A Second Look

Boys and Guns

2012-01-12T11:29:00.001-05:00

Here's a columnist writing about the mostly widely misunderstood part of boys play -- guns. She writes.

When I was a younger, first-time new mom, I had planned on being rabid about the way we treated the subject in our home. I vowed to raise our son to think that even saying the word ‘gun’ was bad, and swore we’d never have guns as toys. Heaven-forbid he ever formed a gun with his finger and his thumb, it wasn’t something we’d ever allow him to do twice!

And then I wised up. Correction, I read the book The Trouble with Boys after attending an amazing lecture by the book’s author, reporter Peg Tyre, and then I wised up. Among so many worthy topics on the subject of gender and school, Tyre writes about the kind of play kids (especially boys) use to work out their ideas about social justice, good vs. evil, and right from wrong. And she examines how educators can overreact to kids who talk about it while at school without first determining whether there are more serious issues at hand.

Her writing helped me work out some more nuanced ways about talking about guns with my children, about understanding what pretend gun play was, and about how I could talk to them at different developmental ages about what real guns do when in the hands of the wrong people.

Nice! Right?

College financial aid: "a war between the haves and the have-a-lots."

2011-11-28T15:38:00.003-05:00

So, more middle class families get financial aid for college. All good, right? Except, this means that fewer and fewer poor kids get to go to college. And that's not good.

a great letter from a reader of TGS

2011-11-28T12:00:00.001-05:00

I just finished reading The Good School in one sitting and I have to say that you wrote the book I wanted to write. I am a high school English teacher (15 years)...I've recently become very alarmed at where our schools are headed. The thing is this: most "middle class" parents aren't even aware of how bad the situation is and could be. I, myself, was astounded .. that so little of what we do as teachers has real scientific basis. Why? We have the science as you've shown, but districts are far more interested in bringing in educational speakers for pep talks than giving real science. In my school, too, there are so many teachers who are content to teach the same year every year with worksheets galore. And while I teach HS English, I knew instinctively that my second grader was missing something (real phonics instruction) in his "balanced literacy" curriculum. Yet, when I once sent the Asst. Superintendent of Curriculum information on Open Court because they were giving free materials, she responded curtly, "We don't do Open Court" as if I'd suggested she eat a frog or something.

There is a definite connection from mediocre schools to America's decline and high unemployment. I recently traveled to India on a two week teaching exchange and we should be very afraid. Indian students were so well prepared and eager to learn. Yet, I feel we could really take advantage of America's strengths in our diversity and creativity. If only parents knew how mediocre their schools really are. We hear a ton about the lowest performing schools and we all know that rich districts have their first graders learning Mandarin. It is the middle class schools that need attention, yet parents need a wake-up call to realize this and do something about it.

Freakonomics Loves The Good School!

2011-09-06T13:01:00.001-04:00

Here we are, talking about The Good School on the popular blog Freakonomics

Talking about The Good School on "All Things Considered!"

2011-09-02T09:59:00.003-04:00

Here is the story that ran on their website and the podcast of the interview!

People magazine

2011-09-01T07:40:00.002-04:00

My new book, The Good School, is reviewed in PEOPLE magazine! Yeah!

Time.com interviews me about The Good School!

2011-08-24T10:19:00.003-04:00

Time.com, which gets 10 million unique viewers a month, writes about my book. So exciting!!!

The second most important decision you will make as a parent — apart from deciding to have the kid in the first place — is deciding which school for them to enroll in. Make the right decision and you could put them on a path toward lifelong learning, a prestigious college education and a successful career. Choose wrong, and well, you know. Talk about pressure. Luckily for parents, Peg Tyre, author of The Trouble with Boys and a former Newsweek education reporter, has a new book to help parents evaluate both schools and teachers so they can find the right place for their child. Fittingly, it's called The Good School: How Smart Parents Get Their Kids the Education They Deserve. Tyre spoke to TIME about which questions you should ask when you're evaluating a school — whether your child is starting pre-K or switching schools in the middle of fourth grade — and why math is key in every grade.
1. In Preschool, the Relationship Between Teacher and Student Is Key
The connection between child and teacher is more important than any curriculum, Tyre said. Think of it this way: your 3- or 4-year-old is accustomed to being surrounded by loving people, their parents and siblings 24/7, and school is their first time spending a large portion of their day away from those people. You want to look for a preschool teacher who is very engaged, Tyre said. Have a conversation with a prospective teacher about their current classroom. They should be able to speak about individual students' strengths and weaknesses and be well informed of their background, interests, emotional and academic achievements. You want a teacher who takes great pride in his or her students' progress and is consistently open to their improvement. "When I meet great teachers, they are those for whom every day is a new day," Tyre told TIME. "They are constantly ready for their kids to step up and learn more." Above all, Tyre said, avoid crabby preschool teachers and those who are too authoritarian. "I see it all the time — pre-K teachers who are barking orders and being very harsh with kids," she said. "I don't think that's appropriate."
(See the 20 best- and worst-paid college majors.)
2. The Early Years: Words, Words, Words
Your child should be surrounded with words, especially in the early years, Tyre said. You want to look for books in the classroom and be sure the class makes regular visits to the library. You also want to ensure the teacher sets aside lots of time for reading, reading instruction and storytelling. In the preschool and kindergarten years, be sure the teacher is providing the building blocks for learning to read. They should focus on syllabication, e.g., "B makes the 'bah' sound" and "the boy had a big blue ball."
3. Math Cannot Be an Afterthought
From the first days of school, your kids should be exposed to math concepts. "When your child is preschool age, what you need to know is this: there is no need to wait until children are older and are able to think and speak in more abstract ways to introduce math concepts," Tyre writes in The Good School. "A certain kind of math ability seems to be innate in all of us and has been measured days after birth." Which means, in your child's preschool class you should hear teachers discussing basic math concepts with students. Things like greater than, less than, bigger, smaller and reinforcing the number concept ("How much is three?"). As a parent you can follow up on these things at home by doing something as simple as counting the number of Cheerios in the morning. Don't like math or convinced you are bad at it? Don't tell your kids. Tyre said parents who pass an antimath sentiment on to their kids hurt their chances of success. In the U.S., parents, kids and even teachers may describe a person as "bad at math," but in other countries where kids perform better in math, if a student is not performing well in math, parents, kids and teachers say he or she needs to work harder. "Math is not a talent; like having a good singing voice, it's a muscle you develop," Tyre said. Be on the lookout for a teacher who expresses a great deal of enthusiasm about math, she said. "You do not want a teacher who is scared of math," she said.
(See why only one-quarter of U.S. students are proficient in geography.)
4. Don't Focus Too Much on Standardized-Test Scores
Sometimes, good test scores can be an indication that a school is doing a very good job of educating its students, but other times it can be an indication that the school is teaching to the test. Standardized tests only measure about a third of the curriculum that should be being taught in the school, which means if the school is only teaching the test material, your child is missing out on a lot. Ideally, a school will teach a rich and complicated curriculum, Tyre said, wherein students get a tremendous amount of information, with the test answers embedded throughout. And, she noted, "Test scores going up for one year means nothing, so drop the contest mentality." Instead, ask to see the desegregated test results that break out various student populations. Focus on the English-language-learning students — even if your child is not one of them — those students are the hardest to teach and are often the lowest quartile, so if their scores are going up, that really says something about the school. But don't stop there, ask why the scores have gone up. You want a thoughtful answer, Tyre said, not simply, Oh, we have this new program that helps us teach the test.
5. There Is No Excuse for a School Day with No Recess
What a mistake that is, Tyre said. "No one thinks this is a good idea," she said. Apart from the obvious physical benefits of aerobic exercise, studies have shown recess also increases cognitive functioning, she said. Tyre has seen elementary schools built without playgrounds, schools functioning like boot camps or reading-and-math factories, based on the idea that more instructional time means more learning. "Avoid those schools," Tyre said. "Kids need downtime — a break from the rigor. Twenty minutes a day, at least." The same is true for middle-school and high school students — they need breaks too.
(See TIME's special on what makes a school great.)
6. Teachers Matter — Even More than You Think
While not even a superteacher can entirely alleviate the effects of poverty on students, excellent teachers not only teach more, but they can even accelerate the rate of learning among their students. And good schools champion great teachers, Tyre said. They grow them. Look for schools that provide teachers with mentors, instruction and discussion of best practices. Find a school where the teachers are not being treated as interchangeable cogs. "If you show up and the fourth-grade teacher is now teaching kindergarten, that's not a good sign," Tyre told TIME. "Ask, How has that teacher been prepared for this year? What kind of additional training did they receive over the summer?" Additionally, Tyre recommends that during school tours, parents ask questions such as, "How do administrators evaluate the teachers?" and "How often are classroom lessons observed?" Don't be afraid to ask teachers where they completed their undergraduate studies and what they studied. "It's not snobbery," Tyre said. "Teachers who graduate from more selective colleges — public and private — get better results out of kids."
7. It's Not All in the Name
There is no colloquial designation that guarantees quality. Just the word charter or private does not mean the school is a success. In fact, Tyre said, only 1 in 5 charter schools performs better than the schools they replace. "There is no uniformly great private school, no uniformly great charter school and no uniformly great public school," Tyre said. "There is no easy name that you can gravitate toward that will allow you to suspend judgment." So do your homework. The public school down the road could be just as good as the private school that costs $30,000 a year.

another great review for The Good School!

2011-08-24T09:43:00.002-04:00

This one on About.com. The reviewer writes:

"choosing a school is one of a father's biggest decisions and has life-long implications for his children. (No pressure, right?) But The Good School makes a tough and high-stakes process a lot more manageable and understandable. When you read The Good School, you will get a lot of research done for you in terms of how to evaluate school options, and a series of insights and key questions and concerns to raise when you are checking out these school choices. How do the objective measures like test score and teacher turnover factor in? What about P.E. and recess? School hours and days? How can you tell from an interview and classroom visit whether a teacher will work well with your child?

Hard questions, but certainly the ones you need to consider. And if you read The Good School, you will get ahead of the game and be prepared to make an informed and thoughtful decision about your child's education. Check out my review and then order your own copy. Read it and refer to it often for continuing insight into your child's formal education."

I swear, I am not related to this man! But I love him like a brother!

An excellent review in the influential Booklist

2011-08-15T17:43:00.002-04:00

They call The GOOD SCHOOL "an engaging and valuable resource." And they say a lot of other nice things, too!

the myth of rational school choice.

2011-08-12T10:48:00.002-04:00

Here's an op ed about the book that ran on Reuters. The lede sounds very serious but the piece... most parents will relate to it.

This Week In Education -- I'm the Guest Blogger

2011-08-06T18:16:00.005-04:00

So, I get a chance to respond to a Time magazine piece....

So I get a chance to rA new article on Time.com purports to be an insider's guide on how to pick schools for your kids-- arguably one of the most important decision parents will make for their children. It's written by Time.com's education columnist, Andrew Rotherham, the ultimate ed policy insider. His advice is 1) look at test scores 2) go for a tour and 3) talk to your friends. Oh, and by the way, we need more charter schools. Really? That's it? C'mon, Mr. Rotherham! Show some respect for the school choice process! I just wrote a book called The Good School: How Smart Parents Get their Kids the Education They Deserve. (You can pre-order it here on Amazon or find out more about it here). The purpose of The Good School is to help parents understand important elements of excellent schools-- so they know it when they see it and can agitate for it if they don't. It covers topics like: how to pick a pre-school, what test scores really mean, how much recess should a kid have, what does a good reading program look like, what about class size, how to prime your kids to be successful in math, the importance of good teachers and how to spot them. Parents of school-aged are hungry for real information about schooling. Looks to me like Time.com punted on a great opportunity to provide their readers with what they so vitally need.

What do you think? Do I have a future in blogging?

Teach yr baby to read!

2011-05-18T17:04:00.005-04:00

Want to teach really teach your baby to read?

http://bit.ly/kExUBj. Prompted by my book, this schools used Hanen technique to get kids talking more, reading better. Good for boys!

A Second Look: New Dangers Parents Face

2011-05-18T15:57:00.000-04:00

A Second Look: New Dangers Parents Face

New Dangers Parents Face

2011-05-18T10:00:00.008-04:00

I've got nothing against charter schools in concept. And several that I've been in, notably Kipp Infinity have impressed me as OUTSTANDING -- really second to none.

But today, we get word of another kind of charter school: The Kingsbridge Innovative Design Charter School -- which had the catchy acronym KIDCS.

Kingsbridge is in the northwest Bronx. It is the poor and working class neighborhood right outside of the Bronx Zoo. The operator of KIDCS asked the state to let them open a k-5 school there because well, you know, poor kids are super vulnerable and lag behind middle class kids in learning. Besides, the local public school there was pretty bad: in third grade, only 35% of the kids were at grade level in English. KIDCS was going to do better.

So last year, 147 eager moms and dads enrolled their k-and first grade kids at KIDCS.-- and why not? The school marketing material promises the school will educate the "whole child" with hand on learning. And here's the new school's promise that just kills me: a pet in every classroom that the children can nurture.

Sweet, right? Imagine how excited a five year old who lives in a cramped apartment in the Bronx would have been when she was told she'd get to take care of a bunny in first grade. Imagine the look on that child's face. Now hold it in your mind as your read on:

The school opened in Sept-- ominously, ten days late. Then, the wheels fell off. Two principals quit, consultants were called in. To pay those fees, five of the eleven teachers got let go for budgetary reasons. The operators, let's think of them as befuddled and not malicious, couldn't make payroll. It turns out, they didn't even file the right forms to collect the federal money they were due. You can read all the sad details in this memo from the State Ed. Department.

Now, big surprise, the school will be closed. These kids have lost a critical year of instruction. They are further behind. Statistically, it is unlikely they will EVER catch up.

What happens to those kids? Does the city try to make it up to them? Are those families given a pass to send their kids to some high performing public school like the one my son attended? A voucher for some high end tutoring to help them catch up? A kind of "thanks for taking a chance on school choice, sorry we screwed your kid over" present? Nope. The idea is that the free market forces are unleashed on our schools -- good ones thrive, bad ones fail. In reality, those hard working parents who got their kids into KIDCS are now frantically trying to find public schools that will take their now lagging behind kids. Probably, they will got back to the crappy neighborhood public school. These are the families that "won the lottery." Now their hopes and dreams are dashed.

People: does this seem right to you? If you sign up to be the subject of a medical experiment, an ethics panel forces the researchers to restore you to health if the experimental drugs they are giving you makes you sick. No such protections exist in school choice. Those kids who went to KIDCS get nada.

Parents, be careful about selecting schools for your kids. It is a decision that has high stakes.

This is not a condemnation of charter schools. Or school choice. But this particular experiment in "school choice" leaves 147 kids condemned to school failure. No word on what will become of the classroom pets.

TTWB-- inspires an IPAD App

2011-03-25T16:59:00.003-04:00

As we know, little boys tend to have more fine motor difficulties that girls. And man, they can catch a lot of crap for it at school.

TTWB-- and an article I wrote for the New York Times explores this issue pretty thorough.

Note to second grade teachers: those boys aren't writing in a messy way just to annoy you.

Anyhoo... a genius at Binary Labs has come up with an IPAD app that will help your child develop fine motor skills. And he sent me a letter today to SAY I INSPIRED IT!

So, here's what I think about it. I'm flattered. I know that playing in the sand, play-doh and with pipe cleaners helps little boys strengthen their hands and get better at writing. But when they are playing with the IPAD they can play with this app. Strengthens their little hands. Makes them better at holding a crayon. Check it out

A Program that WORKS!

2011-03-24T08:55:00.003-04:00

This is a wonderful article about the program in Ardsley, NY, inspired by TTWB, which is successfully getting boys to read and write more. It is run by fantastic teacher named Lisa McKeon!

Mothers of school aged boys -- you want this program in your child's elementary school. Contact me here if you want to know how to set one up. (Low cost, sustainable, progressive!)

Whew! Just Finished My New Book!

2011-03-22T17:49:00.003-04:00

Ok. Here it is. The project I have been working on like a madwoman lo these last 12 months. My new book.....(sounds of trumpets)...The Good School!

What is it about you say? Well, it is a guerrilla guide for parents on what the education research says makes a good school. Basically, a quick and dirty guide to all the studies that you will never get around to reading boiled down into a readable, understandable format.

Right now, the fine editors at Henry Holt are knitting together those pages and gluing on the covers for the late August unveiling. But if you leave me your address in the comments box I will email you when it goes on sale.

A Radio Interview About TTWB

2011-03-17T13:09:00.002-04:00

Here's a link to a podcast of an interview I did with a nice lady who hosts a show called Thirty Minute Mom.

Great concept. Wish I'd thought of it. Enjoy!

Texas Teachers Read TTWB!

2011-02-09T13:36:00.002-05:00

Well, this is pretty exciting. It looks like several thousand teachers in Texas are doing a study group on The Trouble With Boys. Anyone can register and check out the discussion of "the boy issue" from the teacher's perspective.

Gosh, I wish I knew all these teachers were so concerned about boys back when I was writing the book. Would have made my life soooo much easier. :)

New Way of Looking at Grades

2010-11-28T14:08:00.002-05:00

Here's an article I wrote that ran in the Week In Review section of the NYTimes today.

I learned about this big shift in the way schools grade kids from some superintendents who are concerned about low performing boys. They are looking to see how much they grade for knowledge and how much they grade for compliance. They say it will help minority kids, English language learners and kids who are disengaged but smart.

What do you think?

A Wonderful Day Talking to Teachers

2010-11-04T08:09:00.003-04:00

I spent a wonderful day working with teachers who instruct children under difficult circumstances -- in NYC hospitals and psych ward. This is a dedicated, caring group -- and very interested in how to reach all kids including the boys.

One of the organizers sent me this letter -- a follow up to our day together.

My members have been raving about you and your book!! They all say they could listen to you for more hours!!!
Reading your book and listening to you speak gave everyone insights to our approaches in teaching our boys and our own children in fact.
I want to thank you again for affording us your time and expertise.
The pleasure was all mine!

Five Tips for Running A Mentoring Program

2010-10-27T08:40:00.004-04:00

I'd like to give a shout out to my new friend Bud Tamarkin. He's 84 years old, lives in Florida and has decided, in his spare time, to start working with the under-served African-American boys in his school district.

He's met with the principal of his local school and is setting up a mentoring program. I met him in Florida. He's an energetic guy for 50 much less for 84. As promised, he called me for advice on how to get his plan off the ground.

My friends, Bud is 84 and bursting with ideas and good intentions. On top of that, he has the stick-to-it-ness to follow through and make this a reality.

He's establishing relationships with kids who most people are prepared to consign to prison -- black 9th grade boys who have gotten in a little trouble along the way.

He asked me what I thought was the most important skills his group could bring to those young men and I said
1) help them improve their reading skills. For many, it will be back to phonics.
2) remind them early and often the salary differential between a h.s. drop out and a h.s. graduate.
3) take them to visit plumbers and electricians on the job. Let them see men who make a living by their own labor.
4) buy a book every month -- have everyone --kids and adults -- read it and discuss. Model what it is to be a literate man in society.
5) Promise them, and then find them, opportunities to work at a part time job. Nothing improves the self-esteem of a teen more than earning pocket money.

Bud Tamarkin, you are Peg Tyre's Hero of The Month. Good luck to you!

Welcome Praise from My Friends in Palm Beach!

2010-10-25T09:27:00.003-04:00

I had a great time last Friday speaking to about 300 people --young and old--who working improving literacy among children and adults in Florida. The event was organized by the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County.

I talked about my book and then we had a lively Q and A.

The director sent this lovely note:

We were truly delighted to have you with us. Thanks for the energy, expertise and time you put into your presentation and time with us.
I thought of your talk as I taught Sunday School yesterday with 3-5 grade boys and girls. It is a true challenge to keep the girls who are so verbal and enjoy writing and discussing engaged while having activities that allow the boys to act out the lesson, run off their energy and keep engaged. Your thoughts were very helpful and thought-provoking.

People who care about reading are my kinda people.

Smart But Barely Made It Through School. Why?

2010-09-29T20:25:00.002-04:00

Here's an email from a reader I got last week. He struggled in high school...then, at 27, went to college. Here's what he says about high school now.

I very much enjoyed your book. I struggled unbelievably in my high school career for a number of reasons and have worked hard to help other young men who are in the same situation.

Some of the thoughts I came up with:

The wide disparaging of quality in our national school system and their standards. For myself, I moved from a very poor high school district in IL where I did fairly well academically to a very wealthy suburban school in MN. Upon arriving I realized how academically ahead all of these students were of me and I could not find a path to catch up. They had been taking AP courses since their sophomore year and I had no idea what AP even was.

I could not find any way to compete with these kids and viewed college as something I could never achieve. Deep down I was every bit as smart and creative as those students, but I didn't have a way of expressing that.

As a student, I never learned well in large groups being lectured. I needed to touch, feel, get my hands dirty to learn. I needed movement.

I did graduate HS, but barely, I had to take summer courses to get enough credits.

Since that time I feel I was fairly successful in the business world and eventually chose to go back to school at age 27. I am currently going full time to (name of college) where I hope to graduate next year. Its been a learning experience. There is nothing like being in a classroom with a female teacher, and a nearly all female class telling you how bad men are because they make $1.00 for every $.72 a women earns.

Thanks for the writing this book.

A Teacher Writes

2010-09-29T19:54:00.003-04:00

This teacher works in a highly regarded school. So, as you might imagine, I was so pleased to get this message forwarded to me.

The book is well worth reading. It changed me as a teacher, making me more aware of boys' needs both academically and developmentally. It didn't just change my personal narrative policy - it also made me much more tolerant of the need for boys to move around, and helped me understand their need to relate to each other verbally and physically in ways very different from those of girls. Classrooms tend to be places where we are more tolerant of "girl behavior" than "boy behavior;" the book really helped me examine this in my practice.

Best,
Mecca
Dear Mecca -- I want to clone your open minded approach to your students. Middle school teachers who work with low performing boys tell me that the boys are beaten down and demoralized by the time they get there.

Experiences in elementary school shape the way boys -- and all kids -- look at schooling.

Your students are so lucky to have such a reflective person at the front of the class.
Warmly,
Peg Tyre

Teachers know there is a problem

2010-09-27T08:57:00.003-04:00

Got this letter this weekend.

Peg -- Did you know that your book inspired a change in the personal narrative writing assignment policy at (Name of School) ?

The fifth grade teachers read the book, conferred, and decided that asking boys to write about their inner feelings and emotions was a losing battle. Year after year they'd get essays like "The Winning Goal" and "My First Ride on the Roller Coaster." So this year they're allowing kids to write fictional narratives so they can explore "someone else's" feelings.

Nice job!

Not exactly what I would have advised for a change in writing assignments, but... a good thoughtful start!

School Begins. Boys Struggle. Parents Want Help.

2010-09-15T17:11:00.006-04:00

Now that school has started, I'm getting a steady stream of letters from parents of boys. Here's an excerpt from one:

My son started Kindergarten three weeks ago and all I can say is that I am SO grateful I had your book under my belt. To date the experience has been just awful. My happy and enthusiastic little learner is already showing signs of school-avoidance and stress just three weeks into beginning Kindergarten. That is not acceptable to me.

The writer goes on to describe a sad but familiar scene.

I've volunteered in the room and am shocked to see nearly exclusive "seat time" for the entire morning through to lunch, most often without a break for recess. It seems that on most days the teacher opts for "quiet time" in lieu of recess, where the children finish their highly structured academic work (which follows a lengthy circle time), select and quietly play on the floor with an activity of their choosing. But this "quiet activity" time is short, quiet, and allows for little movement. I'm pretty horrified, frankly.

Not surprisingly, most (all?) of the "behavioral problems" are boys. It is the boys who are admonished to not move, speak out of turn, and are sent to timeout (and our teacher, who has taught for decades, will classify my son's behavior for the entire morning as "poor" if he fidgets, or calls out of turn, or touches others).

Is this happening in your son's classroom?

More Women Than Men Getting Doctoral Degrees!

2010-09-14T15:55:00.002-04:00

So, it happened. Women are now getting more doctoral degrees than men. Gosh, how things have changed. See, too, that men still make up the majority of administrative positions at colleges and universities.

My New Book!

2010-07-18T13:30:00.004-04:00

Here's a nice shout out about my new book. I'm hard at work on it now. Looking for parents (outside of New York City mainly) who would like to talk to me about how they chose a school for their child, and whether what they are getting is what they expected. Want to be part of my next opus? And hopefully upping the level of discussion among parents about school? Get in touch. I wanna hear from you !

This blog has moved

2010-04-06T15:02:00.001-04:00

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Is Tween TV for Girls? Peg says YES in the LA Times

2010-04-06T11:18:00.005-04:00

TV execs who work on tween shows say say they develop tv shows that boys will like. Problem
is... tween boys don't like their shows. Turns out many TV execs who develop kid and teen shows
are women. And they develop shows that they think boys SHOULD like. And, well, we all know
how that goes. Female teachers who teach books boy SHOULD like often get the same reaction. Disengagement.

Hello Hollywood? I'd be happy to consult on your next development meetings.

My take: boys would be THRILLED to have TV that reflects how they really are. They are parched for authentic images of themselves in culture. The key here is the word authentic.

Here's the article:

math and basketball

2010-01-13T17:21:00.002-05:00

Here a terrific story about school in Peoria where college basketball player are teaching younger kids math by shooting hoops.

Although the reporter quotes girls, my money says this will work really well for boys. I wish they would teach them to improve their literacy skills with basketball too. Sports biographies, anyone?

The Politics of Underachievement.

2010-01-11T09:43:00.003-05:00

Here's a really interesting piece about boys in the UK written in the Independent. Same troubles as here. Much research being done at a government level to determine why this is happening. (Are you there Barack?) At the very end of the article, the author quotes the head of a UK equal rights commission who says, in essence, there is a more level playing field, girls are doing better on it. The underachievement of boys is not a matter of discrimination against boys but a matter of social and emotional conditioning for boys that causes them to do poorly.

My first react was relief -- it would be so much easier to look at the boy issue in a non-political way. But on the other hand, as a student of the feminist movement, I know that social and emotional conditioning were the tools of women's oppression. Ever wonder why the feminist movement took hold in the 70's? Back in the 1950's, economic oppression was codified into law-- women made less, were blocked from taking on supervisory roles by certain laws designed to "protect" them. But they were also prevented from, say, buying a seat on the stock exchange by lack of support and outright harassment from their peers. In other words, their social and emotional conditioning prevented them from moving a head.

Are there laws that prevent men from entering stable, high flexibility jobs were women dominate -- not that I know of. Is there a strong taboo against it? Just ask a male nurse or a dude who is a kindergarten teacher. Lots of subtle and not so subtle harassment, disapproval and almost total lack of support.

It seem to me that the line between discrimination and law of social and emotional support is pretty thin.

A new piece!

2010-01-08T10:09:00.002-05:00

Here's a story I wrote for Ivillage about Christmas

here's a nice article about TTWB from a NYC mag

2009-11-03T13:24:00.002-05:00

The Other Gender DIVIDE
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Newsweek’s Reporter Peg Tyre Explores Why Boys Are Disadvantaged In The Classroom

Throughout the country, boys are falling behind girls when it comes to academic achievement. Peg Tyre first noticed this while covering the education beat for “Newsweek,” reporting, among other things, that in elementary school, boys are two times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with learning disabilities and twice as likely to be placed in special-education classes. But this isn’t a problem with boys.

According to Tyre, the problem is with our schools. In “The Trouble With Boys,” now out in paperback, Tyre explores how our education system is failing to address boys’ unique learning styles and explains why it’s imperative for all parents—of sons and daughters alike—to take notice.

Why did you decide to write this book?

I was covering education for about seven years at “Newsweek,” and it wasn’t until I was [spending time] in schools for a couple of years that I started to notice boys were disproportionately represented at the bottom of the class. I went to the data and found it backed up what I saw. I know from my experience as a reporter that that’s an extraordinary reversal. So, I decided to write about what is causing boys to underachieve—and what can we do about it.

You state that boys get expelled at five times the rate of girls in preschool. How do things go wrong at

such an early age?

Preschools have changed a great deal in the last 10 to 15 years. There’s been an increasing emphasis on academics and that’s been great for some kids, and it has some advantages. But one of the disadvantages is that it’s created a much more narrow curriculum where there’s fewer opportunities for free play, physical movement, etc.—and that’s particularly bad for boys. When you look at the work I cited by [developmental psychologist] Warren Eaton, you see that boys and girls move around about the same, but the outliers—the ones that move around the most— are invariably boys. I think that when you curtail opportunities for physical movement, I think you really crush a small minority of boys.

What are the other points of disengagement throughout a boy’s academic career?

In kindergarten and first grade when the curriculum depends on accurately holding a pencil, crayon or paintbrush, you are assuming a whole set of fine motor skills that a lot of kids don’t have and a lot of them are going to be boys. They just tend to develop them a little later. Around third grade students go from a point of learning to read to reading to learn and you often see that boys fall out there. A big dropping out point is ninth grade, and that’s because you have pronounced disengagement in middle school when the two things that hang boys up are handwriting and organization. You can’t succeed academically unless you’re organized. Yet when you talk to people who work with kids, they tell you disorganized people are disproportionately boys.

Why are boys lagging behind girls so much in literacy?

One of the reasons boys fall out around reading is that they’re often given books that they perceive to be girly. Boys prefer reading and writing that tend to be funnier and more irreverent. Their writing also tends to be more directed at other kids in the class and not necessarily at the teacher, whereas girls tend to write more for their teacher. Teachers often take [the former] as an affront, and I think we need to look at that.

etc. etc.

This one is about boys and fantasy violence

2009-10-22T16:22:00.000-04:00

Are We Trying to Tame Our Wild Boys?

Examining whether we've gone too far in the quest to quell violence on the playground

by Peg Tyre

Where the Wild Things Are (both the book and the recently released movie) is about a boy who was sent to his room for being, well, wild. The film, which was No. 1 at the box office its opening weekend, has reignited the debate over how parents and schools react to typical boy behaviors. Some parenting experts have even suggested that the book and the movie offer guidance on disciplining kids without squelching their spirits completely.

Back in 1963, when the book was written, it was a time when boys could play Cops and Robbers and shout "Pow! Pow!" without the threat of school expulsion. It's very different today. Recently, first-grader Zachary Christie, 6, of Newark, DE, was suspended and sentenced to 45 days in reform school—um, I mean, an alternative program—for bringing his camping knife, spoon and fork contraption to school to eat lunch with. (He has since returned to school without having to attend the alternative/reform school.)

All of this begs the question of whether our society is trying to "tame" the normal, if rambunctious, impulses of little boys who like to play a bit rough and who sometimes get angry.

Don't get me wrong, anyone who has spent any time in a school as a parent, as a teacher—heck, even as a reporter stopping by to do a human-interest story about a holiday canned food drive—understands that classroom management is the key to running any school. Schools have to be places where all kids, boisterous or shy, can learn. They also have to be safe. Let me state unequivocally that weapons have no place in schools.

And anyone who reads a newspaper, surfs the Web or owns a television set knows that the nightmare of school shootings—incomprehensible tragedies at places like Columbine to Virginia Tech—are rare, but they happen.

But in many schools, zero tolerance for violence policies (which are good) have morphed into zero tolerance for aggression policies, and now, zero tolerance for anything that might even be perceived as aggressive. There are no contact sports on the playgrounds in Cheyenne, WY, and no running on the playground in Broward Country, FL. In one elementary school in Beaverton, OR, Tag has been outlawed.

But it gets worse. Many schools have even banned fantasy violence. According to the Washington Post, an 8-year-old boy in New Jersey was held by police for five hours and forced to make two court appearances for using an L-shaped piece of paper in a game of Cops and Robbers at recess. In Arkansas, another 8-year-old boy was punished for pointing a cooked chicken strip at another student and saying "Pow! Pow!"

When children—and let's face it, most of the kids who do this kind of thing are boys—are given creative writing assignments and come up with tales that involve dueling, swashbuckling, fisticuffs and—wait for it—decapitation, they are told their imaginations are "not appropriate," and the teacher picks up the telephone to the parents. Across our nation, boys are lagging behind girls in writing and lagging behind boys from 15 years ago. Ever wonder if there is a connection?

A couple of months ago, I was giving a workshop to a group of teachers in New Mexico about how to re-engage boys who are mentally checked-out of school—and if you look at the national statistics, there's an awful lot of them. An art teacher raised her hand and told me about a middle school boy who had created an intricate sculpture out of found objects—bolts, washers, wires and bits of a broken dryer dumped in an abandon lot near his house. "As a work of art, it was amazing," the teacher reported. The problem? The boy made a sculpture of a machine gun. The teacher recognized that he was far and away the most promising young artist in her class. Yet the culture of her school—and their zero tolerance toward anything that might be connected with aggression—made her opt not to display his sculpture on Parent's Night.

But it turns out, perfectly normal children, especially boys, tend to think, fantasize and play a great deal around violence. They sometimes think about guns. They sometimes write about sword-fighting. They think that toting a spork is cool. Are they going to grow up and become Virginia Tech shooters? Psychologists say no. But misguided policies and overzealous school administrators have a different view.

Zachary Christie shouldn't have brought anything with a blade into school. The principal should have taken it away and called his mother. Maybe asked him and her to take a day off to figure out how that blade ended up in a classroom. But making him into an outlaw? Time to rethink what we're really afraid of.

Peg Tyre is the author of The Trouble With Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School and What Parents and Educators Must Do. She can be reached at www.pegtyre.com.

Here's a piece I wrote for Ivillage on... women!

2009-10-21T17:59:00.001-04:00

The Opt-Out Myth

A groundbreaking report on women, work and families is shattering some basic assumptions about modern motherhood

by Peg Tyre

The word is in: the Opt-Out Revolution, if there ever was such a thing, can be officially declared over. Women now make up more than half the workforce -up from 33 percent in 1967.

So what was all that "mommy wars" arguing about whether women should stay home or work for pay? It's hard to believe it now, as our nation struggles with the most profound economic downturn in 30 years, but back at the oh-so-flush years at the dawn of the decade, well-educated and highly compensated women were reported to be trading the corner office for the minivan. Their defection from the workplace, according to a much-discussed 2003 story in the New York Times Magazine, was interpreted to be a sign that after 40 years of gains, women were becoming disillusioned with corporate America.

After much soul searching, high-power women lawyers and MBAs, the ones at the very top of the economic food chain, were supposedly "opting out" in favor of more traditional women's responsibilities like running a household and raising—or at least supervising the raising—of their children, which in turn triggered the publication of a spate of books praising women who chose full-time mommying or alternately chastising them as wasting their education and putting their family's economic future at risk.

It turns out the "Opt-Out Revolution" was a just tiny blip in the census data. According to a report out this week by the Center for American Progress and Maria Shriver, women aren't just working—a full 63 percent have become at least one of the economic pillars on which their family's survival rests, and 39 percent of working women say they are the primary breadwinners.

Overall, there were roughly two kinds of women who stayed home during the boom times: Women who couldn't afford to work because they didn't earn enough to cover child care, and a much smaller group of women who didn't need a paycheck and chose to stay home. (They're the ones who were writing all those books about the angst of their decision to give up their careers.)

But like an interest-only loan or a $4,000 outdoor grill, choosing to forego a second paycheck was something that made sense when it seemed like the good times could never end. Instead of being a harbinger of things to come for women, opting out, like the gas-guzzling Hummer, now looks like a by-product of an over- caffeinated stock market and a nation awash in easy cash. Money was plentiful—abandoning a career didn't seem as unwise as it does in this economic climate.

To be sure, there were some working-class and middle-class women who were leaving the workplace to raise children. But economists say that women tend to downshift—reduce their hours or take on fewer responsibilities—when they have pre-school-aged children rather than leaving their jobs entirely.

Most of the women who left the workforce and stayed out tended to be married women without a four-year college degree. Yes, those women might have embraced the joys of motherhood but let's be clear: many left the workforce because their weekly pay packet wasn't thick enough to cover regular day care, the emergency babysitter and put gas in the car. Those women weren't opting out so much as being squeezed out.

For the most part, the better educated women a woman is, the more likely she is to work. The ones with four-year degrees were not leaving the executive suites, cubicles, laboratories, factories and sales floors. It didn't make economic sense back in 2003—they made too much money—and they certainly can't afford to now.

As the Great Recession staggers on, the value of women's work becomes even clearer. As the unemployment rate has moved toward 10 percent and, in some states and in some communities, well beyond, a full 82 percent of the job losses have hit men, who are over-represented in industries like manufacturing, financial services and construction. Far from opting out, working women are holding on to their jobs with both hands. The reason is simple: Two income couples have more economic resilience. If Dad loses his job, Mom's paycheck can cover the mortgage—and maybe much more.

Meanwhile, while we were busy arguing over a revolution that wasn't taking place, an evolution of sorts has been changing the way American couples live. Back in 1980, 29 percent of wives reported that their husbands did no housework at all. By the 2002 publication of The Bitch in the House women had clearly had enough. The essays in the book underscored the basic unfairness of Modern Love and Marriage: that women still ended up doing most of the childrearing and housework. But these days, guys—especially the younger ones—are learning a lesson that their fathers' never figured out—how to pull their weight. Although they still do less than women (and most married women are happy to tell you exactly what thatfeels like) men have begun doing more childrearing and housework. The younger they are, the more they seem to get it.

In a recent survey conducted by the Family and Work Institute, 31 percent of women said that their spouses took equal or more responsibility for the care of their children. (In 1992, it was only 21 percent.) Among younger working parents (those under 29), dads spend even more time with their kids than their fathers or even their older brothers—4.2 hours on average. (Young working moms spend 5.1 hours with the kids.)

And the data is even more promising for college-aged guys. They seem to know that while a man's house is his castle, he's probably going to have to vacuum the Cheerios off the kitchen floor of that castle once in while. In a recent survey of 8,000 University of California graduate students in all fields, 74 percent of men (and 84 percent of women) said looking for a family-friendly work environment was a "serious concern."

And while it is certain men still think their wives can work, handle the housework and raise the children single-handedly, studies suggest those dinosaurs may soon be extinct. Men who do chores without a lot of bellyaching are the ones who are most likely to get—and keep—the girl. According to the Centre for Time Use Research at Oxford University, economists who study marriage and cohabiting rates say both men and women are more likely to want a live-in relationship with the opposite sex if they think their partner will do a share of the housework and childcare duties.

These days, as the Opt-Out Revolutionaries are growing smaller in the rear view mirror, the Flex Generation couples are broaching new kinds of negotiations with their workplaces and with each other. No one says it's equal. No one says it's perfect. But it's a change worth talking about.

Father's Day: Great article in Huff Post about TTWB

2009-06-14T10:35:00.003-04:00

Here's an article in the Huff Post about TTWB.

However, there are glass shards and dead end roads being inadvertently left for the men, and the boys. In the past ten years or so, the world of education has changed dramatically. The "No Child Left Behind Act" has been a disaster, and instead has turned into "All Boys Left Behind." Our nation's boys are not just slipping through the cracks, they are washing down the Grand Canyon without a paddle, and something must be done about it.

Peg Tyre is author of the book, The Trouble with Boys, a #1 best seller, coming out in paperback this summer. Tyre spent five years researching the current education system from every demographic. She has a powerful, unrelenting story of how our young men are struggling, and describes a giant education gap that will affect every level of American life, in a very short period of time, as these kids grow up.

Currently, boys are being "expelled" from preschool four times more than girls. They are 60% more likely to be held back in kindergarten, and twice as likely to be diagnosed with learning disabilities. Only 43% of young men are enrolled as undergraduates in college, girls are taking more AP classes in high school, and dominating as school valedictorians. In fact, a "dirty little secret" at many colleges and universities is the unspoken "new gender gap." Boys are being admitted to colleges with lesser qualifications than girls to keep the gender balance.

Read the whole thing here.

Physical Activity Improves Ability to Pay Attention:

2009-04-01T08:45:00.003-04:00

Gosh, I'm really on the ADHD thing this week.

Experts confirm what nearly every parent and nearly every parent of a school aged boy knows. And they aren't just talking about it over coffee. Here's a press release and a link to the study which is published this month in the prestigious, peer-reviewed journal Neuroscience.

NOW THEY TELL US: ADHD MEDS AREN'T WORTH CRAP

2009-03-27T11:35:00.002-04:00

Ok everybody. Here's a Washington Post article on the research-- funded by your federal government -- that confirms what so many people have been saying all along. Longterm-- ADHD meds don't actually help all that much. Yes, you can drug a kid (mostly boys) into compliance but after two years, your son will be lighter, smaller (Yes, it turns out ADHD meds DO stunt your sons growth) and not much will have changed with his attention issues.

The earlier version of this study, which showed strong positive effects for ADHD meds, was trumpeted by BIG PHARMA to parents, teachers, pediatricians, schools etc. etc.

Not saying you shouldn't give your son ADHD med. But understand the risk and the (limited) upside.

PS: Thank God we have reporters and a paper like the Washington Post to publish this. A world without newspapers and you would never hear about this.

Reform Jews Love TTWB!

2009-03-25T10:58:00.002-04:00

Here's a great review of my book in a very respected publication read by reform jews. I'm so pleased they reviewed it and so pleased my book connected with the reviewer.

more from Sante Fe

2009-03-25T10:39:00.002-04:00

I had an enlightening evening in Santa Fe, giving a talk to a large group of smart empowered parents and teachers who are thinking creatively about how to reengage boys in education. People of good will who want to do what's best for boys without hurting our high performing girls! Here's a story that ran in the paper after my talk.

Being in Santa Fe was terrific and I hope to go back -- I spent a few days climbing up mountains there -- so beautiful!

TTWB in Santa Fe, New Mexico

2009-03-23T19:54:00.003-04:00

Had a wonderful meeting with school officials and concerned parents of boys in Santa Fe this morning. (I'm lecturing on the book tonight here.) These are school administrators who really get it. And they should. Their boys are lagging behind in all four core subjects. Let's hope they can start to make some real changes in their schools.

Here's a cool story the daily paper wrote about TTWB

The London Times writes about TTWB

2009-03-11T12:49:00.002-04:00

Here's an article in the London Times that came out this week-- all about the book.

Seems like the underachievement of boys is of great concern there as well and a whole new crop of parents are figuring out that their smart, capable sons are getting turned off of school.

TTWB WINS A BIG AWARD!

2009-03-10T17:59:00.003-04:00

Yippee!! The Trouble With Boys was named a finalist in the Books for a Better Life competition. And, drum roll here, it won in the parenting/childcare category.

I missed the award ceremony (darn!) -- a swanky Manhattan publishing event-- because I was invited to speak to a group of independent school heads in Texas long before I heard that TTWB was even nominated. The conference was very very interesting but...I never got my Oscar moment. (I'd like to thank my first grade teacher, Mrs. Kiley and my cat, Buttons)

Anyway, here's the link for the award! Yippee

Little Boys and Violence: What I Think

2009-02-18T11:35:00.003-05:00

Seems like I've unleashed a bit of a firestorm. At a recent lecture in suburban New York City, I was talking about changes in schools that I think are hurting boys. One of those changes I frequently cite is our new and ubiquitous "zero-tolerance for fantasy violence" policies in schools -- the ones that create punishments for little boys who point their forefinger, bend their thumb and mouth "Pew! Pew!"

Teachers have to create classroom environments that are good for all kinds of children. I get it. But when you look at the research, what you find is that people who study boy psychology say perfectly normal little boys -- boys WHO ARE NOT GOING TO GROW UP TO BE COLUMBINE TYPE SHOOTERS -- think, play and fantasize around violence.

But many parents (self-included) and many teachers misunderstand it. Many parents (self included) spend a lot of time trying to get our sons to "turn that gun into a wand" and what we communicate to them is that what they are on the inside, what goes on in their head, is unacceptable to us. And I'm thinking we aren't helping our sons like this. If I'm being intellectually consistent, then it occurs to me that the same might go for video games. I don't love Halo. I don't love my kids playing it. But maybe those games are appealing to the natural fantasy lives of boys and we (parents, teachers) should stop being so righteously indignant about tell our sons those games are bad and they are bad for being obsessed with them

Said so in person. Said so in this article
What do you think?

would love to hear from moms whose sons have bad handwriting

2009-02-09T11:19:00.002-05:00

I'm thinking about writing a story (I"m still a freelance journalist for various national publications) about handwriting, bad handwriting, what it means to kids and in particular, boys. Anyone out there care to share their story? We can start off the record but what I'm looking for are folks whose names I can use. (as always.)
you can email me through this site.

Thanks!
P.

Teachers Can Change the World

2009-02-09T11:17:00.003-05:00

Recently, I've heard from nine or ten schools that are using TTWB's as a text for their group study. They wrote me to say that they found it very helpful and interesting. I was SO pleased. My goal in writing this book was to create a useful document -- one that could help parents and teachers think about boys in a different way. It is very gratifying to hear from teachers and schools!

TTWB: On Tour

2008-11-03T17:20:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the long silence. I've been on an extended book tour which has taken me to California, Florida, Texas and now Kansas City. Almost everywhere I go, I've been speaking to packed crowds --teachers, parents and school administrators. It has been a pure joy.

Two week ago, I got to talk to executives at Google, which was also a tremendous pleasure. Such smart folks! And so concerned with education! They put my talk on youtube. If you search for my name on Youtube you'll find it or you can click on this link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gEqI86KRAA

No Recess = Boy Trouble

2008-10-17T11:50:00.003-04:00

Here's a terrific article from Georgia about how poor black kids in kindergarten and first grade aren't getting any recess.

www.macon.com/198/story/491586.html
Here's a paragraph:

One of the reasons is that Hartley has no swing sets or slides. There's just an old basketball court that's missing its goals. The terrain is uneven, with a 10-foot embankment behind the building.

But another reason Hartley has no recess is that the elementary school is trying to get students passing grade-level reading and math tests to meet goals under the No Child Left Behind law. The school didn't make it this past school year, and trying to catch up cuts in to play time.

"A lot of times in areas like this, so much emphasis is placed on testing, testing, testing," McKenzie said. "You want your children to be able to compete, and we're a test-driven society."

Check out the story. And note: the parents who are quoted in the story don't have any idea that they are sending their little children into school for six hours and they get no time for free play.
Think this is a good idea for any kids? Think this is a good idea for boys?

Are Boys Trailing Girls Around The Globe?

2008-10-02T08:37:00.002-04:00

So how does the underachievement of boys in the U.S compare with the rest of the world?

Short answer: In most of the industrialized countries, in places where girls have equal access to education, boys are lagging.

Here's an article from Cambodia in this morning's papers decrying the way boys are falling behind there.

Just 65.92 percent of male students passed the high school exam this year, compared with 77.26 percent of females.
The ministry says it is preparing an action plan to encourage male high school students to pay more attention to studies.
Similar findings have long been identified in Western countries, including the US, Australia and parts of Europe.

Interestingly, the government education ministry there is already expressing concern abut the problem and ready to take action. Not here.

A Recipe for How To Teach Boys

2008-10-01T19:16:00.002-04:00

This came in the other day from M. Bradley Rogers, Jr. the Headmaster at the Gow School, a private school for boys with learning issues in South Wales, N.Y.

He writes, "May I share with you a few ideas from one dad/schoolmaster's recipe for the boys? I do my best to model and teach the following:
· Work hard, then play hard.
· Sing and make music.
· Treat them (girls) like gold and "no" means no.
· Be strong and help others.
· Set goals and list the behaviors needed to achieve.
· War movies do have value.
· Go build a real tree fort from scraps of wood – not from a kit.
· Explore a stream and catch the crayfish.
· Ride a snowmobile.
· Apologize when wrong.
· Help change a flat tire even if you are only five years old.
· Tell the bully to back off the kid he is taunting.
· Get muddy.
· Respect elders and hold them when they struggle to walk."

Nice, right?

Talking About My Book to Parents and Teachers.

2008-09-25T18:37:00.003-04:00

I spoke at two wonderful events in the last couple of days – one at the New Canaan Library in New Canaan, Ct, sponsored by a bookstore called Elm Street Books and then, in the lovely town of Madison, Ct. at R.J. Julia Bookstore.

Both events drew about 100 people each – and after I spoke about my book for 20 (ok, more like 30) minutes, we had a very lively discussion.

Such thoughtful interesting perspectives! Both audiences were heavy with teachers who came out on a school night (no easy task) to talk about the ways in which boys struggle in school. A veteran first grade teacher from New Haven told me that her first graders get NO RECESS AT ALL!! She looked very upset as she talked about the effect on the children – and the boys. Another, a school guidance counselor, talked about his boy-heavy case load and the ways in which he sees boys disengage from school and the consequences for their education and their lives. Fascinating. And further proof.

Thanks for all of you who came out to those events.

Scores of Teachers Write to Applaud the Book!

2008-09-19T17:36:00.002-04:00

The title might sound a bit anti-teacher. But when you read the pages you'll see that it is not so! The book is full off appreciation and gratitude for the job most teachers do. Teachers, especially experienced ones, know they aren't reaching a lot of boys. They see how the schools devalue what boys need. Here's letter I got yesterday from a teacher in Georgia:

"I have been arguing the points you make for years. We have forgotten how children develop and at what rate. Keep up the good work."

Thanks for that!

I have hundreds of letters from parents of sons in my inbox

2008-09-18T10:56:00.004-04:00

I will answer each one personally but here's an example of what I'm hearing:

I came home today more frustrated than I believe I have ever been with the Public School System. Once again, my son brought home a “red slip” from school. Talk about anxiety building for him and for me. Can’t help to think maybe I have flunked out as a parent... He is a great, funny, very active, beautiful blued eye, six year old boy. Love him to pieces and would not trade him for the world. As much frustration he brings me in certain situations he also brings me ten times the amount of joy. Thanks again for sharing your book. I sure needed it right when I received it.

I worked hard to make this book useful to parents and teachers. Letters like this are pretty gratifying.

The Conversation Has Begun!

2008-09-17T08:03:00.002-04:00

I think I struck a nerve with my new book. Forty eight hours after my book came out, friends emailed to say it was #13 on Amazon.com. Then letters starting coming in -- teachers saying it was about time someone started talking about this, anguished parents describing their son's struggles. Not ten letters. HUNDREDS of letters. Every day since my book came out. I'm reading each one and I'll answer each one, but right now, I"m going to post a few (after I get the author's permission of course) to reflect the kinds of concerns I"m hearing.

Here's the Newsweek Story I Wrote This Week ONE MILLION PEOPLE READ IT!

2008-09-12T22:00:00.007-04:00

WHY ARE SCHOOL BOYS STRUGGLING?
By Peg Tyre

Every other week it seems a new study comes out that adds to our already-formidable arsenal of parental worries. But even by those escalating standards, the report issued last week by the federal government's National Center for Health Statistics contained a jaw-dropper: the parents of nearly one of every five boys in the United States were concerned enough about what they saw as their sons' emotional or behavioral problems that they consulted a doctor or a health-care professional. By comparison, about one out of 10 parents of girls reported these kinds of problems. (See the study here.)

The report confirms what many of us have been observing for some time now: that lots of school-age boys are struggling. And, parents are intensely worried about them.

What is ailing our sons? Some experts suggest we are witnessing an epidemic of ADHD and say boys need more medication. Others say that environmental pollutants found in plastics, among other things, may be eroding their attention spans and their ability to regulate their emotions.

Those experts may be right but I have another suggestion. Let's examine the way our child rearing and our schools have evolved in the last 10 years. Then ask ourselves this challenging question: could some of those changes we have embraced in our families, our communities and our schools be driving our sons crazy?

Instead of unstructured free play, parents now schedule their kids' time from dawn till dusk (and sometimes beyond.) By age 4, an ever-increasing number of children are enrolled in preschool. There, instead of learning to get along with other kids, hold a crayon and play Duck, Duck, Goose, children barely out of diapers are asked to fill out work sheets, learn computation or study Mandarin. The drumbeat for early academics gets even louder when they enter "real" school. Veteran teachers will tell you that first graders are now routinely expected to master a curriculum that, only 15 years ago, would have been considered appropriate for second, even third graders. The way we teach children has changed, too. In many communities, elementary schools have become test-prep factories—where standardized testing begins in kindergarten and "teaching to the test" is considered a virtue. At the same time, recess is being pushed aside in order to provide extra time for reading and math drills. So is history and opportunities for hands-on activities—like science labs and art. Active play is increasingly frowned on—some schools have even banned recess and tag. In the wake of school shootings like the tragedy at Virginia Tech, kids who stretch out a pointer finger, bend their thumb and shout "pow!" are regarded with suspicion and not a little fear.

Our expectations for our children have been ramped up but the psychological and physical development of our children has remained about the same. Some kids are thriving in the changing world. But many aren't. What parents and teachers see—and what this government study now shows—is that the ones who can't handle it are disproportionately boys.
Some researchers responded to last weeks' study by calling for more resources for more mental-health services for children—especially males. That's an admirable goal. But when nearly one in five boys has such serious behavioral and emotional issues that their parents are talking it over with their pediatrician, you can bet we are facing a problem that requires a more fundamental change in our society than medication or weekly therapy. Let's take a moment, before the school year gets any farther underway, and ask ourselves whether we are raising and educating our boys in a way that respects their natural development. And if we are not, let's figure out how we can bring our family life and our schools back into line.

This is one study that we ignore at our peril.

The Conversation About Boys and School Has Begun

2008-09-12T17:54:00.009-04:00

My book was released on Sept. 9th. That day, the editors at Newsweek.com kindly posted this little oped piece I wrote. Within 48 hours, it had OVER ONE MILLION web viewers.

Then, amazon.com and B&N.com started to show the book was selling off the shelves. It is now in the top 20.

If you are reading this and you are a parent of a boy struggling in school, I hope you get a chance to take a look at my book. If you find it useful, and I'm betting you will, tell other parents of sons about it. Let's start talking about what is right in front of our eyes.

A Jaw Dropping Statistic.

2008-09-06T13:47:00.007-04:00

The federal government just unveiled the results of a survey and found that among parents of boys in the U.S., ONE OUT OF FIVE discussed their sons behavioral or emotional issues with their health care provider or pediatrician. (For girls, it's one out of ten.)

This news was greeted with calls from more mental health care for children -- and especially boys. But when we have one out of five parents of boys worried that their sons' have emotional problems we need to step back and look at how we are raising and educating them. My belief: we are driving them a little crazy.

I've written an op ed about it which I'll post here later.

Come Visit me at www.whyboysfail.com

2008-08-15T14:30:00.003-04:00

I'm going to be guest blogging there for a week while my esteemed colleague Richard Whitmire, who runs www.whyboysfail.com does a stint as a guest blogger himself. Of course, I'll be shamelessly promoting my book over there, too.

Here the review from Booklist. Yeah!

2008-08-04T22:12:00.001-04:00

Issue: August 1, 2008

The Trouble with Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and
What Parents and Educators Must Do.
Tyre, Peg (Author)
Sep 2008. 320 p. Crown, hardcover, $24.95. (9780307381286). 371.8210973.
While the nation’s schools worked diligently to improve the academic performance of girls—including closing the achievement gap in math and science between girls and boys—few noticed the slow and steady decline in the academic performance of boys. The reading and writing achievement gap between girls and
boys continues as boys also stack up unfavorably in every measure from school discipline, to graduation rates, to grades, to college admission. Newsweek reporter Tyre examines troubling statistics that detail the
academic decline of boys and cites psychologists, sociologists, brain researchers, and others to explain the reasons behind the numbers. Tyre examines how schools—and broader society—have changed in ways that shortchange boys and how gender politics is affecting reactions to the dire statistics. She focuses on boys' specific problems—fidgeting in school, scattered attention, reading problems, and a shortage of male teachers. Through vignettes, Tyre offers advice to parents concerned about their sons. Most important, Tyre asks the ultimate question: how to help boys without jeopardizing the advances of girls.

— Vanessa Bush

A Review of TTWB in the influential Publishers Weekly

2008-06-29T17:55:00.002-04:00

In a spinoff from her 2006 cover story for Newsweek, "The Boy Crisis," Tyre delivers a cogent, reasoned overview of the current national debate about why boys are falling behind girls' achievement in school and not attending college in the same numbers. While the education emphasis in the 1990s was on helping girls succeed, especially in areas of math and science, boys are lagging behind, particularly in reading and writing; parents and educators, meanwhile, are scrambling to address the problems, from questioning teaching methods in preschool to rethinking single-sex schools. Tyre neatly sums up the information for palatable parental consumption: although boys tend to be active and noisy, and come to verbal skills later than girls, early-education teachers, mostly female, have little tolerance for the way boys express themselves. The accelerated curriculum and de-emphasis on recess do not render the classroom "boy friendly," and already set boys up for failure that grows more entrenched with each grade. Tyre touches on important concerns about the lack of male role models in many boys' lives, the perils of video-game obsession and the slippery dialogue over boys' brains versus girls' brains. Tyre treads carefully, offering a terrifically useful synthesis of information. (Sept.)

Cogent, reasoned, terrifically useful. So pleased!

Boys, Schools and the Sunshine State

2008-06-24T05:34:00.006-04:00

Here's an article that ran recently in the Gainesville Sun. Dr. Clark has been doing some very interesting work about boys who struggle in school in Florida.

Mary Ann Clark: How to close the education gender gap
By MARY ANN CLARK
Special to The Sun

Published: Sunday, June 15, 2008 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, June 13, 2008 at 8:10 p.m.

There have been numerous articles in the media on the growing gender gap in educational achievement and persistence resulting in significantly more women than men entering and graduating from college and earning graduate degrees (see "Outnumbered on campus," Gainesville Sun, March 16).

There have also been counterarguments, such as a recent American Association of University Women (AAUW) study, that claim there is no gender gap and that boys are doing just fine in school.

Politically in today's world, it is difficult to make a case for boys being offered interventions, as the perception is that any assistance given them may short-change girls and the numerous and positive educational and career inroads made by women over the past 30 years.

However, the national and international data are there: More women than men are earning more degrees and have better grades at all levels of education.

Undergraduate enrollment in the United States of women to men is currently about 134:100 with many flagship universities enrolling 60 percent or more female students (UF's freshmen class in 2007 was 59 percent female).

More women than men are entering graduate schools, accounting for the increase in graduate enrollment. The gender gap with regard to college enrollment and retention cuts across racial and socioeconomic groups.

Local data in Alachua County mirror the national and international data.

Boys at the elementary, middle and high school levels have significantly more discipline referrals, special education placements and attendance issues than do the girls. These findings are true of white, African-American and Hispanic students.

Significantly more girls in all groups are achieving at a higher level in middle and high school as measured by earning (unweighted) grade point averages (GPAs) above 3.0, and significantly more boys in all groups earning GPAs below 2.0. Those that have grades below a 1.0 are potentially the ones who will drop out of high school, and a large majority of that group is male.

Although the numbers of students identified as "gifted" in K-12 education are relatively equal by gender, the girls are more often the honors graduates (check the Gainesville Sun each spring for pictures of these students and count the numbers of girls and boys). In our Alachua County public schools, there are significantly more girls enrolled in the advanced high school programs. Out of 2,221 students in Advanced Placement courses, 57 percent are females.

Likewise, the International Baccalaureate Program consists of 59 percent girls. The Cambridge Program has 63 percent female enrollment, as does the Santa Fe Community College dual enrollment program.

In an era where college admissions officers of selective institutions are emphasizing the importance of rigorous and challenging high school preparation (read college level work), many more girls than boys are following such a path.

My graduate students and I have engaged in research about this important educational issue for the past two years. In addition to analyzing quantitative data, we have conducted focus groups of middle and high school students, and have interviewed educators and parents about their perspectives on school success skills, achievement and attitudes toward learning.

Educators and parents voiced concern as related to student gender about themes of organization, motivation, study skills and completing assignments, learning styles, role models and mentors, impulsivity and discipline, maturity, and thinking about the future.

The majority of the interviewees expressed that boys as a group are less organized and appear to spend less time on their assignments and in studying, seem less motivated and interested in school and plan less for the future than do girls as a group.

"Perceptions of masculinity" seemed to be another major theme; adults and students of both genders state that boys are more likely to face criticism from their peers for trying to do well, while girls are expected to achieve at a high standard and care about their performance.

There is a concern about the lack of male role models both at the school level and outside of school. The number of male educators is at a 40-year low, and 85 percent of single parent homes are headed by women. Educators and parents expressed that school culture is more female oriented; group work and expectations to comply and to sit still are more closely aligned with girls than with boys.

Several of these themes have implications for educators, parents and community members when considering student gender. These points include increasing the awareness level among parents and educators regarding gender issues and learning, the expansion of a network of male role models, assisting male students in practical organization and study skills, offering choices in assignments and reading materials that may take learning styles and energy levels into account for both genders, and making a concerted effort to encourage male students to think more about future educational and career planning.

Other strategies, such as using single gender groups within classrooms, may warrant trying and evaluating. Collaborating with business partners in schools can assist in developing programs that feature mentoring and tutoring for all ages, as well as possible job shadowing and apprenticeship possibilities for older students.

Setting high academic expectations and encouraging males to enroll in advanced courses or programs in middle and high school can set an achievement trajectory earlier in their academic careers. Increasing home and school communication about future planning may be essential to increase boys' awareness and motivation for future opportunities.

There are several vital programs in Alachua County that seek to provide mentors and role modeling for our youth to foster pride, motivation, appropriate behavior and group bonding for positive gains as students and citizens. Perhaps building on such programs to reach a wider network of boys by utilizing community and school partnerships could be a positive step in extending such influences and promoting cross-generational bonding that seems less prevalent than it has been in the past.

It is in the best interest of all of us for both genders to work to their potential and be successful in school and life in general. Educational achievement and persistence of our young people affect all of us, our future generations and family structures.

The gender issue is not about innate abilities. It is about motivation, encouragement, engagement, developing aspirations for the future and strengths building. Let's meet that challenge as educators, parents and community members for all of our students.

exciting news about my book

2008-06-12T10:03:00.002-04:00

The Today Show has booked me to talk about The Trouble With Boys on September 11th. So has Fox & Friends.

A very nice reporter from Chicago magazine is writing about the book-- especially about the schools in Illinois ---for an article that (I hope) will come out in September.

Some magazines that go directly to educators and school administrators are interested in writing about the book, too.

I'm very pleased and grateful to have the opportunity to get my ideas and research in front of teachers and parents!

Peg responds to AAUW report on Huffington Post

2008-06-01T13:48:00.003-04:00

I was thinking about the AAUW's report so I hauled off and wrote this and sent it to the Huffington Post, which they kindly put up.

Check it out:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peg-tyre/who-says-the-boy-crisis-i_b_104172.html

I was very interested to read the comments people posted. Sometimes comment threads can get really wacky really fast. As comments sections go, this one reflected a lot of the deep concern about boys I have been reporting on. See, it's not just your son....

Welcome!

2008-05-30T10:09:00.001-04:00

Because my book is coming out in the fall, boys and school are very much on my mind. I was dismayed last week when the American Association of University Women issued their report declaring the "boy crisis" in education is over.

This is an organization I respect. For decades, they have boldly demanded equal access to education for women -- and in that way, have changed our world in ways we will only fully appreciate when history is written. But with all due respect, their report is nonsense and a disservice not only to boys but to many smart women who would ordinarily be their supporters.

I realize that the AAUW is an advocacy group. And what I'm trying to do with my book is to present a more balanced view of demographic shifts in our culture. (Gosh, that sounds so much more boring than it actually is.) So we're bound to come to different conclusions. Still, I'm not sure why they felt compelled to issue a report along the lines of the "Boys Are Ok" when the facts tell us otherwise. It erodes their credibility. It confuses some of the very people (women) they are speaking for.