JILL PARKIN
UK
Daily Mail
Thursday, February 1, 2007
The swimming bag hit the car floor with a thump and my son hit
the car seat with an even bigger thump, grumbling: "What's
the point?"
His primary school had just lost a swimming competition, largely
because their head teacher had picked a team on the basis of enthusiasm
rather than ability.
To paraphrase that old cliche, it wasn't the winning that mattered,
it was the taking part.
Well, I'm sorry, but in the real world life is full of winners
and losers. And right now, the losers are a generation of boys
who have been betrayed by an education system that no longer recognises
crucial differences between the sexes.
For the story of my son's swimming competition is also the story
behind recent figures showing that boys going to university are
now outnumbered by girls in every subject, with 23,000 more places
awarded to women than to men.
I'd like to say the figures came as a surprise. But both as a
parent (of a boy and two girls) and as a writer on educational
matters, I'm sorry to say the figures are only too predictable.
The simple truth is that by the time our boys have done 12 or
even 14 years in the feminised environment of today's schools,
they all ask: "What's the point?"
If boys are not getting into university, or not applying in the
first place, it's because they've been turned off learning. They've
been given a message that it's not for them.
And that's a tragedy for all of us. For I don't want my daughters
growing up in a society full of alienated young men and I don't
want to live in a society which suffocates all the good aspects
of masculinity. Yet that's exactly what is happening in our schools.
Forget all that stuff about slugs, snails and puppy dogs' tails.
What boys are made of is this: tremendous data banks that can
recall years of FA Cup ties in minute detail; lashings of testosterone
that needs constant burning off on a sports field; and a hideous
competitive streak almost as vital to them as lifeblood itself.
Harnessed in the right way, these raw ingredients can help boys
make the most of their education. But far too many of today's
schools try to stifle these instincts in favour of a feminised
curriculum that benefits girls in almost every single regard.
The problems start in the classroom. Instead of the make-or-break
sprint to the exam deadline, boys have to endure stultifying coursework.
This system of continuous assessment means that anyone who can
call up Google on a computer can cut and paste answers from the
internet at home. Girls, with their more patient approach to learning,
thrive under such a system.
But where's the excitement and challenge for boys? Exams used
to be a chance for them to show off and think on their feet. Not
any more. No wonder all too many of them fall by the wayside,
and are opting out of the chance to go to university.
To put it bluntly, boys now find education boring. It used to
be said that the majority of firsts and thirds at Oxford and Cambridge
went to boys, while the girls were more likely to get seconds.
Why? Because the boys like taking risks - ending either in glorious
triumph or disaster. The girls tend to play it safer.
And today's curriculum is pretty risk-proof. This is at its most
obvious in science, where actual experiments with real flames
and real blood have been replaced by facts on paper or video demonstrations.
The Royal Society of Chemistry has what it calls serious concerns
about the decline in the teaching of practical chemistry. But,
in fact, schools have become anodyne in many other ways, too.
Essays are now so safe they can practically be marked by computer.
One of my daughters comes home with starter paragraphs and keywords
for her English essays already provided.
What if you have a brilliant idea, a passionate argument or a
ruthless analysis? Those are not encouraged because they don't
fit model essay plans.
Presentation, consistency and diligence may well be virtues,
but if we are to have physicists who will think the unthinkable,
politicians with radical ideas, inspired playwrights and musicians,
we need to have fireworks in the curriculum, too.
It's a teacher truism that little girls want to please and little
boys want to win. The trouble is that our whole system is geared
to a strange idea of egalitarianism which has somehow been confused
with fairness.
It is egalitarian to put anyone who can float in a swimming gala,
but it is not fair to those who can swim and want to compete.
And it won't get you anywhere.
The same thing goes for school certificates. I've sat through
many certificate assemblies in school and they're a farce.
Those who do best, who genuinely achieve great things, get hardly
any recognition because someone has decided that in the interests
of egalitarianism, most certificates should go to the less able.
So there are certificates for kindness and certificates for not
using bad language.
And so there should be, but it's equally important to reward
sheer excellence, too. Boys like prizes - but only real ones.
Once they are convinced the system is rigged, they don't want
to play.
Their testosterone and its companion competitive streak need
to be acknowledged. If they're ignored, boys get listless and
they start retreating into their hoodies and terrorising the rest
of us.
Eventually, they spend their time brawling, picking up ASBOs
instead of A-levels.
Education experts will point out there's a class issue here as
well. As university admission has extended to families whose children
have normally gone straight to work from school, it has picked
up far more working-class girls than working-class boys and that
accounts for some of the statistics.
These are the very boys most likely to be alienated by today's
style of curriculum, and, with their macho culture, they are the
ones most likely to slide into trouble if they leave school with
no skills and little chance of a job.
For example, a disruptive boy in my son's primary class was impossible
to deal with until the day his exasperated male teacher challenged
him to an arm-wrestling match (yes, it's probably a sackable offence).
The boy lost, took it with good grace and became considerably
better behaved. There was a male code at work that he recognised.
The same teacher also knew when playground fights were serious
and when they should just be allowed to run their course. The
women teachers, wanting a tidy playground, always stopped them.
Such macho attention-grabbing needs to be harnessed, not ignored.
Boys need sports, they need exams, competition and recognition.
You only have to look at how boys spend their spare time. They
shout themselves hoarse at football matches, they knock hell out
of each other in the virtual world of the computer. In short,
they compete. Mine does, anyway, even though he devours books,
too.
It ought to go without saying that boys and girls are different.
But today's schools are denying this basic biology.
In fact, any society needs both sexes to succeed and to be inspired
by their education. Right now, though, the lads are chucking their
kit on the floor and asking: "What's the point?"
And, frankly, I don't blame them.
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