Question of the Day: Boys Don't Cry Edition

My dearly beloved has allowed me to provide today's question, which is as follows: What do you think is the main reason why boys are not performing as well in schools as girls?

Given that this seems to be the hot-button issue of the day, I thought that it was worth garnering people's opinions about it. Much has been written on this topic lately, and we have theories that range from biological imperatives to a supposed feminization of the syllabi. One of the more curious hypotheses that I've read is that the current expectation in the classroom, which requires children to follow a rigid code of behavior including sitting down and shutting up, is not conducive to the education of boys, given their rambunctious and unfocused natures.

However, this assertion is counterintuitive. Back in the day when unruly young lads like William Shakespeare and Lord Byron attended school (and their sisters sat at home sewing), classrooms were run like the Gulag. Not only was a student expected to be quiet, submissive, and still, but the penalties for breaking the expected code of conduct were far more severe. Students who didn't abide by these expectations could expect to be whipped until they did what they were told. This, in combination with the far more rigorous academic demands, provided an atmosphere that was authoritarian beyond the wildest nightmare of today's boys, and far less accommodating of rambunctiousness and lack of focus.

An educational structure designed by men for boys, which managed to produce generations of well-educated and literate men, demanded more discipline, not less. Although I'm not suggesting that we hearken back to the days of caning and suppression of individualism, I'm not convinced that a freeform environment where boys get to roll around on the floor all day is the best solution to their problems.

If boys are indeed inherently more undisciplined than their female counterparts, then perhaps the answer is to provide them with more structure and create a less forgiving environment that demands the very best from them. In the end, it's more important that boys learn how to use their wild imaginations creatively and productively, something which requires focus, which itself is dependent on discipline. Channeling their imaginations into productive endeavors is not the same as stifling creativity.

Thus ends my lay-opinion on the issue...although when I was a lad, the only thing that could keep me in line was the promise of an appointment with a large, thorny stick if I misbehaved, so I do have some knowledge of that of which I speak.