Boys
Will Be Boys, And Girls Will Be Readers
When I began researching material about boys and literacy, I was amazed
at the quantity of available resources for parents and teachers, especially
on the Internet. People are certainly concerned about males and literacy.
Dozens of books have emerged in the last few years documenting issues
in male culture and in raising and schooling boys into literacy. Some
emphasize biological differences in males and females; others take
a socio-constructivist approach; still others struggle for a culturally
elitist model promoting literary wonders. Personally, I need to look
at them all, to find directions for supporting parents and teachers
and educational policy makers, but especially for helping youngsters
themselves to begin taking control of their literacy lives, aware
of their needs and interests as developing readers and writers.
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Before deciding on plans of action, we need to examine the issues
pertaining to the literacy lives of boys, how they perceive themselves
as readers, and how parents, teachers, and peers influence their literacy
development. The role of gender in reading success is complex, and
I want to uncover many of the assumptions and stereotypes that parents
and educators have about boys and how they handle the world of print
text. We need to listen to the voices of writers for young people,
of authorities in this field, and, most important, of boys and men
as they reveal their literacy challenges, struggles, tastes, and values,
and offer us insights into how we can support all learners in their
literacy journeys.
Consider the change in the texts we read today at home or work: books
of every variety – softcover and hardback; thousands and thousands
of magazines and comics available at the local newsstand; letters,
bills, ads, and pamphlets through the mailbox; electronic print of
all sorts, from ones that fit in the palm to giant TV screens; memos,
fact sheets, documents, e-mails, and attachments. The definition of
literacy has altered, as have the strategies necessary for reading
text.
If we believe that all children should have access to the literacy
world, how will we ensure that boys, in particular, see themselves
as readers who can handle the requirements of such a variety of texts?
Non-readers tell us stories of punishment and pain, of no care and
no touch, where books never metamorphosed into friendly objects, where
worksheets and controlled readers dictated their eye movements and
caused their reading hearts to beat irregularly. They drown in printer’s
ink.
We don’t want to generate or fuel new problems for education,
especially for girls as we explore and even promote programs for boys.
And there are diverse opinions about the origin and even the nature
of the problems that we find inside such a discussion. Most important,
the education of boys is closely connected to the education of girls,
and school and education policies on gender will directly influence
both. If we focus on the problems of boys, do we endanger the efforts
of so many in the struggle to bring equity for girls into our society?
Or do we see these initiatives as dialogues that are attempting to
move us all forward into strengthening the lives of every child as
an individual? What if we refuse to consider the issues not as a “war,”
but as an inquiry into the dynamics of how boys and girls construct
their gendered literacy lives?
How can we who work in schools respond fairly to the needs of boys
in relation to the needs of girls, and to the diversity among groups
of boys and girls? Fortunately, we can benefit from the educational
reforms that grew from the changes associated with girls: we can apply
those principles of gender equity to the educational needs of boys,
even though in many ways, that very system of schooling formerly marginalized
girls and privileged some boys. What conditions, then contain or exacerbate
these problems for so many boys and for many girls?
We know that no single category includes all boys or all girls. We
don’t need to add to the stereotype of classifying all boys’
behaviors, tastes and attitudes into one single frame, nor do we want
to reinforce the generalities that are often applied to boys. But
as we look at studies and reports that examine boys and girls and
their learning styles and special interests, their growth patterns
and their stages of intellectual development, we do notice differences.
These differences are not in all boys or in all girls, but in enough
of them to cause us to reflect about our literacy demands on their
young lives.
There are definite problems with the ways in which many boys (and
men) view themselves as literate beings, with how they approach the
acts of reading and writing, and with how they respond to assessments
of their skills. At least the faltering test scores have opened up
discussion on these issues that concern many teachers and parents.
How closely are we watching and interpreting the alarmist data? Are
all boys at risk? If not, which ones? How significant are developmental
stages in boys’ literacy abilities? Are there differences in
boys’ growth with boys of the same age? What is normal literacy
achievement for a six-year-old boy? Is it the same for a six-year-old
girl? Which boy and which girl? Are we concerned about the girls who
are doing poorly? And most important, what do we mean by “literacy”?
At the end of every talk I give, parents and teachers line up to ask
me questions, and they are almost always about boys in literacy trouble:
they don’t read, can’t read, won’t read, don’t
write, can’t write, can’t spell. Those of us who are responsible
for educating boys are deeply concerned over the plight of many of
them who can’t or won’t enter the literacy club. But our
rules for entry are very strict, even exclusionary, and oddly enough,
computer skills are seldom part of the qualifications.
References
Booth, David. Even Hockey Players Read. Markham, ON: Pembroke
Publishers, 2002.
Smith, M. W. and Wilhelm, J. D. Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002.
Pirie, Bruce. Teenage Boys and High school English. Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann, 2002.
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