BaltimoreTwilightMarauder
Superstar
Society tells men they're useless and irrelevant. That gets internalized.
Why American boys are failing at school—and men are losing in life
- Thread starter ogc163
- Start date
dora_da_destroyer
Master Baker
I didn’t say pushing college is irresponsible, i said pushing it as the de facto move after high school is. People should go to college later in life. Adolescence is considered to extend to 25, why the fukk are we telling 17/18 yr olds to make adult/lifetime decisions before they even exit adolescence?
And I’ll kindly pass on military conscription for this country
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Althalucian
All Star
Right. We should normalize college later in life and the government should give some financial help (non-loan based) to do so. If anything, we need to build a society that does that because we are on a path of AI replacing or redefining a lot of jobs. It’s one of the few ways our workforce can keep up. I say the longer you are out of college/university the more the government gives you when you want to retrain.
Amo Husserl
Superstar
The formative years of their development into manhood have been compromised. More women are teachers and single mothers; a boy's home and school environment is dominated by women. These crucial environments of his formative years are without strong male role models to demonstrate constructive masculinity. Alienation, peer influence and media consumption without mediation are also leaving these boys to their own in the trenches.
They grow up with single mothers, get to the age where fathers should take over, since they aren't present the affection they associate with their mother changes and the disciplinary role compounded by a mother's inability to raise a man damages the relationship. Home becomes hostile.
Factor teacher discipline, boys are being emasculated before the understand their masculinity and it blunts their self-conception. Social factors have a direct psychological impact causing an ability to function in society as men like they're expected. Their place in society isn't clear anymore and their haphazard development is penalized.
Working in warehouse a year and half ago, the amount of young men complaining about work or couldn't do it was depressing. Turnover rates were high, arguing and fighting on the floor was common and attendance was dodgy.
Fathers leaving boys in bad situations for selfish reasons and treating certain jobs as being for women only bites the next generation of men.
They grow up with single mothers, get to the age where fathers should take over, since they aren't present the affection they associate with their mother changes and the disciplinary role compounded by a mother's inability to raise a man damages the relationship. Home becomes hostile.
Factor teacher discipline, boys are being emasculated before the understand their masculinity and it blunts their self-conception. Social factors have a direct psychological impact causing an ability to function in society as men like they're expected. Their place in society isn't clear anymore and their haphazard development is penalized.
Working in warehouse a year and half ago, the amount of young men complaining about work or couldn't do it was depressing. Turnover rates were high, arguing and fighting on the floor was common and attendance was dodgy.
Fathers leaving boys in bad situations for selfish reasons and treating certain jobs as being for women only bites the next generation of men.
ogc163
Superstar
Gritsngravy
Superstar
I don’t think it’s because boys aren’t competitive, maybe the education system isn’t necessarily set up to boys strengths, and I’ve heard theories that it’s best to separate genders in schools for the optimal learning experience
Gritsngravy
Superstar
But the only reason why you think it’s crazy to tell 17 year olds to make those decisions because they wasn’t prepared to go to college that’s why it’s still a grammar school and parent issue more so than making college the de facto move after highschool, it’s not crazy to send 17 year olds to college, a lot of people just aren’t prepared during there developmental years to succeed in higher education
And if I could be honest, mandatory military service might be what we need, military will prepare boys to succeed in higher education
dora_da_destroyer
Master Baker
no, it's because most kids have no clue what careers are out there, no life experience, no idea of what they want to do, no idea of if they even need college for what they want to do, etc. plenty of kids are academically prepared for college, yet doing well academically doesn't relate to the choices you're making in regards to long term career options. some schools, you have to apply and be accepted to a major when you apply out of high school. that's stupid. sure there is a decent percent of kids who know they want to be engineers or doctors and are ready to declare CS or pre-med as a major out of HS, but the majority of us graduate and just fall into something. lots of kids would be better off working, doing internships or co-ops and then starting college and approaching academics with more maturity at 20/21.
and the military doesn't do shyt except drill authoritarianism and conservatism into the heads of servicemen, we don't need more conservative men who are bread to think everything should fall into a hierarchy. i'm also not for fueling the military industrial complex of this country. you know what breeds discipline? meditation, yoga, martial arts, setting a goal and working toward it, etc. you know what prepares you for academics? actually wanting to learn, ie something that comes with not being forced into it
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Gritsngravy
Superstar
Most kids don’t know what they want to do but I would argue that’s because of lack of development in there formative years, and working at jewel osco isn’t going to help them with ambition or doing well in college, in my opinion most kids need to be indoctrinated into following a path, kids need to be pushed, most people need to be forced (not physically) to do whatever
The military actually does what you described in your first paragraph, They travel, learn trades, learn helpful skills, and earn college credits while in service, Is it a conservative environment? Yes, but I don’t think that’s a reason to dismiss it for training boys especially black boys, speaking specifically on black boys I wouldn’t look at it as fueling the mic but infiltration
True. I remember Obama came out with my brothers keeper to address black men underperforming and he got alot of flack for that.
Something missing from the article is that schools are really poorly set up, full stop. Institutional learning has ALWAYS been a bad deal. Teacher in the front lecturing, rows of 30 desks quietly listening or doing work for 6 hours, having to sit still all that time taking in most information passively - that has ALWAYS been a bad way to learn. It's just that girls on average tend to be somewhat better at surviving it because a higher percentage of them can sit still / be passive for extended periods, plus they relate more to a massively female-dominant teacher body.
The issue is only coming to a head now because we no longer accept 30-50% of the population not finishing high school. 50-100 years ago many farm boys stayed at home and city boys went to work in the factory or learned a trade. None of that required you to do well in high school. Now practically everything does.
Add in the breakdown of the family resulting in fewer men at home, add in fewer male teachers in school than ever before, add in the drops in attention brought about by technology and the strains on society brought about by cycles of drug epidemics, and you have a really ugly recipe for boys in school. This issue was already getting noticed when I was studying education 20 years ago, we could see the trend line at the time and knew it was heading here.
Obviously more men staying at home to raise their boys would be a big help. Obviously more men in the classrooms would be a big help. But I don't think you'll get boy equality in schools at that lower end unless you substantially reform the way school is conducted. As the article says, school should start later (Finland starts their kids on academic work at 7 yet has one of the top-performing systems in the entire world), and before that preschools should focus on play-based learning without academic rigor. Once they do start going to school, classes should be much more active, much more intellectually stimulating, much more focused on actual work rather than listening to lecture. Wouldn't be a bad idea to eliminate classroom lectures entirely or reduce them to half-a-class-a-week or so. And the school day should be broken up with lots of arts, trades, and skills rather than pure academic pencil-paper shyt. Intersperse the academic paper work with gardening, carpentry, music lessons, etc.
Doing all that would keep boys MUCH more engaged in the educational process and far more likely to finish.
The issue is only coming to a head now because we no longer accept 30-50% of the population not finishing high school. 50-100 years ago many farm boys stayed at home and city boys went to work in the factory or learned a trade. None of that required you to do well in high school. Now practically everything does.
Add in the breakdown of the family resulting in fewer men at home, add in fewer male teachers in school than ever before, add in the drops in attention brought about by technology and the strains on society brought about by cycles of drug epidemics, and you have a really ugly recipe for boys in school. This issue was already getting noticed when I was studying education 20 years ago, we could see the trend line at the time and knew it was heading here.
Obviously more men staying at home to raise their boys would be a big help. Obviously more men in the classrooms would be a big help. But I don't think you'll get boy equality in schools at that lower end unless you substantially reform the way school is conducted. As the article says, school should start later (Finland starts their kids on academic work at 7 yet has one of the top-performing systems in the entire world), and before that preschools should focus on play-based learning without academic rigor. Once they do start going to school, classes should be much more active, much more intellectually stimulating, much more focused on actual work rather than listening to lecture. Wouldn't be a bad idea to eliminate classroom lectures entirely or reduce them to half-a-class-a-week or so. And the school day should be broken up with lots of arts, trades, and skills rather than pure academic pencil-paper shyt. Intersperse the academic paper work with gardening, carpentry, music lessons, etc.
Doing all that would keep boys MUCH more engaged in the educational process and far more likely to finish.
Working a shytty job, with very little room for "advancement" was all the motivation I needed to get back into school.
ogc163
Superstar
OperationNumbNutts
Superstar
I blame capitalism. America values the dollar and know women are loyal spenders compared to men. That's why the last few decades there has been a strong push for women in education, careers, self-empowerment, and the list goes on and on. Right now this country doesn't have a platform for male development and could care less. They are even letting girls join boyscouts now. As long as institutions are getting paid, they could care less about the impact.
OperationNumbNutts
Superstar
That is a talking point that is flat out bullshyt.
Science also said years ago that blacks brains were smaller than whites. There are people under 25 in the military responsible for important shyt. Next I'm sure those studies didn't factor how people are raised. Most of the times boys are told don't break stuff and you'll be alright. Girls are given babysitting duties, choirs, helping organize the house, etc. That's why when they're 18 they are several steps above 18 males. It's the same story producing the same rsults.