blinded researchers to the great social causes of learning, motivation and academics.
2.The present view of average stress sees stress as only occurring in some present situation, event, or work. We need to see how our average stress is made up many layers of past, present, future – experiences, fears, preparations for defense, needs, values of others, a host of unresolved mental work that remains with us we each carry as individuals as an average that take up real mental energy from thinking, learning, motivation to learn, and affects our mental/emotional health.
The problem is more complex than school curriculum or boy chemistry. We need to stop looking at where boys are in life, character, and behavior and begin looking at how boys are treated from infancy very differently from us as girls. We need to see how the more aggressive treatment they are given from infancy by parents, teachers, peers is creating more learning problems and less than correct behavior or care for authority and school.
To understand this, “we must redefine our average stress as many layers of mental work we carry with us that take away real mental energy leaving less mental energy to think, learn, concentrate, and enjoy the learning process. This differential treatment creates very real differences in learning by individual and by group.
The problem involves two entirely different treatments of Males and Females as early as one year of age and increases in differential treatment. This is creating the growing Male Crisis. The belief Males should be strong allows aggressive treatment of Males as early as one year, designed to create more layers of agitation, fear, and tension, so they will be prepared to fight, defend, and be tough. This is coupled with much “less” kind, stable, (very little verbal interaction) and less mental/emotional/social support, knowledge, and skills for fear of coddling. This increases over time and continued by society from peers, teachers and others in society. This creates more social/emotional distance from parents and other authority figures who have knowledge; lags in communication, lower social vocabulary, poor sentence structure; also higher average stress: more layers of mental agitated conflicts and fears taking away real mental energy that hurt learning and motivation to learn; also more activity due to need for stress relief; also more social/emotional distance from adults/teachers, defensiveness and wariness of others further hindering emotional and social growth; and higher muscle tension (creating more pressure on pencil and tighter grip) that hurts writing and motivation to write. It creates much lag in development creating a learned sense of helplessness in school. This differential treatment continues through adulthood, almost fixing many Males onto roads of failure and escape into more short-term areas of enjoyment. Also society gives Males love and honor (essential needs for self-worth) only on condition of some achievement or status. This was designed to keep Male esteem and feelings of self-worth low to keep them striving and even give their lives in time of war for small measures of love and honor. Males not achieving in school or other are given more ridicule and discipline to make them try harder. Support is not an option for fear of coddling. Many Males thus falling behind in academics then turn their attention toward video games and sports to receive small measures of love/honor not received in the classroom. The belief boys should be strong and the false belief in genetics that denies any connection with differential treatment and lower academics, lower esteem, and other problems over-rides all good sense when it comes to raising boys today.
I feel the shows of masculinity, misbehavior are pretty much copouts to both show separation from failure in school and to gleam small measures of love and honor from peers. The defensiveness from authority is really pretty straight forward, especially in lower socioeconomic areas where strength, power, and status hold very real currency in those areas. So for those students it not just misbehavior but for them, a tug of war or fight for minimum feelings of self-worth from a continual fight they feel outside the classroom as well as in.
Since we as girls by differential treatment are given much more positive, continual, mental, emotional/social support verbal interaction and care from an early age onward this creates quite the opposite outcome for girls compared with boys. We enjoy much more continuous care and support from infancy through adulthood and receive love and honor simply for being girls. This creates all of the good things: lower average stress for more ease of learning. We do enjoy much freedom of expression from much protection that makes us look less stable at times; we enjoy lower muscle tension for better handwriting/motivation; higher social vocabulary; lower average stress for reading/motivation; much more positive, trust/communication with adults, teachers, peers; and much more support for perceived weaknesses. We are reaping a bonanza in the information age. The lower the socioeconomic bracket and time in that bracket the more amplified the differential treatment from a young age and increased and more differentiated over time. Now with girls and women taking over many areas of society, we are enjoying even more lavishing of love and honor, while boys and men still treated to be tough are failing more and are being given even more ridicule and abuse by society and yes, also by girls and women. My learning theory and article on the Male Crisis will go to all on request or can be read from my home site at http://learningtheory.homestead.com/Theory.html