Faith Meets Life: The decline of young men?
I have a 23-year-old son. We've been hanging out this week - well not really hanging out as much as we've been working together, building an addition to the house.
I thought I had been doing all right with this project before Nick arrived on the site. Right away he took a level and showed me a post that was not quite vertical and a beam that was not exactly horizontal. Lucky for me, nothing serious, and with a little adjustment, including some “gentle persuasion” with a sledgehammer, both problems were corrected. The past few days he has demonstrated that building a structure from the ground up is something he is completely capable of.
Of all our family members, Nick is the least inclined to sit in classrooms and the most into working with his hands. Observing this brings to my mind that a number of researchers are concerned about the number of male teens and young adults who not only can't wait to get out of the classroom, but have gone one step further: they've lost their motivation.
Recently a mother in my church approached me about a book she's come across called, Boys Adrift. The author, Leonard Sax, claims on his website that there are “five factors driving the decline of boys.”
The five are video games, prescription drugs, teaching methods, endocrine disruptors and the devaluing of masculinity.
I am not a researcher and don't think that I have much anecdotal evidence about the effects of prescription drugs and endocrine disruptors. But the other three “factors” listed do connect with things I have observed and experienced.
Video games, long a favourite target of critics of social trends, probably have some positive effects. However, it surely must be true that spending hours every day in front of screens responding to the scripted, though sophisticated, frequently violent, game plots provided by programmers can't be all that great. Playing games, especially in solitary, does not prepare people for the real world of friendships, family, parenting, personal crises and long-term commitment to work.
But is video gaming a bigger issue for males than females? I just took a research poll in my home asking for a response to one question: “Do boys spend more time with video games than girls?” The answer from 100 per cent of the participants (both of them) was a resounding “Yes.”
What about the devaluing of masculinity? Sax reminds his readers of the once (long ago) popular TV show, Father Knows Best. Today the world's most well known TV father is Homer Simpson. Check out an old episode of Father Knows Best on line and contrast it with The Simpsons. Homer has some nice qualities, but The Simpsons depicts him and other males as goofy, beer guzzling bimbos who just can't get it together, and if they do, it's more by chance than design - not a lot for a growing teenage boy to aspire to.
Finally, there's early education. Sax claims that in earlier decades pre-school and primary education focused on socialization with lots of Duck Duck Goose and similar games. Today early education is more about math skills and literacy. Have the children count and read as soon as possible. The problem, according to Sax, is that while five year-old girls are often ready to read, five year-old boys are not. This is because parts of their brains develop at different rates.
According to Sax, school favours girls and leaves boys at a disadvantage. It doesn't take many boys long to hate school, and that can set the tone for the long term.
It might help us to re-consider our use of video games and the male role models we've been absorbing. And it might be helpful to take into account the possibility male teens and young adults may have been damaged by their schooling. In the meantime, I'm thinking that reading a lot of books can remove one from the real world just as video games can.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
I thought I had been doing all right with this project before Nick arrived on the site. Right away he took a level and showed me a post that was not quite vertical and a beam that was not exactly horizontal. Lucky for me, nothing serious, and with a little adjustment, including some “gentle persuasion” with a sledgehammer, both problems were corrected. The past few days he has demonstrated that building a structure from the ground up is something he is completely capable of.
Of all our family members, Nick is the least inclined to sit in classrooms and the most into working with his hands. Observing this brings to my mind that a number of researchers are concerned about the number of male teens and young adults who not only can't wait to get out of the classroom, but have gone one step further: they've lost their motivation.
Recently a mother in my church approached me about a book she's come across called, Boys Adrift. The author, Leonard Sax, claims on his website that there are “five factors driving the decline of boys.”
The five are video games, prescription drugs, teaching methods, endocrine disruptors and the devaluing of masculinity.
I am not a researcher and don't think that I have much anecdotal evidence about the effects of prescription drugs and endocrine disruptors. But the other three “factors” listed do connect with things I have observed and experienced.
Video games, long a favourite target of critics of social trends, probably have some positive effects. However, it surely must be true that spending hours every day in front of screens responding to the scripted, though sophisticated, frequently violent, game plots provided by programmers can't be all that great. Playing games, especially in solitary, does not prepare people for the real world of friendships, family, parenting, personal crises and long-term commitment to work.
But is video gaming a bigger issue for males than females? I just took a research poll in my home asking for a response to one question: “Do boys spend more time with video games than girls?” The answer from 100 per cent of the participants (both of them) was a resounding “Yes.”
What about the devaluing of masculinity? Sax reminds his readers of the once (long ago) popular TV show, Father Knows Best. Today the world's most well known TV father is Homer Simpson. Check out an old episode of Father Knows Best on line and contrast it with The Simpsons. Homer has some nice qualities, but The Simpsons depicts him and other males as goofy, beer guzzling bimbos who just can't get it together, and if they do, it's more by chance than design - not a lot for a growing teenage boy to aspire to.
Finally, there's early education. Sax claims that in earlier decades pre-school and primary education focused on socialization with lots of Duck Duck Goose and similar games. Today early education is more about math skills and literacy. Have the children count and read as soon as possible. The problem, according to Sax, is that while five year-old girls are often ready to read, five year-old boys are not. This is because parts of their brains develop at different rates.
According to Sax, school favours girls and leaves boys at a disadvantage. It doesn't take many boys long to hate school, and that can set the tone for the long term.
It might help us to re-consider our use of video games and the male role models we've been absorbing. And it might be helpful to take into account the possibility male teens and young adults may have been damaged by their schooling. In the meantime, I'm thinking that reading a lot of books can remove one from the real world just as video games can.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
