The Trouble with Boys

From NPR's series, "Men in America"

Boys in American public schools are suspended from and drop out of school at higher rates than girls. Black and Latino boys are suspended the most. Boys make up half of the student population in American public schools. But among those who are suspended multiple times and expelled, 75 percent are boys.

I once did a bad thing when I was teaching middle school. A black boy in my class came to school with these (really ridiculous) red and yellow athletic shoes. I'm sure he thought they were cooler than shit and he likely would have impressed all his friends that day. I'm sure his parents spent more than they needed on these shoes (Acres Home -- parents, especially black parents, spent too much money on what I -- as a white male -- thought was a waste of money, such as the $120 hair treatment for a 12 year old girl who was failing school because she needed reading tutoring but her mother didn't do anything about it. You're welcome to comment on how I saw race and class there).

But when I saw those shoes, I said something like, "They look like Ronald McDonald shoes. Is that what you wanted?" Other kids laughed. He was silent. And I never saw him wear those shoes again. Wrong of me, but it also reflects something about how his seeking peer acceptance was deflated by an authority figure whose rhetoric was itself validated by the other kids' laughter. If even 2-4 other boys had said, "Those are cool" at that moment, he would have saved face, but no one did. I was a bad teacher that day. I was a bad man that day. I could have validated his style choices, because that's what we do as men in America -- we approve of each other's clothes and biceps and cars -- we validate possessions as both signals of our masculinity and acceptance into the circle of manhood. 

It was shitty. Consider the circumstances, though -- overworked teachers, unsupportive administration, often invisible parents, overenrolled classes, TAKS curriculum, test, test, test. That's why I left secondary ed. Yes, it's shitty, and I hope I learned from it in some way. Was it partly a racist/classist comment, too? Yes. I could have been more reflective as to how some black boys see shoes as well as how any pre-pubescent is just trying to fit in and wear clothes like other boys his age do. But I wasn't. Neither was I like that all the time. It just sticks out. 

I was the only man with a job some of these boys had, many of them locked in their apartments until their single parent came home later at night. I wasn't supposed to make them do pushups (but their PE coach never did) and it was all in fun -- if they challenged me on a question, I would bet them 20 pushups. If the boy was wrong, he did them. If I could be proven wrong, I did them. Nothing was coerced. But it helped the boys burn off just a bit of the energy in the middle of the day, especially after a lunch where only carbs are served, and in a state where PE is a joke. Probably shouldn't mention the push-ups. They would come in from PE stinking because all they did was walk around the track in the hot Houston sun and they didn't shower though they had already started puberty and needed to shower but showering with others was "gay" and the "coach" was apathetic about everything, so they just covered themselves with Axe Body Spray to hide the smell but it never worked and so I had a classroom every afternoon that smelled like a mixture of sweaty pubescent boys and the sickening sweetness of Axe. That was a minor battle that I just pushed off the radar. Getting them to pass the Almighty TAKS test was the only priority for our school, and boys had a higher fail rate than girls. The shower talk was for another day.

What I also remember is another boy who was angry for some reason -- perhaps a girl had ignored him, perhaps another teacher had shamed him (boys are especially susceptible to shame) and he was livid. The other students were working in small groups in the hallway and I knew that if he was to be let alone, he was going to say something, yell something, hit something that would get him in trouble. He's 12. He's fatherless. He doesn't know how to control his hormones or his new muscles yet. He was already crying because he was so angry and he probably knew, too, that something was going to happen to send him to the principals' office. So I take him in the corner of the classroom where no one could see and I raise my hands like a boxing trainer and told him to start hitting me. He didn't understand, so I had to explain it to him -- "Just keep your feel on the ground, your hips in place, swing your upper body and hit me as hard and fast as you can." 

He did, and he got into it. My hands hurt within a minute and he kept on hitting, swinging, some of that anger dissipating in each contact with my hands as they became redder and redder. He started crying and was about to stop and told him to keep hitting -- no one was around and it didn't matter. It felt like a long time, but it probably was only two minutes before his thin body was exhausted. He had stopped crying and his heavy breathing was because of the workout, not the sobs. I told him to hang around till it didn't look like he had been crying, and I walked away leaving him alone and to check on the other kids. We never spoke of it again. He finished high school. 

Have to add this, just because:

So, I'm not always shitty to kids. 

It's a familiar problem for Branch: Boys get sent to the principal's office far more often than girls. After years of teaching and running his after-school clubs, Branch says he has learned this: Sometimes boys just gotta move. So instead of playing disciplinary Whack-A-Mole with their frenetic energy, Branch says it's key to try to channel it when boys act out.

It doesn't end with middle school. It continues to high school where more boys drop out than girls; more boys go to jail than girls; more boys choose work than college than girls.

And then it continues to college, especially community colleges where -- at my college -- women out number men 60 to 40 and more men, especially men of color, drop out, though these last data are not presented to the public. 

LSCS Fast Facts <http://lonestar.edu/17313.htm> 

I know of only three incidents in the past year where police have removed students from the North Harris campus; there are certainly others. But in each case, the student has been male, and a black male. Precise statistics should be made regularly, and they are, but not on-line. The LSC PD page states

http://www.lonestar.edu/departments/policesafety/2012_Annual_Security_Report.pdf

I don't understand why these data can't be made public on-line. Apparently each person has to individually, separately go to the police office (which, btw, is not "on" campus) and request the data. I guess I'll be doing that this week.

Though the summary data is not broken down by gender, here is 2012's Clery table anyway (It's August already -- why isn't 2013 published yet?)

http://www.lonestar.edu/departments/policesafety/2012_Annual_Security_Report.pdf

These data aren't showing what I want to show -- that some boys don't stop being boys when they come to college. I'll get those data and discuss another time. But this is true -- some boys are still boys. We get dual-credit students, early college students, and then regular ol' FTIC students, and some still haven't figured out this manhood thing yet. 

Though I've never dismissed a student from class, other professors have, and I've even witnessed one professor berate several male students in  office, so loudly that no message could be mistaken. I'll also be publishing some other data, permitted by FERPA because of anonimzation, that shows discrepancies between male and female success in core courses. When men fail out of core courses, it's unlikely they'll return to complete. For multiple reasons, including institutional neglect, he's been taught to be invisible or take the low path. It's easy for boys to disappear, because large parts of society simply don't care. Intitutionalism is easier than change. It's easier to expel than to reform. It's easier to incarcerate than to nurture. 

A bit long, but worth it to understand restorative justice:

I hope I learned from those Ronald McDonald shoes, and like we always regret our past, I wish I could find that student and apologize, see where he is now.

Years ago I taught an early morning writing class -- too early, in my opinion. One young man struggled with the PCs -- didn't know about file saving, for example, but had a good attitude. Yet I saw his struggle. I saw him in the hallway in the second week, approached him, and said, "Mr ___, remember, this isn't a computer class; this is a writing class. And if you need to use pen and paper for all your writing, that's fine with me. " He expressed his gratitude; I could feel the honest sincerity as he said it. Then he explained that he had just gotten out of prison, being sentenced at age 18, and in for 8 years. His first act was to enroll in community college and get back on track. Honestly, he wasn't ready. He had been away from school too long (we don't educate prisoners here in Texas, because that would be wrong somehow), and he had missed so much of the computer evolution. Yet he stuck it out and worked his ass off in my class and passed.

Years later, he applied to a four year public university and was denied because of his felony history. I wrote a letter to their Admissions office, explaining that he was precisely the kind of student they wanted, and frankly, if he did well in my class, he would do well in any class they offered. I don't know if it was my letter or his own doing, but they reconsidered and admitted him. We stayed in touch, met for lunch once or twice.

Last summer, this student contacted me and invited me to his university graduation. I avoid commencements because of the ... well, because. But I drove an hour away, tolerated the pompous speeches, and saw him walk across the stage, heard his family and friends scream his name. I found him afterwards, in the shadow of the pines, still in his regalia, grinning the biggest grin. It wasn't me that got him there, but he said some things in my ear that made me feel good. He's now well employed and doing what men do, even men who make stupid mistakes because they were stupid boys. 


I used to have this first-of-semester ice breaker writing exercise where I had everyone -- including myself -- write "the most embarrassing moment, age 6 to the present." It was safe because the topic was self-selected, and it lead to an immediate discussion of author, topic, and audience. 

Two findings, quantified: 

1. adolescent women's memories of most embarrassing moments tend to be some scenario of falling down in public, such as in a high school hallway or in the mall. There's something about the lack of physical control in public that shames girls.  
2. adolescent men's memories tend to revolve around public nudity. So many stories of losing swimming trunks in the gulf surf or off a diving board, being "pantsed" by buddies in the mall while wearing no underwear, having one's basketball shorts pulled down and wearing only a jock strap. Boys don't care about falling down in public -- we do it all the time and we're used to it; we even push each other around helping each other fall down. But in every class, every section, at least 15% to 20% of these stories are about public nudity. Go figure.

Birches

BY ROBERT FROST
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. 

Source: The Poetry of Robert Frost (1969)

The trouble with boys ... is that we don't see them as the men they can become. We treat them as the problem, when in truth, their boyness is often the very thing they need. We must stop stifling boyhood and nurture it, revel in it, build it. We have to permit the scrapped skin, the broken bones, the crying, the anger, the fumbling and pushing and awkwardness and fidgeting -- in boys and girls -- and change how we see human development. Get boys and men outside (and yes, I'm not excluding girls and women) and help them feel and touch and sweat and wrestle with their physicality in a physical universe. Let them fall, and show them how to get up.

We just have to do away with the Axe body spray.