BRUNSWICK SCHOOL
JANUARY 2014
MONTHLY MAILING MEN ON STRIKE - WHY MEN ARE FLEEING COLLEGES Last spring, I saw a review of a new book by Dr. Helen Smith entitled Men on Strike: Why Men are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream. The review was written by Leslie Eastman. In her review, Eastman emphasizes some stats that are presented in the book and are drawn from the National Center for Education: - Since 1988, the number of females in post-baccalaureate programs has exceeded the number of males. - Between 2000 and 2010, the number of male full-time post-baccalaureate students increased by 38 percent, compared with a 62 percent increase in the number of females. - Among part-time post-baccalaureate students, the number of males increased by 17 percent and the number of females increased by 26 percent. Eastman also points out that many people hold dated views about the impact of gender in education, specifically, many still believe that boys outperform girls in most academic settings when, in actual fact, just the opposite is now true. She argues that “the ‘soft’ approach that avoids action, competition, and adventure-based stories is counter to how males generally learn most effectively. As a result, new studies show girls are now outperforming boys and “educational trends and policies have actually created a hostile school environment for American males.” “Couple this to the ‘women are victims’ and ‘men are perpetrators’ dogma of many progressive instructors, and it is a perfect storm driving male students away from college campuses.” This, in fact, is a comment I hear often from our returning graduates who, when reflecting upon their time at college, often relate to a pervading “anti-male” sentiment, regardless of what type of college/university they attend or where in the country their college/university is located. Going further, it seems to me that this phenomenon actually plays out across the entire educational spectrum where, even at the youngest ages, more typically feminine characteristics and behavior are overtly favored over more typically male behavior, e.g., quiet is preferred over loud, passive emphasized over active, theoretical presented over hands-on. Many recent studies have even gone so far as to suggest that the current trend to medicate ADD or ADHD type behavior is perhaps, to some extent, a further manifestation of society’s desire to feminize what is otherwise typically male behavior. What does all this mean for our boys? My answer would tend to fall into two general categories: 1) That, if educators are not careful, we risk tuning out and/or turning off 50% of the population to the prospect of learning in general and higher education in particular and, 2) That given the current state of things, our boys need to be careful, conscious and aware of the current bias that seems to exist or risk disregarding it at their peril. Like most swings of the pendulum (and those of education in particular), I expect things will trend back to the mean at some point in the future (after all, 50% of the population is not likely to remain passive for too long) but in the meantime, my hope is that schools like Brunswick will be able to continue to do what we have always done which to value boys as what they are….boys.