America's Promise

In the National Promises Study from America’s Promise – The Alliance for Youth (think Colin Powel), they found some alarming facts. Just for starters,

Nearly two-thirds of African-American children, and almost one in four white children, live in households with only one parent.

Two million American children have a parent in jail.

More than 15 million at-risk young people need a mentor.

Approximately eight million children ages 5 to 14 regularly spend time without adult supervision.

That’s why the first of their Five Promises speaks to mentoring relationships.

Every child and youth needs and deserves support and guidance from caring adults in their families, schools, and communities, including ongoing, secure relationships with parents and other family adults, as well as multiple and consistent formal and informal positive relationships with teachers, mentors, coaches, youth volunteers, and neighbors.

Check out their research and the other four promises at AmericasPromise.org

Schools Just for Boys

The Field School of Charlottesville, Virginia, is one of many schools for boys using the recent research on boy development as the rationale for a single-gender learning environment. They remind us that in the middle of the 20th century, all boy schools were common... until the 1970's and the passing of the Title 9 of the Civil Rights Act.

The Field School says that just some of the benefits of an all boy environment include...a faculty experienced in teaching, coaching and counseling boys, one which understands boys’ issues, school program tailored to the style and tempos of boys’ learning, and by a more unified educational purpose. A boys’ school also provides an open, positive school environment, where boys are encouraged to be well rounded in all school activities from arts to athletics to service.

It really does sound inviting. On their website the Field School even provides links to websites and articles in support of their single-gender approach.

If you want to see a powerful film clip describing how male lives can be changed by a boy's Rites of Passage weekend, check out this one from fmarxfilm. When you get to the fmarxfilm website, click on the Project Demo link in the menu on the left.

If your heart is at all open to this work, this exploration of boy's and men's experiences on an initiation weekend, by film-maker Frederick Marx, has a good chance of bringing tears to your eyes.

I only hope Frederick gets the money he needs to complete this film. He's a gifted film maker and New American Heroes is just one of the many Man-Making stories that needs to be told. Questions about the film can be sent to Frederick at fdm@fmarxfilm.com.

The Man-Making book is in print!

FINALLY, four years later, Man-Making: Men Helping Boys on Their Journey to Manhood is in print.

You can read all about the book, and even order a copy, at it's new website.

The blog has been quiet during the last couple of months during the book's production, but it will spring back to life now that the publication hump has passed. Thanks to everyone for your patience, and for your interest in the topic.

Now let's all get about the business of making the world a better place for boys and men.

Teacher's Gender Affects Learning

There is a widely reported study out this week by Thomas Dee, an associate professor of economics at Swarthmore College and visiting scholar at Stanford University. He is fighting to get his work published in Education Next, a quarterly journal published by the Hoover Institution.

The main point Dee claims to have researched is that gender matters when it comes to learning. Specifically, he says having a teacher of the opposite sex hurts a student's academic progress. Simply stated, boys learn more from men and girls learn more from women. In the article, Dee warns against drawing fast conclusions based on his work, and he is not endorsing single-sex education. Instead, he hopes his work will spur more research into the effect of a teachers gender on learners, and what to do about it.

If Mr. Dee is right, this is another way boys are being handicapped by the current educational system. At this time in our history, the number of male teachers is at its lowest level in 40 years. Roughly 80 percent of teachers in U.S. public schools are women.

Check out the article and see what you think.