Teachers must 'get' boys

Years ago, before I found myself living in testosterone-land, I would read articles about how the public schools were failing girls in science and math. And I would shake my head in disgust.

I'd read about how boys were called on for answers more often than girls. My blood would boil.

I would think about the rank discrimination against girl-students, and it just plain made me sad.

Then I had three sons.

And I learned that boys face their own struggles in this nation's educational system.

Perhaps the pendulum has swung. Perhaps the subtle discrimination has always been there.

I've seen it firsthand.

I've been trying to remember the first time I heard a teacher say, about one of my sons, "He's all boy."

But there have been so many times, they all run together.

I know it started in preschool. And at this point I fully expect to see it written somewhere on the college diploma.

Let me give you a clue: This is not a compliment.

At worst it means, "Your son is my worst nightmare come to life."

At best it means your son is so full of energy that he sometimes finds it difficult to restrain himself. This description is almost always accurate.

But for some teachers, that truth translates to nightmare.

That's because some teachers don't "get" boys.

That's why I was so fascinated to see the provocative new study, published last week in the Hoover Institution journal called Education Next, which shows that boys may perform better for male teachers. Girls tend to do better with female teachers.

Now, keep in mind that female teachers hugely outnumber male teachers.

Here in Wake County, about 17 percent of teachers are male; across the state, it's 20 percent. (Gee, I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that our teachers are underpaid?)

In elementary schools statewide, barely 10 percent of teachers are men.

At our school, that would be the Spanish and phys ed instructors, both favorites with my older boys.

But there are plenty of female teachers who "get" boys, too. My sister-in-law once told me these are usually teachers who have sons themselves.

We've found the group to be a bit broader.

There are teachers (both sexes) who understand boys -- the energy and the outbursts, the stunning shifts between serious and silly, the competition between the desire to play and the pressure to be supercool.

These are teachers who understand that even boys face preconceptions in the schools.

These are teachers who view them as boys, not aliens.

On his first day of 4-year-old kindergarten, my middle son's teacher discovered Tucker standing on a picnic table during recess.

His teacher told me later, "I thought, 'This could be a long year.' "

It wasn't, though.

His teacher came to understand Tucker. I like to think she understood that boys, like girls, need special consideration sometimes, too.