THE FRAGILE STATE OF BOYHOOD | PART 2 OF 3

THE FRAGILE STATE OF BOYHOOD | PART 2 OF 3

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/13348885.htm

New findings lead to classroom changes for boys

By Rick Montgomery

Knight Ridder Newspapers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - See Dick think. He is not like Jane.

Teachers see it - boys tend to fidget and flail in ways unlike a
typical girl. Scientists see it, too - brain studies suggest boys
process language and emotions less efficiently.

Talk of sex differences can ignite arguments in these gender-neutral
times. But growing numbers of experts say society must face some
politically incorrect realities:

That males and females, on average, show differences in learning skills
- differences that may be hard-wired. And the evidence is compelling
enough that schools rooted in equal treatment should rewrite their
manuals to keep more boys engaged.

Take Dick's brain.

At age 12 it's three times more likely than Jane's to misfire enough to
be medicated for attention deficit//hyperactivity disorder. One out of
11 American boys that age downed medicine for the condition in 2003.
That's 200,000 12-year-olds - many of whom truly need the calming,
while others reflect a culture of too much calming.

Surveys also show boys landing the bulk of school suspensions. They
bring home 70 percent of the D's and F's, according to national data.

Certainly, lots of boys shine. Lots of girls don't. But boys as a group
have long puzzled teachers and parents by crowding into two opposing
camps - overachievers or discipline cases that may end up as
dropouts.

Researchers say more mysteries than answers exist. But a surge of
findings, aided by advances in brain imaging, is spurring changes many
hope can enhance boys' schooling:

Teachers sold on ``brain-based learning'' are using more visual and
physical stimuli to help boys retain lessons.

Citing that boys mature at least a year behind girls, some experts are
urging more parents to delay kindergarten for their sons.

Advocates of single-sex public schools are touting neurological data to
justify separating classrooms by gender - to help both sexes.

Some scientists even see a day when parents bring their kids'
brain-scan charts when meeting teachers.

For Amy Cameron, who teaches English, the research has turned around a
world view. ``It used to be, `Every child is equal - male or female.'
It was our ideology,'' she said. ``But a lot of us have done a 180.

``Now it's, `They really do think differently, and it's biological.'
Most boys resent lectures. Girls respond well to them. It's pretty
obvious.''

Not everybody agrees that schools need drastic changes. And nobody
advocates treating all boys one way, girls another. But what science
and common sense dictate is that society should reject temptations to
treat common boy behavior as a disease, many experts say.

Unless schools retool, ``it's a setup for failure,'' said Kathy
Stevens, co-author of ``The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons from Failing
in School and Life.'' ``He can't sit still, he can't stay focused ...
he must have a disorder!

``No. He's a boy.''

Maryland physician Leonard Sax is so convinced of nature's role in
learning, he founded a national group calling on public schools to
segregate classrooms by gender. ``Both girls and boys have been
disadvantaged by a system that disregards their hard-wiring.''

For example, science has shown - and teachers should know, he said
- that little girls generally hear better than little boys.

Even as toddlers, girls tend to score higher in language ability, face
recognition, fine motor skills and ``social sensitivity.'' Their higher
doses of oxytocin, a hormone linked to bonding, probably plays a role,
scientists believe.

Girls even test out better at multitasking.

All of that augurs against boys in the modern classroom. The language
gap can be especially troubling in early grades, when Sax says many
boys aren't yet ready to enjoy reading or even hearing a book recited
(unless it's loud and theatrical).

``The acceleration of early education has done more to cause boys to
disengage than anything else. They sit like a lump and think schooling
is a complete waste of time.''

In higher grades they are hampered, Sax said, by trends in reading
curricula: ``There's less reading about action and adventure, Captains
Courageous, and more on personal relationships ... As a result, boys
are reading less in their spare time than they did just 15 years ago.
Reading for fun has almost become a marker for gender identity.''

By the teen years, only 19 percent of boys report reading for pleasure
at least three hours a week, compared to 37 percent of girls, one poll
found.

Any good findings for boys? Yes, plenty.

As a group - even when very young - they are better at putting
shapes together and visualizing an object's appearance in three
dimensions. They tend to outscore girls in computation.

They excel in map reading. Perhaps because of lower brain blood flow,
boys can focus for longer periods on one task (Nintendo, anyone?) And,
on average, they finish tests faster than girls.

Some of these studies go back decades. And it's not likely our brains
at birth have changed much over generations. What keeps changing is
society's expectations for schooling, marked today by greater emphasis
on reading and attention, said University of Kansas Medical Center
child development specialist Kathryn Ellerbeck.

``Boys pay more for it now,'' she said. Years ago, a boy ``could have
ADHD and run around the farm without anybody even noticing.''

In recent years, mind-mapping technology has revealed more hints of
boys' learning hurdles.

Neural pathways between the two brain hemispheres generally allow girls
to ``cross-talk'' and activate both. Most boys, when hearing
instructions, are thought to activate only the left side. While
researchers aren't certain of the effects, David Powell of the
International Center for Health Concerns equates the pathway variations
to a paved interstate highway (in girls) and a meandering dirt lane (in
boys) between two towns.

``On average'' is key to understanding such differences, said Diane
Halpern, past president of the American Psychological Association and
author of ``Sex Differences in Intelligence.''

Within each gender, the differences between one brain and the next can
be countless; the averages are close by comparison. It's that way in
height, too: the gap between the tallest and shortest boy is far
greater than the average boy and average girl. ``There are no winners
and losers,'' Halpern said.

Some differences appear more striking than others, however.

Using functional MRI imaging on 19 people ages 7 to 17, Harvard
neuroscientist Deborah Yurgelun-Todd observed how brain metabolic
activity linked to strong emotions seems to move up, as children age,
from a deep nugget of the brain called the amygdala. In older teens,
scans caught activity in the cerebral cortex, the area that does the
talking.

But this was found only in girls. In teen boys, emotions remained stuck
in the amygdala.

``Asking a 17-year-old boy to talk about why he's glum may be about as
productive as asking a 6-year-old boy,'' said Sax, author of ``Why
Gender Matters.''

Sizing up the mysteries, Ellerbeck co-wrote a paper urging the sciences
to devote more resources for decoding sex selection in learning
disorders. Autism, for example, affects boys 4-to-1. Some studies
describe Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning cousin to autism, as
claiming 10 to 15 boys for every girl.

Just discussing Dick versus Jane stirs unease.

``There is some reluctance on the part of some people'' to make leaps
about male and female learning patterns, said Susan Adler, director of
teacher education at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

While the research intrigues, she said, science hasn't made a clear
case for transforming schools: ``I just don't think we're there yet.''

Sociologist Michael Kimmel of the State Universities of New York
rejected anyone pressing a case that sex differences affect learning.
``Really, how could you not call that anti-feminist?'' he asked.

Neurobiologist Larry Cahill of the University of California-Irvine, who
recently wrote up the topic in Scientific American, took exception:
``Laughably wrong, but I believe that view prevails.

``A lot of scientists still don't want to talk about sex differences in
the brain. It scares people ... But) what scares me is seeing my own
findings and choosing not to believe them.''