Are We Making It Too Hard For Boys To Succeed in the World?
When my son was in pre-K, the director came up to me and suggested I attend a lecture on why boys learn differently. As my son was only four, I didn't think about it too much and I certainly didn't attend the lecture. But now I am seeing why. I've been fortunate in that my son, now almost 13, is a good student and we don't have to harangue him (most of the time) about doing his work. But I am seeing that boys learn differently and an article in today's New York Times puts its finger on that difference. David Leonhardt writes in, "A Link Between Fidgety Boys and a Sputtering Economy," that t he gap in behavioral skills between young girls and boys is even bigger than the gap between rich and poor. "By kindergarten, girls are substantially more attentive, better behaved, more sensitive, more persistent, more flexible and more independent than boys, according to a new paper from Third Way, a Washington research group," he reports. By eigh