Peg Tyre has written a remarkable book about a problem that many of us have sensed (but failed to articulate and complain about) for years: our young boys are being shortchanged from the first day that they enter a school building. Not too many years ago the concern in public education was how to prepare girls to grow into women able to compete with their male counterparts in the work world. That was a legitimate concern and, much to the credit of this country, a tremendous, and very successful, effort was made to correct the problem. But as always seems to happen, the pendulum continued to swing their way long after females had achieved educational equality. The momentum created to correct the initial problem was so strong that it eventually placed male students at a disadvantage, a new problem just as serious as the one it corrected.

I have personally observed much of what Peg Tyre describes in "The Trouble with Boys." For what it is worth, I can offer anecdotal evidence of my own that the problem Tyre describes is a serious one. I am the father of two daughters, both elementary school teachers now, and the grandfather of one granddaughter and two grandsons, all of whom are elementary school students. Because I am convinced that learning to read well, and as soon as possible, is the key to anyone's future, I encouraged my daughters to become readers and have done the same for their children. It is in observation of their children that I first became aware of just how different so many little boys are from little girls when it comes to their early schooling.

According to Tyre, the problem for little boys begins as early as preschool because they are physically and mentally less mature than little girls their age. Boys at this age are less verbal than girls, a deficit that makes it more difficult for them to learn to read, and they have less well developed fine motor skills, making it more difficult for them to control a pencil or a paintbrush. But their biggest problem is the great difficulty they have in sitting still for long periods of time, a tendency that almost guarantees that they will be disciplined at a much higher rate than girls and that they will learn at a slower pace.

The physical disadvantage faced by young boys has become more and more exaggerated in recent years because of the emphasis on starting our children into preschool programs at younger and younger ages. Little boys find themselves labeled early on as troublemakers and poor students by teachers that simply do not recognize or understand the handicaps the boys are facing in the classroom. As a result, boys are almost five times as likely to be expelled from preschool and are twice as likely to be placed under medication for some type of attention deficit disorder.

And, of course, this makes them much more likely to hate school and learning. Too many of them tune out, barely skating by academically and staying in school mainly because of sports programs and the girls they meet there. These boys have subconsciously assimilated the message they received from preschool through elementary school that they are problem students whose behavior and study habits are not appreciated.

And the result is predictable. Boys and girls enter preschool at about the same level but around the fourth grade girls are noticeably pulling ahead of boys academically, a lead they never relinquish. By middle and high school girls make up a substantial majority of top-ranked students and today they outnumber male university students to such a degree that many schools have created a kind of affirmative action plan for boys in order to create some balance in their student enrollments.

In effect, the American education system has been over-feminized by its tendency to reward the behavior more common to girls and to punish that more likely to be shared by young male students. "The Trouble with Boys" offers solutions and possible corrective measures that need to be adopted before another generation of men is doomed to second class status.

As Tyre points out, this country simply cannot afford to write off half of the population if it is to successfully compete in the global economy of the future. Advocates of equality for women may be concerned by any new emphasis on the same for men, fearing that the infamous pendulum will once again swing too far before stopping. But, as Tyre emphasizes, that is not what anyone is proposing or expecting; this is simply a matter of true equality for both sexes, a goal that will benefit all of us.

"The Trouble with Boys" makes a strong case that something must be done quickly in order to correct the biggest problem now facing this country's school system. It should be read by parents (regardless of whether they have boys or girls), school teachers and administrators, and everyone concerned about the future. It is a good place at which to begin the conversation - read it and pass it on to others before we waste another generation of young men. It is time that we quit treating boys as "defective girls."

'The Trouble with Boys' is an up-to-date, pragmatic review of the happenings in middle-class American schools. I picked this book up after hearing an interview of Peg Tyre on the local DC talk station - she was very candid on her perspective of gender equality in teaching. I feel that if you have boys and are not directly involved in the education system, this is a must read - if nothing more than equipping yourself with terminology and the will to find out how and what your boys are learning. It is interesting to read the differences with how boys and girls learn, how video games can affect boys, and what environments best suit boys. Very quick and easy read but brought some points to light that I had not thought of - instances, stories and aspects I was able to semi-relate to being a 30 year old professional male working on his graduate degree. School has not been easy for me, it has been a struggle and 'The Trouble with Boys' shed some light on subjects that may help with my future sons and/or daughters.

Excellent information for parents and educators in understanding and working with boys and understanding the differences between boys and girls.

Many very good reviews have already been written, so I'll try to share something new. I was interested in this topic because I'm an elementary school teacher and am very interested in finding ways to help my struggling boy students. When I was working on my master's thesis with this very topic, I e-mailed Peg Tyre. At the time, she was working at Newsweek and had just written one of the articles about boys' underachievement that would later lead to this book. She was very helpful with my question and led me to additional resources. Because she is the mother of two boys and her articles were always interesting and well-written, this book intrigued me.

Tyre devotes a lot of time to describing why there is in fact a growing problem with the underachievement of boys, and she is effective in doing this. A large portion of the book describes how in some universities there is already a kind of affirmative action for boys because so many more girls are being accepted, and schools are changing their policies just to try to maintain some kind of balance.

A somewhat funny (and sobering) part of the book was when she mentioned the saying from the 80's that a woman is more likely to be killed by a terrorist than find a suitable man (I'm paraphrasing). Although this isn't true, it is true that increasingly more women are being admitted and graduating from college than men. Since these women tend to not want to "marry down" and look for equally successful partners with at least somewhat equal earning power,(men with a college degree)it's getting harder for these women to find men with college degrees, and it's even worse news for men who didn't go to college. (The percentage of unmarried men who didn't go to college has gone up considerably). I don't articulate this as well as she does, but I wanted to mention it because I never considered how a disparity between the numbers of men and women in college could have that kind of long-term consequence.

*She describes the importance of boys having mentors and gives many interesting anecdotes of this, including a high school that assigns men from the community to mentor its students, a "Dad's Club" that helps with projects around the school, and the importance of having boys see their Dads (or other men) involved with literacy.

*The impact of No Child Left Behind and its effect on school curriculum is described. It's scary to me that there are elementary schools being built without playgrounds. When I have to sit for most of the day in an inservice, it reminds me of how hard it is to be a student with a lot of energy. The importance of movement is discussed.

*While Tyre does describe some recent brain research, she is careful not to jump to conclusions with it. In fact, she mentions that neuroscientists don't believe we know enough about gender and learning to come up with brain-based gender-specific instruction.

*The impact of single-sex schooling is discussed. I disagree with an earlier review who said that Tyre seems to suggest that you should send your child to a private school if you can afford it. I thought Tyre mentioned several times that most single-sex schooling has been inconclusive in raising student achievement. She described an inner-city school in Baltimore that became a single-sex school (for males) but without careful planning and it was a disaster and became a hotbed for violence. However, she also mentions how for certain populations single-sex schooling could work well.

There is a lot more that I didn't even get to, but earlier reviews mention some of those points. This book is well worth your time.

Here's a great companion to Michael Thompson's Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys. While this "report card on our sons" was hardly "surprising" to this community college teacher, Peg Tyre provides lots of facts and figures to support the growing realization among educators that too many young men are not reaching their potential. In too many classrooms, girls are productively engaged, earning good grades and getting what they need from their education while boys are either absent or disengaged and failing. Tyre's examples are illuminating, her breadth of information is convincing and her conclusions are reasonable. The style of language is quite engaging and accessible, so that the facts and figures area easily understandable for parents as well as teachers. Well, done, Ms. Tyre! Here's hoping your elucidation of this problem will prompt more work toward its solution. Wouldn't it be great if those boys would read it and see it as a wake-up call?
Janet Gingold
author of Finch Goes Wild, a novel about a middle school boy who turns his life around

This books makes you think about how the US school system has swung the pendulum so far in the direction of girls that boys get lost. Hopefully there can be more balance in the future.

This book is a follow on to the author's Newsweek cover story about the widening gap between boys and girls academic performance in the United States. She makes the case that, just as we rallied in the 90s to help girls catch up to boys in math and science, we need to do the same for boys in reading and writing. The book cites a great deal of research from schools across the United States to show how this phenomenon is taking shape. It's really interesting stuff. Essentially, education in the US uses teaching methods that favor girls. At times the book is a little like a text book, but it offers startling conclusions that any parent with school-aged children needs to understand.

Another book I came across this week that I really enjoyed and recommend to parents is The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book.

A wealth of information, ideas and resources for those who are concerned about the issue and working to make it better. My only minor quibble is the title which could be read to mean the problem is the boys. However, make no mistake, the tenor and tone of this book strikes the stark opposite conclusion. The problem is not boys rather what we have been doing to them. It is a balanced approach which I think hopes to avoid the polemic politicized rancor and ire this topic inspires among gender feminist groups like the AAUW and similar advocacy groups that utilize resources and strategies to undermine efforts of those hoping to improve the lives of boys. If interested in the politicized nature I would recommend locating and reading reports by the aforementioned. Ms. Tyre goes beyond and gets down to the nitty gritty and presents ideas to consider, practical solutions and includes numerous resources to tap into. I was most interested in the research surrounding teaching by phonics. A good solid book for those of us committed to effecting change for the benefit of boys, and moving beyond the peripheral and unfortunate efforts to make this a political platform.

A wealth of information, ideas and resources for those who are concerned about the issue and working to make it better. My only minor quibble is the title which could be read to mean the problem is the boys. However, make no mistake, the tenor and tone of this book strikes the stark opposite conclusion. The problem is not boys rather what we have been doing to them. It is a balanced approach which I think hopes to avoid the polemic politicized rancor this topic inspires. It is constructive and seeks to avoid the fear and ire this topic inspires among gender feminist groups like the AAUW who dedicate resources and strategies to undermine efforts of those hoping to improve the lives of boys. If interested in the politicized nature I would recommend locating and reading reports by the aforementioned. Ms. Tyre goes beyond and gets down to the nitty gritty and presents ideas to consider, practical solutions and includes numerous resources to tap into. I was most interested in the research surrounding teaching by phonics. A good solid book for those of us committed to effecting change for the benefit of boys, and moving beyond the peripheral and unfortunate efforts to make this a political platform.

I bought this as a present for my mom and she seems to really love it so far.

I found this book to be very interesting. I don't have a son, but three of my closest friends each have boys the same age, three women who don't even know each other. One is white, the other is black, and the third is Hispanic, living in different parts of the country, with different levels of education and career success. I have bought copies of this book for each woman, although now their sons are almost adults; it will at least confirm what they knew all along - their sons weren't broken.

What concerned me early on was the fact that I would receive an almost identical phone call from each one, wanting to talk about the latest 'problem' each one was having with their son, usually a conflict between their child and the public school teacher. This was my first realization that something was desperately wrong in our country with the way that boys were being disrespected by their classroom teachers and denigrated by the entire public school experience.

Teachers were making diagnoses (he might be autistic, he's got some mental challenges, I think he might be deaf), all of which proved to be completely wrong. I knew each of these children and encouraged the mothers to stand up for their sons, who were each seven years old at the time these labels started being applied. I told each one 'Tell your pediatrician that you need a referral to a specialist. They're the only ones who can confirm a diagnosis - a classroom teacher has no right to play doctor and tell you what they think is wrong with your child.' In each case, the specialists diagnosed what the mothers and their pediatricians already knew - there was nothing wrong with these boys.

As the boys got older, I heard from each mother, in different states of the country, with identical descriptions. 'The teacher says he's aggressive.' 'The teacher says he never sits still.'

One eventually decided to homeschool her son, and went into personal bankruptcy and financial ruin because of this choice, which to this day she does not regret, because she saved her child. He didn't have a teacher scolding him for being a boy - inquisitive, always out of his seat, curious about his world.

The second refinanced her paid-for house so that she could take all of her children out of public school and put them into a private school. This mother has no regrets about her decision, even though it meant having to go back to work and postponing her own plans to attend college.

The third mother had none of these options available to her, and she had no choice but to keep her son enrolled in a public school, although she was constantly questioning and challenging the teachers, the school and their opinions about what was wrong with her son. Eventually he filled out the labels that had been stamped on his forehead, despite his mother's love, attention and hands-on involvement in his education, and he has become what his public school teachers predicted - an aggressive male, charged as an adult, at fifteen facing an adult prison sentence.

My only reason for explaining all of the above is to confirm 100% that what the author writes about is completely true. The basic rights and educational needs of American boys are not being met by the public school experience. If this was happening to our girls, it would be called a national crisis worthy of investigation and serious reforms. Boys are not girls and the educational system needs to recognize and respect their differences, rather than continuing to demand that boys be less aggressive, sit quietly and stop talking.

This is an eye oppening look at how our educational system cheats boys out of the love of learning. I highly recommend it.

This is a must read for all parents of boys. My friend who only has daughters even found it informative and very interesting, as it talks alot about the public school system and the changes that have occurred over the years and why they have happened as they have.
If you do have a son in school who is having ANY TYPE OF problem, you will feel better and more hopeful after the first few chapters.

Peg Tyre's is a serious book which points out undeniable problems facing both boys and girls in contemporary American pre-schools, K-12 classes, and colleges as well. As has already been pointed out, she's done all parents who've felt just their own sons were having trouble in schools these days a real service. Emphasizing the unconscious, largely boy-unfriendly assumptions governing everything from the touchy-feely curriculum to the abolition of recess, she's provided evidence for needed change - if boys, as well as girls, are to succeed - that is unanswerable.

At the same time, I think her case is seriously undermined by her insufficient attention to the all-important role of the home and the society in shaping children BEFORE they attend any sort of school. She does speak favorably of the good old days when parents exercised a "laissez-faire" attitude toward afterschool play and children were free to carry on as they might. And what she correctly sees today, on the contrary, is excessive micromanagement by parents as manifested by play-dates and a push toward merely academic success at far too early an age. What I think she misses, however, is central, the new sort of laissez-faire marking contemporary parenting, the decision that children, boys especially, should be allowed to grow naturally, like plants, without any pruning or shaping, lest they be repressed by authority. Watch the little dears running through supermarkets, department stores, and restaurants with their playground voices at full volume and with nary a parental reprimand, and you'll get the idea. I read Peg Tyre as a devotee, since she quotes him, of what might be called the "Philip Roth School Of Early Education," a kind of stale compendium of leftover 60's cliches which privileges the liberation of natural impulse over the creative action of loving parents in shaping naturally rude, boisterous children into potentially civilized human beings - in other words, creating children already socialized to learn BEORE they enter any school.
Tyre quotes Roth at length:
"what boys like me needed to learn was not only how to express themselves with precision and acquire a more discerning response to words, but how to be rambunctious without being stupid, how not to be too well concealed or too well behaved, how to begin to release the masculine intensities from the institutional rectitude that intimidated the bright kids the most." While this may have been true of what Philip Roth needed, were he a goody-goody "model boy" of the old school, I question whether any instruction in rambunctiousness or release of masculine intensities from ...institutional rectitude, other than the blowing off of steam provided by recess, is what members of the current crop of boys need. Raised "naturally" as so many of them have been, they'd sooner kick a kindergarden teacher in the shins when thwarted than be intimitidated by her. Clearly, the merely "natural" child is not yet fit for education.

In short, a sentimental view of the nature of children and an ignoring of the civilizing essentials that parents should provide them with weakens Tyre's otherwise impressive book.

As an experienced male elementary public-school teacher, I find this book outstanding, even if I disagree with some of it. Instead of repeating other reviewers, let's elaborate on some specific issues. To begin with, Tyre professes objectivity, and denies having any agenda (p. 13). She categorically rejects the notion that concerns about boys are a form of anti-feminism, or some kind of backlash against female successes.

Boys in general, not only poor and minority ones, undergo learning difficulties, and the problem has only gotten progressively worse in recent decades. The wealthy Wilmette Public School system, of suburban Chicago, is presented as a model of a school system that systematically investigated and remedied the unique problems of males.

Tyre is at times an iconoclast. She sees boys' playing with finger-guns as normal. She questions the high frequency of ADHD diagnoses, but doesn't go as far as suggesting that ADHD is nonexistent (p. 110). She deplores the replacement of traditional play-centered pre-K and K curriculum with academics, and other manifestations of the cram-school phenomenon. She doesn't believe that children, especially boys, are sufficiently developed for academics before 1st grade, and contends that children in play-based classes catch up with their academic-based counterparts by third grade (pp. 74-75).

Tyre is a strong advocate of phonics-based learning-to-read over the look-say method. Manipulatives should be emphasized. She recounts an experiment wherein the children were allowed to use magnetic letters which they could rearrange to make new sounds (p. 147). The children came out well ahead of grade level in reading and spelling. Astonishingly, the boys did better than the girls in this female stronghold.

Are little boys really more physically active than little girls, or is this a culturally-based perception? Attached sensors demonstrate that boys are, on average, more active than girls, but the difference in averages is not great. The extremes, however, are prominent. The most active individuals in class are almost always boys, and the least active ones are usually girls. (p. 68). This is largely hormonal. For instance, pregnant women with high testosterone levels are likely to give birth to girls that are tomboys.

Besides unfailingly providing rough-and-noisy recess, schools should allow boys to move around, and to stand at their desks, when they wish, instead of sitting all the time. Oversize pencils should be given to those with graphomotor challenges. Various other boy-friendly strategies are mentioned. These include providing mentors to boys, encouraging boys to do mathematical studies of sports players, letting boys solve math problems with classwide card games (p. 215), welcoming stories and writing that have grandiose, goofy, gory, and good-vs.-bad-guy themes, etc.

Tyre doesn't think that advances in the study of brain neurology translate into a direct understanding of the learning process. For instance, an increase of blood flow into a certain area of the brain can be interpreted in different ways. She recounts the onetime misunderstanding of brain function related to "left brain" and "right brain" activities.

Boys having male teachers don't generally do better than those with female ones. Also, Tyre doesn't think that, in general, all-male schools are superior for boys. However, boys in such schools appear to feel freer to pursue "feminine" activities such as art, music, etc.

Teacher attitudes and expectations count a lot. Tyre concludes: "Teachers who express hostility toward the natural way in which little boys express themselves--even if it is sometimes noisy, noncompliant, quirky, rambunctious, aggressive, and, yes, a little irritating--should be removed from classrooms (and if possible from the profession). To teach children, you have to love what they are. And teaching little boys is part of the job." (p. 284). Strong words!

The book ends with a list of references to professional journals and websites which illustrate and support her main points. These can be used for further study.

The Trouble With Boys is an eye-opening exploration of the gender that's falling behind. In a spinoff from her 2006 cover story for Newsweek, "The Boy Crisis," Tyre delivers a cogent, reasoned overview of the current national debate about why boys are falling behind girls' achievement in school and not attending college in the same numbers. While the education emphasis in the 1990s was on helping girls succeed, especially in areas of math and science, boys are lagging behind, particularly in reading and writing; parents and educators, meanwhile, are scrambling to address the problems, from questioning teaching methods in preschool to rethinking single-sex schools. Tyre neatly sums up the information for palatable parental consumption: although boys tend to be active and noisy, and come to verbal skills later than girls, early-education teachers, mostly female, have little tolerance for the way boys express themselves. The accelerated curriculum and de-emphasis on recess do not render the classroom "boy friendly," and already set boys up for failure that grows more entrenched with each grade. Tyre touches on important concerns about the lack of male role models in many boys' lives, the perils of video-game obsession and the slippery dialogue over boys' brains versus girls' brains. It's a careful, useful synthesis of information.

Having boys myself, I've stumbled upon another book this week that has been quite helpful (even though I bought it to help me with work) Squawk!: How to Stop Making Noise and Start Getting Results

Peg Tyre has written a revealing and somewhat alarming book on the condition of boys in our schools and society. The Trouble With Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School and What Parents and Educators Can Do is insightful. Quite simply, in society's rush in the 1980s and 1990s to support our girls both socially and educationally we have apparently put the boys at a disadvantage.

Among the many points Tyre makes, boys mature on a variety of scales later than girls. In our rush to improve standardized test grades, activities such as recess have been virtually cut from the daily school activities. Boys are genetically designed to run, throw, explore, and test their abilities. In modern America, this has normally been achieved through physical play some of which occurred at school. Among other things, this allowed the boys to burn off that abundant energy. In our current educational environment the morning and afternoon recesses have been scrapped so that additional study time could be found. The normal physical play at lunch has also been eliminated in most schools. This one factor has aggravated boys' natural restlessness and caused problems with their ability to pay attention. Our response has been to drug them. Insane!

But Peg Tyre also points out that male educators are in woefully short supply as teachers during the elementary grades. Boys may lack positive male role models in their personal lives due to the national plague of absentee fathers and this is aggravated when male role models are missing at school.

Peg Tyre isn't the only game in town on this subject though her book is quite good. If you're interested in additional materials on the plight of boys, checkout the following:

Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men by Leonard Sax
Bring Up Boys by James C. Dobson
The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons From Falling Behind in School and Life by Michael Gurian and Kathy Stevens

Also, if you want information what little boys used to be interested in read The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn and Hal Iggulden.

An editorial point. This is an intelligent country in which most teachers and principals are dedicated to the proper education of their students. Certainly we can find a way to meet the needs of both boys and girls without short changing anyone.

Peace always.

...written by a girl. Interesting.
This book has merit in that it simply brings the issue to light. Schools have been dominated by intolerant, frustated female teachers for far too long, who quickly label most boys as having ADD or ADHD...and then they're drugged up with prescription meds to "make" them behave. What we need are more MALE teachers to relate to our boys, not drugs.
Another issue is that in the "Leave It To Beaver" type of family, the dad is at work, which leaves the mom at home, or the mom picks them up from school, takes them to soccer/football practice, etc. If you want less trouble with boys, a GOOD father (or father figure) should be active in a boy's life. Unfortunately, because there seems to be a plethora of abusive, absent or deadbeat fathers, we have a whole generation of angry boys on our hands, which become the responsibility of single moms and...you guessed it...female teachers to teach them.
My son is a US Marine now, serving in Iraq. He went into bootcamp a boy and came out a man. The Marines did something I could have never done...gave him a good dose of his own angry self, and instilled RESPECT into him. If you ask me, what ALL students - girls AND boys - need is a semester of some sort of boot camp/military school during their freshman year. The lack of respect that plagues the youth of today is incredible. They need a good dose of their own mouthy selves - and a good butt-kicking by someone OTHER than their parents!