Ignoring the Warnings?
Submitted by Boys and Schools Blog
I sometimes suspect that the Boy Crisis may be a bit too abstract for some people, like Third World poverty or the trainwreck that is Britney Spears. In other words, it’s easy to understand, from a distance, that something is very, very wrong, but except for a select few (like people who work for international aid organizations, or Starbucks barristas in the case of Ms. Spears) you rarely see the damage up close and personal. So, when I tell you that according to any number of measurements, boys are slipping and in trouble, it may seem like something to be concerned about, but still distant.
Unfortunately, the way these distant and abstract problems work is that you rarely realize how serious they are in time to forestall them–instead people wait and deny that the situation is all that urgent. Until one day they’re in the ballroom of the Titanic with waist-high water and Billy Zane shooting at them, wondering why they didn’t realize earlier that the island of ice they hit might have a negative effect on the trip. Yeah, I’m really feeling the metaphors today.
Obviously, the point that I’ve nearly metaphored senseless here is that we’re still in a place of denial and inaction when it comes to the boy crisis, but there are warning signs everywhere to indicate that we’ve got to start taking it seriously. Consider the latest report from Wales (regular readers will know that Great Britain has been experiencing a similar crisis in boys’ education), which finds that girls do better than boys in 85% of all secondary schools in Wales–and not just in language-based subjects (the first place boys slip behind), but across the board. We’ve known for some time what the answers are–namely, work to make schools more boy-friendly, push for more flexibility in education, and urge policymakers to confront the issue. We have to start helping others see the coming iceberg before it’s too late.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
One Response to “Ignoring the Warnings?”
Leave a Reply
Verlyn Ross owns and operates a website dedicated specifically to providing health and fitness information. It includes a wealth of free articles in which you may have an interest. I invite you to access and freely explore my website.