okevey
10-26-2010, 01:05 AM
Boy’s New Struggle
In the opinion piece The Boys Have Fallen Behind by Nicholas Kristof, Kristof describes the educational gender gap with boys in school who are falling behind. Boys are scoring lower in reading, writing, and other proficiency testing. Kristoff investigates why this could be and proposes theories such as boys aren’t as verbal. One of his tactics would be use to improve boys reading, would be to show them more adventure or squirming books to attract them to read. He wants the boys to not have to keep struggling but to excel so that their generation and generations to come may be the best.
Kristof’s has urgency in trying to figure out why boy’s biggest struggle is reading. Kristof points out how “our future depends on making the best use of human capital we can, whether it belongs to girls or boys.” His biggest claim is that no matter who it is that is ruling the world; we should not let them keep falling behind. He shows all these statistics on how on all grade levels, being at an actual proficient reading level, girls are performing better than boys. Other statistics showing that girls’ grade point average is higher than a boys, is something we should take very seriously. In school, reading is critical, for all the material that is covered, is referenced in books; if they can’t read proficiently then how can they be expected to learn the material? We cannot just sit back and do nothing about it because this issue will not go away unless approached in a way different to how you could approach girls, it would have to be in a way that interested the boys more.
His solution to the gender gap is to “encourage lowbrow, adventure or even gross-out books that disproportionately appeal to boys.” Kristof likes this idea because he admits that it worked on him and he uses it with his own kids. To offer them material that has “ghost and wrestlers,” is like having a light bulb go off in their head, that will have them reading and looking at the words and pages in a book in a different way. Not all reading will be appealing to a young boy, especially if they present to them a story of the three princesses. They need something that they can relate to or that attracts their attention. If they are flipping through channels on the television, they are going to stop on a show that has more action, they don’t want to be bored, but entertained and intrigued.
I do agree with Kristof’s solution because with anything, you will pay attention to something more if you are interested in it. If you are more of a romantic, then you will drift toward a love story, if American history is your calling, you will be thrilled reading a historical fiction novel. I know a lot of boys that have been attracted to the whole gangster scene and when there is a book about another kid from the ghetto who has to through a tough life they are fascinated by it. A book is like a movie, but in words, you give a kid an interesting book, they’ll want to see what happens and read (watch) what happens next.
If the trend continued, the percentages of girls doing better in school then boys would increase, boys would be the new minority. There are already plenty of prisoners who have a third grade reading level, and there would be plenty more joining them, thus there would be more violence. With the economy going down, the help for them wouldn’t be as great, especially with all the teachers being fired. Somehow, this would be good for women, they would be getting hired more in jobs and slowly taking over the world.
In the opinion piece The Boys Have Fallen Behind by Nicholas Kristof, Kristof describes the educational gender gap with boys in school who are falling behind. Boys are scoring lower in reading, writing, and other proficiency testing. Kristoff investigates why this could be and proposes theories such as boys aren’t as verbal. One of his tactics would be use to improve boys reading, would be to show them more adventure or squirming books to attract them to read. He wants the boys to not have to keep struggling but to excel so that their generation and generations to come may be the best.
Kristof’s has urgency in trying to figure out why boy’s biggest struggle is reading. Kristof points out how “our future depends on making the best use of human capital we can, whether it belongs to girls or boys.” His biggest claim is that no matter who it is that is ruling the world; we should not let them keep falling behind. He shows all these statistics on how on all grade levels, being at an actual proficient reading level, girls are performing better than boys. Other statistics showing that girls’ grade point average is higher than a boys, is something we should take very seriously. In school, reading is critical, for all the material that is covered, is referenced in books; if they can’t read proficiently then how can they be expected to learn the material? We cannot just sit back and do nothing about it because this issue will not go away unless approached in a way different to how you could approach girls, it would have to be in a way that interested the boys more.
His solution to the gender gap is to “encourage lowbrow, adventure or even gross-out books that disproportionately appeal to boys.” Kristof likes this idea because he admits that it worked on him and he uses it with his own kids. To offer them material that has “ghost and wrestlers,” is like having a light bulb go off in their head, that will have them reading and looking at the words and pages in a book in a different way. Not all reading will be appealing to a young boy, especially if they present to them a story of the three princesses. They need something that they can relate to or that attracts their attention. If they are flipping through channels on the television, they are going to stop on a show that has more action, they don’t want to be bored, but entertained and intrigued.
I do agree with Kristof’s solution because with anything, you will pay attention to something more if you are interested in it. If you are more of a romantic, then you will drift toward a love story, if American history is your calling, you will be thrilled reading a historical fiction novel. I know a lot of boys that have been attracted to the whole gangster scene and when there is a book about another kid from the ghetto who has to through a tough life they are fascinated by it. A book is like a movie, but in words, you give a kid an interesting book, they’ll want to see what happens and read (watch) what happens next.
If the trend continued, the percentages of girls doing better in school then boys would increase, boys would be the new minority. There are already plenty of prisoners who have a third grade reading level, and there would be plenty more joining them, thus there would be more violence. With the economy going down, the help for them wouldn’t be as great, especially with all the teachers being fired. Somehow, this would be good for women, they would be getting hired more in jobs and slowly taking over the world.