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CNN Live Saturday

Do Schools Today Focus More on Girls Than on Boys?

Aired August 11, 2001 - 13:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, let's open a little can of worms, and talk about children and gender bias. We know about past discrimination against women, but has that turned around too far and is today's focus in schools too much on girls and not enough on boys?

Dr. Eli Newberger is author of the book "The Men They Will Become." He believes academic achievement of boys is declining, and he is joining us from Boston. And from Washington, we have David Sadker of American University. His research and writings have documented sex bias from the classroom to the boardroom.

Doctors, welcome to both of you, we're glad you could come to talk to us. Dr. Newberger, start with you, do you think that there is too much focus on girls and not enough on boys currently?

DR. ELI NEWBERGER, AUTHOR, "THE MEN THEY WILL BECOME": Well, I think it's clear that boys in many settings aren't getting what they need. They are growing up without the emotional fuel that they need in many cases to become responsible and successful citizens, and the studies accumulating of their ability to learn in a world that places tremendous priority on knowledge and functioning in a technological world is seriously in question.

KELLEY: What's contributing to that the most, though, Dr. Newberger? I mean, we're looking at some pictures of the boys here in the setting and we see them with girls. It looks like it's probably kindergarten or preschool, probably. What contributes to this? What do you see as the major factors?

NEWBERGER: Well, among the things that are of concern to me after talking with hundreds of kids and parents over the course of a couple of years is that when boys are in school they find themselves in feminine environments, where girls' abilities to sit still and to moderate their behavior is valued and the normal robustness of boys and their hands being in the air and they are desiring to succeed and to excel is sometimes put down as something that's not right, and it's even something that's called hyperactivity or attention deficit disorder, when it isn't.

So, for very many boys, their normal robustness that derives from their biological makeup -- because we males are quite different -- is put down. Additionally, the most important thing to me that kids are lacking today, but boys more than girls, is having at least one adult in their lives who is crazy about them. Many boys... KELLEY: We are going to go over some of those points of yours too. Let me interrupt if I could here just real quickly...

NEWBERGER: Sure, please.

KELLEY: ... so we can get to those points and keep them kind of together. Dr. Sadker, is that part of the problem, that boys are not allowed to be boys?

DAVID SADKER, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: I think we have to do a better job for boys and for girls, and I think actually schools are a place that seems to accentuate some of the advantages girls have, in terms of sitting still. So, that deals with teacher training, and that deals with making schools more humane.

And in fact, women in education have made schools much better places for boys than have -- than schools were when boys were teachers, when corporal punishment ruled. I think the basic notion here is that we need to do a better job of training teachers and making schools more humane for both boys and girls. And I think we can do a better job too.

KELLEY: Dr. Sadker, I think you have two daughters, is that right?

SADKER: I do.

KELLEY: Yeah, you have two girls. When they were growing up, and you probably had boys around the house too, you obviously noticed some differences. Was there a stereotype that's applied to boys and girls that doesn't help?

SADKER: Well, there are differences with all of them. Both my daughters are different. One is a math/science person, one is more into verbal skills. That's the bottom line here. Gender is a clue as to how kids might be behaving differently, but each child is different.

And what boys and girls need is individual attention. How can we respond to their individual needs? That's what we should be doing in school. And by the way, that's not what we're doing in school.

KELLEY: OK. Individual needs, and people are different, boys are different than girls, and each person is different. And I know that you both believe in listening and talking, and you have some points about the important elements.

Dr. Newberger, let's go over those. You started to get into those, but I wanted to save those for one time so that we could go through them. And I think that your first point is very good: Make sure that the boy has at least one adult in his life who is absolutely crazy about him. Go through a couple of the other points with us, will you?

NEWBERGER: OK. In addition, boys particularly need to have words available with which they can sense and express their feelings. They need to know the names of the feelings and to be encouraged to express a full range of feelings. Beginning in earliest infancy, very often boys' expression of sad feelings, their crying, is put down, and unfortunately, we limit boys' emotional development by not giving them the encouragement to express themselves well.

Third, boys need protection from exposures to violence. Boys particularly respond to things like their mothers being treated badly, or even abused, in ways that are horribly damaging. And very frequently, they respond to the powerlessness that they feel when they are exposed to violence by a need to be dominant in relationship and abusive and sometimes hurtful to others.

KELLEY: And then, two of your other last points?

(CROSSTALK)

NEWBERGER: ... through the media, through their family and community relationships, unfortunately see a great deal of violence.

KELLEY: And let me roll through your other two points...

NEWBERGER: Fourth, kids need the opportunity...

KELLEY: They should...

NEWBERGER: I'm sorry.

KELLEY: I'm sorry. Let me just roll through your other two points, we are real short on time here: To give back to their communities and to volunteer and also to learn self-control through inductive discipline.

So, some very good hints there from both of you today toward helping boys develop some self-esteem and how we raise boys in this day and age. Glad to have both of you with us, Dr. Eli Newberger and Dr. David Sadker, thank you very much. And we'll get more into that as we go along, I'm sure.

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