The War Against Boys (7 page)

Boys today bear the burden of several powerful cultural trends: a therapeutic
approach to education that valorizes feelings and denigrates competition and risk, zero-tolerance policies that punish normal antics of young males, and a gender equity movement that views masculinity as predatory. Natural male exuberance is no longer tolerated.

Many games much loved by boys have vanished from school playgrounds. At some elementary schools, tug-of-war is being replaced with “tug-of-peace.”
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Tag is under a cloud—schools across the country have either banned it or found ways to repress it. When asked by a reporter why the game of tag was discouraged in the Los Angeles Unified School District 4, the superintendent, Richard Alonzo, explained, “Why would we want to encourage a game that may lead to more injuries and confrontation among students?”
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But safety is just one concern. Protecting children's self-esteem is another.

In May 2002, the principal of Franklin Elementary School in Santa Monica, California, sent a newsletter to parents informing them that children could no longer play tag during the lunch recess. As she explained, “The running part of this activity is healthy and encouraged; however, in this game there is a ‘victim' or ‘it,' which creates a self-esteem issue.”
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School districts in Texas, Maryland, New York, and Virginia “have banned, limited, or discouraged” dodgeball.
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“Any time you throw an object at somebody,” said an elementary school coach in Cambridge, Massachusetts, “it creates an environment of retaliation and resentment.”
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Coaches who permit children to play dodgeball “should be fired immediately,” according to the physical education chairman at Central High School in Naperville, Illinois.
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The movement against competitive games gained momentum after the publication of an article by Neil Williams, chair of the department of health and physical education at Eastern Connecticut State University, in a journal sponsored by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, which represents fifteen thousand gym teachers and physical education professors. In the article, Williams consigned games such as Red Rover, relay races, and musical chairs to “the Hall of Shame.”
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Why? Because the games
are based on removing the weakest links. Presumably, this undercuts children's emotional development and erodes their self-esteem. The new therapeutic sensibility rejects almost all forms of competition in favor of a gentle and nurturing climate of cooperation. It is also a surefire way to bore and alienate boys.

From the earliest age, boys show a distinct preference for active outdoor play, with a strong predilection for games with body contact, conflict, and clearly defined winners and losers.
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Girls, too, enjoy raucous outdoor play, but they engage in it less.
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Deborah Tannen, professor of linguistics at Georgetown University and author of
You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation
, sums up the research on male/female play differences:

Boys tend to play outside, in large groups that are hierarchically structured. . . . Girls, on the other hand, play in small groups or in pairs: the center of a girl's social life is a best friend. Within the group intimacy is the key.
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Anthony Pellegrini, a professor of early childhood education at the University of Minnesota, defines rough-and-tumble play (R&T) as a behavior that includes “laughing, running, smiling, jumping, open-hand beating, wrestling, play fighting, chasing and fleeing.”
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This kind of play is often mistakenly regarded as aggression, but according to Pellegrini, R&T is the very opposite. In cases of schoolyard aggression, the participants are unhappy, they part as enemies, and there are often tears and injuries. Rough-and-tumble play brings boys together, makes them happy, and is a critical part of their socialization.

“Children who engaged in R&T, typically boys, also tended to be liked and to be good social problem solvers,”
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says Pellegrini. Aggressive children, on the other hand, tend not to be liked by their peers and are not good at solving problems. He urges parents and teachers to be aware of the differences between R&T and aggression. The former is educationally and developmentally important and should be permitted and encouraged; the latter is destructive and should not be allowed. Increasingly, however, those
in charge of little boys, including parents, teachers, and school officials, are blurring the distinction and interpreting R&T as aggression. This confusion threatens boys' welfare and normal development.
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Today, many educators regard the normal play of little boys with disapproval, and some ban it outright. Preschool boys, much to the consternation of teachers, are drawn to a style of rough-and-tumble play that involves action narratives. Typically, there are superheroes, “bad guys,” rescues, and shoot-ups. As the boys play, the plots become more elaborate and the boys more transfixed. When researchers ask boys why they do it, “Because it's fun” is the standard reply.
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According to at least one study, such play rarely escalates into real aggression—only about 1 percent of the time.
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But when two researchers, Mary Ellin Logue and Hattie Harvey, studied the classroom practices of 98 teachers of four-year-olds, they found that this style of play was the least tolerated. Nearly half (48 percent) of teachers stopped or redirected boys' dramatic play
daily
or
several times
a week, whereas less than a third (29 percent) reported stopping or redirecting girls' dramatic play weekly.
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Here are some sample quotes from teachers reported by the two authors:

• “My idea of dramatic play is experience created by an adult with a specific purpose in mind. In our learning environment, we perceive dramatic play as a homemaker in the kitchen [or a] postal worker sorting mail. Rough-and-tumble play is not an acceptable social interaction at our school.”

• “We ban superhero toys at school.”

• “Rough play is too dangerous. . . . playing house, going fishing, doctors, office work and grocery store keeps dramatic play positive.”

• “Rough-and-tumble play typically leads to someone getting hurt, so I redirect. When a child talks about jail, using karate, etc. I'll ask questions and redirect.”
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Such attitudes may help explain why boys are 4.5 times more likely to be expelled from preschool than girls.
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Fortunately, there were champions of R&T among the teachers in the study. As one said,

Rough-and-tumble play is inevitable, particularly with boys. It seems to satisfy innate physical and cultural drives. As long as all participants are enjoying the play and are safe, I don't intervene. Play is the basis of learning in all domains.
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Play is, indeed, the basis of learning. And the boy's superhero play is no exception. Researchers have found that by allowing “bad guy” play, the children's conversation and imaginative writing skills improved.
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Such play also builds their moral imagination. It is through such play, say the authors, “that children learn about justice . . . and their personal limits and the impact of their behavior on others.” Logue and Harvey ask an important question, “If boys, due to their choices of dramatic play themes, are discouraged from dramatic play, how will this affect their early language and literacy development and their engagement in school?”
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Carol Kennedy, a longtime teacher and now principal of a school in Missouri, told the
Washington Post
, “We do take away a lot of the opportunity to do things boys like to do. That is to be rowdy, run and jump and roll around. We don't allow that.”
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One Boston teacher, Barbara Wilder-Smith, spent a year observing elementary school classrooms. She reports that an increasing number of mothers and teachers “believe that the key to producing a nonviolent adult is to remove all conflict—toy weapons, wrestling, shoving and imaginary explosions and crashes—from a boy's life.”
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She sees a chasm between the “culture of women and the culture of boys.”
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That chasm is growing, and it is harmful to boys.

Recess itself is now under siege and may soon be a thing of the past. According to a summary of research by
Science Daily
, “Since the 1970s, children have lost about 12 hours per week in free time, including a 25 percent decrease in play and a 50 percent decrease in unstructured outdoor activities, according to another study.”
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In 1998, Atlanta eliminated recess in all its public elementary schools. In Philadelphia, school officials have replaced
traditional recess with “socialized recesses,” in which the children are assigned structured activities and carefully monitored.
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“Recess,” reported the
New York Times
, “has become so anachronistic in Atlanta that the Cleveland Avenue Grammar School, a handsome brick building, was built two years ago without a playground.”
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The move to eliminate recess has aroused some opposition, but almost no one has noticed its impact on boys. It is surely not a deliberate effort to thwart the desires of schoolboys. Just the same, it betrays a shocking indifference to their natural proclivities, play preferences, and elemental needs. Girls benefit from recess—but boys require it.
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Ignoring differences between boys and girls can be just as damaging as creating differences where none exist. Were schools to adopt policies harmful to girls, there would be a storm of justified protests from well-organized women advocates. Boys have no such protectors.

Boys playing tag, tug-of-war, dodgeball, or kickball together in the schoolyard are not only having a great deal of fun, they are forging friendships with other males in ways that are critical to their healthy socialization. Similarly, little girls who spend hours exchanging confidences with other girls or playing theatrical games are happily and actively honing their social skills. What these children are doing is developmentally sound. What justifiable reason can there be to interfere?

Of course, if it could be shown that sex segregation on the playground or rambunctious competitive games were having harmful social consequences, efforts to curb them would be justified. But that has never been shown. Nor is there reason to believe it will ever be shown. In the absence of any evidence that rough-and-tumble play is socially harmful, initiatives to suppress it are unwarranted and a presumptuous attack on boys' natures.

Such bans are also compromising their health. Obesity has become a serious problem for both boys and girls, but rather more so for boys. According to a study prepared for the US Department of Health and Human Services, “The obesity prevalence for male children quadrupled from 5.5% in 1976–1980 to 21.6% in 2007–2008. For female children, the obesity prevalence tripled from 5.8% in 1976–1980 to 17.7% in 2007–2008.”
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Diet is
a big part of the problem, but lack of exercise is as well. Strenuous rough-and-tumble play is part of the solution. And it is something most boys will happily do on their own—if their elders were not so busy discouraging it.

Figure 10

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On February 2, 2010, nine-year-old Patrick Timoney was marched to the principal's office and threatened with suspension when he was caught in the cafeteria with a weapon. More precisely, he was found playing with a tiny LEGO soldier armed with a two-inch rifle. It was his favorite toy and he had brought it to school to show his friends. As he sat in the office, frightened and in tears, the principal, Evelyn Matroianni, called security administrators in the New York Department of Education for guidance. She confiscated the toy and summoned his parents to school for a conference. Patrick avoided
suspension by signing an official statement and promising never again to bring a weapon to school. A spokesman for the Department of Education explained to reporters that the principal was just following the “no tolerance policy” that proscribes weapons at school.
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Zero-tolerance policies became popular in the 1990s as youth crime seemed to be surging and schools were coping with a rash of shootings. These policies mandate severe punishments—often suspension or expulsion—for any student who brings weapons or drugs to school, or who threatens others. Sanctions apply to all violations—regardless of the student's motives, the seriousness of the offense, or extenuating circumstances. School officials embraced zero tolerance because it seemed like the best way to make schools safe, plus it had the advantage of consistency. Inform students of the rules and subject everyone to the same punishments regardless of particular circumstances. Yes, the occasional student will be punished too harshly, but why not err on the side of caution?