<p>Dudes don’t like to take courses where they have to talk about, read about or write about other dudes’ feelings. Does that mean that they are “repelled” by humanities classes is LACs? I don’t want to talk about it.</p>
<p>Hi cobrat - I definitely agree with you about CMU’s Humanities and Social Sciences program (at least back in the day). There’s no doubt that H&SS was the weak link. The experiences that I described both occurred in upper-level courses - classrooms filled with people majoring in those subjects. The only difficult H&SS course that I encountered was the required freshman history course for science/engineering students, and that one was very hard. Subsequent history classes were quite pleasant. :)</p>
<p>So you definitely understand what I mean by being an intelligent consumer. Assuming things haven’t changed, there’s not a chance in hell that I would pay full freight for an H&SS major at CMU. Similarly, I wouldn’t consider paying for a CS major at Amherst. College is just too expensive to not receive value.</p>
<p>Anyway, we’re diverging a bit from the topic of the thread!</p>
<p>Edit: The reason that I originally brought up those classes was the anti-male content (offensive and worthless), not the degree of difficulty (easy and worthless). No doubt, there must be anti-male courses that are also quite difficult (again, worthless in my opinion). The point being that there’s at least a grain of truth in Sommers’ argument.</p>
<p>"Dudes don’t like to take courses where they have to talk about, read about or write about other dudes’ feelings. Does that mean that they are “repelled” by humanities classes is LACs? I don’t want to talk about it. "</p>
<p>they should be much more comfortable now </p>
<p>“while this poem is nominally about “subtle feelings”, its actually an imperialist power discourse designed to deny exploited peoples the ability to articulate their powerlessness”</p>
<p>“If the explanation can’t explain why the gender disparity is ENTIRELY among low-income, black, and Hispanic students, then it’s no explanation at all.”</p>
<p>oh cmon. leaving aside the possibility (which I think has been raised by some black male writers and cannot be dismissed) that feminism has had a particular impact on black males that it has not had on whites (no, I cant say how hispanics fit into this) here is another idea - failing boys, are going to be pushed “down the ladder” for the most part whites and asians are still going to go to college, but we would see that reflected in more females at highly selective colleges, more males at less. The folks who drop out the bottom and dont go to college at all, would be heavily minorities. </p>
<p>yes, the obvious counter to that would be working class whites, who still often dont go to college, male or female. OTOH there MIGHT be reasons that working class WHITE males are increasing their attendance at bottom tier colleges that overcome the ‘tide of feminism’ - say a decline in hiring prospects in certain skilled trades they once dominated - or the (quite real) overall decline in blue collar wages. </p>
<p>I am not saying you are wrong or summers is right - I am just not sure the “schools are failing boys” thesis can be dismissed as easily as citing the racial differential. </p>
<p>to note my bias - I am the father of a daughter, but an ADHD one with a highly visual spatial learning style - it is my impression that our school system is heavily geared towards a narrow range of learning styles.</p>
<p>Maybe an old thread but nonetheless telling: Why more girls? Duhhhh, what else would you expect given that boys are as ne’er do well as these responses indicate. Appears to me there’s a big problem if the following generalizations reflect the default opinion in America today regarding boys…</p>
<p>look at the old dunce capped kid in the corner picture, it was nearly always a boy. Boys are knuckle heads when it comes to school. </p>
<p>If they weren’t playing video games then they’d be off elsewhere doing an activity that doesn’t involve reading. </p>
<p>For the majority of young men, their interests and abilities are more conducive to crafts – mechanics, electricians, machinery operators, etc </p>
<p>Also construction, factory work, trades </p>
<p>Boys need to learn how to work a job. I see more boys without any practical job experience. </p>
<p>doing what one needs to do to succeed in school: sit still, study hard, keep track of your assignments and turn them in on time, etc., and that on the average, boys are less compliant and less well-organized, especially while they are under 18.</p>
<p>more boys than girls are “lost” to illegal activities and incarceration. </p>
<p>more men drop out of high school. also, more men are in the military or in jail. </p>
<p>you have to be neat and complete NOW to have a shot at being accepted into a quality school. No wonder so many young men choose not to bother. </p>
<p>(they) do something else. Open a business, join the military. Or have your lady support you. Or live in your mom’s basement…don’t know any females living in their parents’ basement(!)</p>
<p>The lack of strong men and fathers in the family is the single greatest social problem we have</p>
<p>When you think about it, a guy doesn’t need a college degree to get by in life. </p>
<p>Most of these brilliant comments appear to have been written by women/mothers(?) of boys(?). But has anybody considered that the problem could simply be due to all the watermelon and chitlins them boys et when they was kids???</p>
<p>I am a parent of both a D and a S. Both very good students.</p>
<p>I have never noticed that the girls were favored in the schools that my kids attended. In fact the boys who did well (including my own S) received much more attention than the girls who did.</p>
<p>Boys may be less mature than girls, but I have found that a lot of parents use this as an excuse to let the boys slack off.</p>
<p>I am very bothered by the perception that girls achieve by being quiet, neat and well behaved. What an insult to the girls who are smart and not afraid to work hard.</p>
<p>As for the “gut” humanities and social sciences for STEM majors, it goes the other way ,too. As a Biology major in college, I laughed at the watered down science classes the non STEM majors had to take!</p>
<p>FallGirl, you are so right. I feel like my 2 Ds are really rewarded for being smart and hardworking, far more than girls were when I was growing up. D2 in particular is NOT very neat or well behaved (better now than when younger, but still a work in progress 
). But is still doing very well, better academically than most of the boys in her class. For D2 in particular, it is mostly just raw intelligence shining through. And being given a much better chance to shine than girls of previous generations, IMHO. My opinion is that women would have outpaced men academically many years ago if it weren’t for the bias that kept them down in the past. My dad thought my career options were nurse, teacher, or secretary, regardless of talent or intelligence. I have gone well beyond that, but still envy my Ds for the wide open field they have before them today.</p>
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<p>FYI, I am a man and someone who is only around a decade out from undergrad. </p>
<p>IMHO, we may be getting closer to the root causes by examining what bclintonk pointed out as well as the seeming general decline in academic and behavioral expectations of children/adolescents…especially boys compared with what older acquaintances I’ve known experienced as children/adolescents in the '40’s and '50s. </p>
<p>None of those older acquaintances who were mostly male and have attended college with no issues would accept explanations such as “most boys are inclined towards crafts”. I’ve actually seen a few go on a long ranting tirade about “lowered expectations” when some parents back when I was an adolescent in the early '90s try to offer such explanations for why male students were not doing as well as their female counterparts at a parent-teacher conference. </p>
<p>While my older aunt and uncle would be inclined to the “crafts” explanation to explain away their son’s horrid undergraduate experience, the rest of my extended family aren’t buying it and still regard him as a contemptible slacker/ne’er do well to this day. </p>
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<p>I never heard the end of that from my STEM major high school/college classmates…even though I took far more science and math credits than required as a history major. Of those, two of those science credits were CS courses for majors and one was a stats course taken at Harvard where nearly a third of the students were Harvard econ majors. </p>
<p>IME, most STEM students who slag on humanities/social-science majors do so because they took the gut courses for non-humanities/social-science students or took an intro-level course with the least amount of work. Few science majors IME are inclined to choose intermediate/advanced courses with heavy reading loads of 500+ pages/week and long research term papers ranging from 15-35 pages in length which count for up to 80% of the final grade. Especially when many STEM majors chose their major because they hated writing papers…even 3-8 page papers were “too long” for them.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, some of what I wrote about “good citizenship” playing a part in grading was the case…even at my math/science urban public magnet high school in the early-mid '90s. Worse, this ended up blindsiding many college classmates of myself and my high school classmates once we entered college and such behavior was expected as the minimum standard and would no longer earn a student extra points on a grade.</p>
<p>Moreover, the emphasis on hard work is not always prized in academia or the workplace for similar reasons. </p>
<p>Incidentally, several professors and grad students warned me that any LORs which emphasized that a student was a “hard worker” or “worked hard” was often regarded negatively by grad admissions faculty as a “backhanded compliment” by the LOR writer. It was often regarded as shorthand to signify a student was diligent, but not brilliant intellectually and thus, a guaranteed black mark on one’s grad school application.</p>
<p>Sorry, but I don’t see the quote function, so this is a reply to #73, bclintock, who said:</p>
<p>“To get at what’s really going on, then, someone would have to write a book titled ‘The War on Low-Income, Black, and Hispanic Boys.’”</p>
<p>What role do you think the parents play in encouraging their sons? The problem is that, at least in the US, a great deal of money and effort have been directed towards these groups of boys, yet the boys continue to do poorly on tests.</p>
<p>I just interviewed a nine year old boy, so we could figure out what was going on in school, and I asked him how his teacher, ( a man; “finally!” says the boy; “he does PE with us!”), let’s hm know when he is doing a good job. “Group points!” he replies, and adds he is the only boy in his group of six, and it was easy to get points in that group because girls are quiet!</p>
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<p>As far as I’m aware, CMU’s engineer school’s requirement of three courses in different departments, plus three courses in a single department (at least one of them being upper-level) as well as, I think, something like 3-4 additional non-technical electives. That’s certainly in the range of any other typical engineering program (and H&SS’s relative weakness can certainly be made up by taking courses at Pitt if you so desire).</p>
<p>As for the ultra-narrow engineer stereotype being thrown out yet again, how many engineers minor in a liberal arts field? How many liberal arts majors minor in engineering?</p>
<p>Yes, cobrat was incorrect on that particular assertion. The CMU science/engineering folks do receive a well-rounded education. I didn’t read it as the “ultra-narrow engineer stereotype”, but maybe that was the subtle message.</p>
<p>For me, I’m just hopeful that somewhere there’s a school where the social science folks work as hard as the engineers. Our society kind of needs that right now. So I hope that cobrat got the rest of it right. :)</p>
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<p>I said: "Many engineering/STEM centered schools like MIT and CMU have been notorious for having gut humanities and social science courses geared for STEM majors who are not interested in a well-rounded liberal arts education. "</p>
<p>Unless I am mistaken, my sentence only applies to a certain set of STEM major, namely those not interested in a well-rounded liberal arts education. As far as I know, that’s not applicable to all STEM majors.</p>
<p>Moreover, the part about CMU having gut courses geared for that subset of STEM majors is not my own assertions, but accounts from at least a dozen high school classmates who are CMU alums and CMU alum colleagues I’ve known/worked with over the years. That’s not to say that CMU or other sci/tech centered school STEM majors cannot receive a well-rounded education, but such schools do offer plenty of gut options for those who aren’t interested in that education. Options many of them took advantage because they made no bones about not being interested in the “fluff fields” as some of them put it. </p>
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<p>Swarthmore, UChicago, and Reed are three off the top of my head.</p>
<p>Then again, several engineering major friends/colleagues have wondered whether some of that “hard work”(i.e. Harsh grading curves, enormous courseload/semester, freshmen weedout courses with 50%+ flunkout rates) was really necessary or was it a form of “academic hazing” to maintain some traditions.</p>
<p>There is SO MUCH prejudice about what men are like on this thread!!! My guys enjoy reading (well, 2 out of 3 do), and they read books like Far from the Pavilion on their own during a school break. They are not huge sports fans and they’d be awful doing construction or heavy lifting since they weigh less than 120 lbs.</p>
<p>Having said that, I can verify what happens in the classroom since I’m an elementary teacher. By far, girls seek adult approval whereas the guys are only tuned in when we’re doing something interesting (aka lots of movement). I always feel that guys are just too young and the expectations are too intense starting at a very young age. Back in the day, a full day didn’t start for kids until they were in 1st grade and often that meant kids were 7 years old. Today, kids are in full day pre-kindergarten classes at age 3-4 and they are expected to be reading on their own by kindergarten. And yes, school is designed for girls: they can hold a pencil, they can sit still for longer periods of time, and they are generally quieter. So, right from the very beginning, boys are at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>Yep, of course the schools you named are such places. Just giving it back to you with a grin. :)</p>
<p>But I’m gonna disagree with you on the sci/tech weedout. As far as I can tell, the only way to master that stuff is with hard work. I’d rather see the other fields harden.</p>
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<p>Speaking as a man, I’m not so sure about that. This is reinforced by dozens of accounts I heard from older acquaintances who grew up in the '40s and '50s and mentioned how they quickly learned how to sit still and maintain attention at 6+ years of age to the teachers as neither they nor their parents had much tolerance for inattentiveness, running around, or even fidgeting. This tolerance was even less at your average Parochial school. </p>
<p>Moreover, when I was tossed out of one Catholic school for not being able to sit still and otherwise behaving like a “normal boy” at 5 years of age in the early '80s, my parents and mostly White/Latino adult neighbors gently, but firmly explained how I must learn how to sit still and pay attention to my teachers in school if I was to get ahead in the world and not get left behind like many older ne’er do well kids in the neighborhood who were already starting to build up their criminal records. </p>
<p>Back then, such “normal boy” behavior was understood as impulses which needed to be tempered and channeled with much guidance along with some discipline from the parents. </p>
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<p>I’ve wondered if the weedout rates could be reduced if better academic preparation was provided in K-12 as the high school classmates at MIT, CMU, and other places with one notable exception had few difficulties with the workload whereas those who didn’t attend highly rigorous private or public magnet high schools like the one I attended tended to buckle under the load. </p>
<p>Out of curiosity, how would you like to see the social science/humanities fields harden?</p>
<p>I am with you, MisterK. My field has actually gotten harder, in my opinion, as it should. The world is more complex than when I graduated and studied for my professional exams. Thus, the weedout has to continue to get tougher.</p>
<p>limabeans, I do not believe school expectations have changed that much since the 50s/60s. There was always an expectation that you would sit still and do your work. I still think the difference in the expectations and opportunities for women has just brought something to the fore that was always there, just tamped down. Men have not slipped back so much as women have surged ahead because it is now expected and allowed. This is one minority group that has taken advantage of the removal of barriers and run with it. Too bad we didn’t remove those barriers hundreds of years ago, and we can’t get the rest of the world to follow more quickly.</p>
<p>The best answer to this question I found in boys adrift. It really isn’t so much that girls are doing better as it is boys are doing a whole lot worst. In fact college attendance for boys has gone way down in the last 20 years. I think it has to do a lot with schools being so strict when it comes to violence. When a boy brings a toy soldier to school they’ll have the principle and teachers talk to him and call the boys parents. This happens to every boy at one time or another, and then it sets him at odds with the school. School is stupid, he’ll think. He then won’t be energized to listen, will be diagnosed with ADD and given stimulants, which don’t help the undermining issue of him not wanting to learn. They have done away with competition, and for a boy that’s a really important motivator. They don’t get motivated so they don’t achieve. They’ve done away with any cool war books or anything else that would cause a boy to read. When boys are 5 there part of the brain that will learn to read is at a girl’s at 3 1/2 years old. If you forced a girl at 3 1/2 years old to read she’d hate it and never achieve later on. By age 16 1 out of 4 boys can’t read, as compared to 1 out of 16 girls can’t read. Those are caucasian statistics, it’s worst with minorities and the impoverished, but it’s universal none the less. It’s pretty clear that schools have been getting less boy friendly as time has passed. I think more boys play video games now because there not motivated for school, not the other way around.</p>
<p>"For the majority of young men, their interests and abilities are more conducive to crafts – mechanics, electricians, machinery operators, etc. "</p>
<p>Stereotypes like these, as well as others put forth in this thread, are the reason.</p>
<p>The belief that boys cannot achieve, cannot sit still, are mainly good at one type of thing, which is not encouraged, is sexist. I say this as a feminist and mom of two girls. If you dare tell me my little nephews cannot sit still in school, that they “need” to play outdoors more than my girls, that they CANNOT do anything, duck, because my shoe is headed your way.</p>
<p>If we believe boys can do it, they will. If we believe brown-skinned kids can do it, they will. We clearly believe white girls, and Asian girls, can do it, and they do.</p>
<p>Believe in boys and they will believe in themselves. Assume they are fidgety basket-cases in need of different guidance, and they will conform. Blegh. The amount of sexism against men on this thread, by men even, is appalling.</p>
<p>The variety amongst boys and amongst girls is soooo much greater than the differences between the sexes. The differences (in learning… obviously sex differences are there… duh) exist but are minuscule and have never, as far as we know, been shown to be innate.</p>
<p>And Zissler… really? So boys are inherently violent? NO. Families COULD raise their sons with the same nurturing expectations as we have for girls, and while they will have more testosterone, this would actually be more in keeping with the average male profession, which has nothing to do with killing others. What about if a girl brings a nail file? Girls can’t bring their birth control pills to school (a drug). Sooo…?</p>
<p>No excuses. We can and must hold boys accountable and expect the best from them. No reason they cannot compete with girls, who also need recess, math, science, and loud noisy times. We just manage to socialize girls better because of–wait for it–</p>
<p>our high expectations and firm commitment to keeping them feminine.</p>
<p>Yes, our school system needs an overhaul, but for BOTH boys and girls.</p>