The boys are not alright

Education standards need to change.

Is there a boy in your life you're worried about? 

All measurements of well-being for boys are plummeting– so badly that even the average boy’s IQ is dropping faster than girls' since the 1980s. Boys today are addicted to video games, and are committing more crimes, while they continue to do worse than girls in school in nearly every subject. 

Just about everyone has a neighbor or a nephew who is struggling, unsure what to do with his life, or has checked out entirely, content to live in mom’s basement for good. 

Some of our institutions may tilt in favor of boys, but that is not always the case in the school system. For example, if a teacher doesn't know the student is a boy, she will likely give him a higher grade on a reading test. Teachers are biased to think girls are more verbally fluent at young ages (because they usually are), but not always. Agreeableness is one of the best predictors of high grades and academic success. Girls are a full standard deviation (a huge amount in statistical terms) higher in agreeableness. Now, that’s not to say that some girls aren’t disagreeable, too. That overlap (about 10% of girls are as disagreeable as an average boy) is for another post. 

Kids, especially the average boy, thrive by breaking boundaries, pushing themselves physically, and taking risks. If they don’t have access to a healthy way to express these tendencies, they may perhaps become destructive, join gangs and engage in self-harm. 

Boys do better with male teachers. And they do far better if that mentor is their father. 

The common belief is that the boys’ struggles are the fault of “society” (as if school isn’t “society”). The fact that there are biologically based behavioral differences between boys and girls is so substantial that it's hard to deny with a straight face. Boys’ desire to take risks and pursue challenges (men are far more likely to do dangerous and strenuous jobs) are treated as a negative in the classroom.

Classroom culture is to make kids “sit quietly” and “play nice.” As a result, boys are diagnosed with ADHD at least twice the rate of girls. Instead of finding healthy outlets to engage that energy, the system drugs the most restless boys to keep them still and compliant. As we’ve covered in previous posts, drugs like Ritalin repress the play circuit, which allows boys to sit quietly in classrooms for longer periods. But the long-term effects are catastrophic: their prefrontal cortexes don’t develop normally. Boys need to play rough to develop normal brains – no doubt a contributor to the decline in IQ. 

If we don’t outlets for their energy and ways to build healthy relationships with learning for our boys, they will continue to misdirect their energies, fail in education, form violent gangs, check out of society, and make less money than women (contributing to divorce), commit crimes, and die by suicide at 5x the rate of girls. 

Since 1980, the state of California has built one new university and 22 prisons. And prisons are basically housing for fatherless boys. This is a serious problem.

After all, to a strong-willed boy, being in a gang (which, as we will see, offers all the things modern schools miss) is better than raising your hand to go to the bathroom. 

Boys need a better path forward. 

Fatherless and mentorless

In Aldous Huxley's final book, Island, he describes a utopian society. Education was taken very seriously by these enlightened islanders. They knew that some boys need to feel useful to be happy and healthy. Boys were encouraged to chop wood and work outdoors. Islanders realized keeping them in a classroom would only make them restless and possibly violent. 

So, the islanders would allow groups of boys to follow the men they admired. Boys tend to idolize older boys and men, particularly physically powerful men. Idolized men were expected to take this responsibility seriously, being careful of their behavior so the boys wouldn’t develop bad habits. They would play, wrestle, go on adventures, and have rites of passage.

Huxley’s Island gives us an old, in some ways obvious, model for teaching boys to integrate their masculinity. And yet, we do the opposite.

Our education system needs more men around. Most teachers, especially of the younger grades, are women (this is a modern development). But that is exactly when young boys need men around the most, especially if they are also fatherless (a compounding effect we will discuss in a bit). 

Boys without fathers in the home or any male mentors are at risk across the board. With out-of-wedlock births and divorce on the rise, more and more boys do not have a father. Those boys are more likely to commit suicide, do worse in every subject, and be addicted to video games. The last message from one school shooter was, "I wish I had a father." 

Boys need a "club" to escape from women (especially mom) and learn to individuate themselves. Mom didn’t do anything wrong; it’s just a boy’s natural desire to learn to channel his growing aggression. If there are any men around, we all know they instinctively help with this process (taking the boy hunting, fishing, or just down to the office).

As Huxley described, boys need to be outside, physically exerting themselves and learning the boundaries of their abilities. They need to be chopping wood. They need to wrestle, fight, and play with male peers and elders. Otherwise, they are diagnosed with "ADHD" and “anxiety disorders.”  

Rites of passage

"The boy who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth." - African proverb

Around puberty, boys need elders around to help them become men. Otherwise, they form gangs with no wisdom from older males and are prone to devolve into violent thugs. The elders provide the “vision” to direct the boys’ more primordial aggression.

Conversely, girls are initiated into womanhood somewhat involuntarily (puberty is more abrupt and undeniable for girls for obvious reasons). Boys must rely on elders to “push” them into manhood. That’s the purpose of rites of passage.

Rites of passage, particularly for coming-of-age boys, is a human constant for all of our history (right up until the advent of the modern school system – go figure).

Rites of passage are usually kept secret from the community's mothers to some extent because they might try to stop them from going through it. Rites usually involve fear, risk, and sometimes pain.

This natural process is halted when boys are never around men. "You’re putting that kid in danger!" is something men today are afraid to hear, and so they often leave the boys alone, even if those they want to take under their wing. 

Without a prescribed rite of passage, boys will try to create the experience on their own, to the frustration of the dysfunctional education system. Often, they form gangs. These gangs are everything a rite of passage would have been for them. They initiate each other, exchange acts of courage, and enter into painful brotherhood pacts. But without elder males around, gangs are juvenile, impulsive, and violent, not serving their community. 

To be clear, it does not have to be a vision quest – it can be starting a business, training for a triathlon, or writing a novel. It also doesn’t have to be extreme. Even just taking your son hiking can have a huge impact. Rites of passage aren’t always one-and-done. They can be done slowly and incrementally, as simple as taking a yearly camping trip, joining a sports team, or building a treehouse. 

The modern school system wants to eliminate this adventurous, “prove yourself” energy in boys altogether. But, the same tendency that makes men more likely to commit crimes, go to jail, or otherwise lash out makes men more likely to work outdoors, take entrepreneurial and creative risks, work longer hours, and do dangerous jobs. Almost all bricklayers and powerline workers are men. Historically, men go to war and die to protect others. You can’t get rid of it. You wouldn’t want to.

We need well-mentored, integrated men. Not repressed amphetamine addicts. To do that, we need more men around boys and more constructive outlets for masculine impulses.

Divorce and family

The issue of divorce is a chicken and egg one. Boys with no fathers around often become absent fathers themselves. (Many factors contribute to the rise in divorce rates. We’re just going to focus on this one for now.) 

For all the reasons already mentioned, boys do better with fathers and male mentors; the data is overwhelming. Men who lack stable fathers or mentors aren’t likely to become stable fathers or mentors themselves. This vicious cycle is devastating for men and boys and hard on women.

For the most part, women won’t date men who achieve less than they do. Like it or not, that’s the facts. Further, money is one of the top reasons for divorce, and women initiate 70% of divorces. Women are obviously not satisfied with our men (to name one of many reasons). And no wonder. That trend is not likely to slow down.

Boys who grow up without fathers or mentorship will struggle to find a partner, make less money, have kids later and less often, and be less likely to stick around if they do. Then, the next generation of boys is even more lost than their fathers. 

Overall, men still earn more than women, but young women earn much more than young men. And marriage rates are way down, which is often attributed to finances. Chalk up the difference in pay to the difference in academic performance – which is not a perfect indicator of future success but still indicates a lack of interest from boys in participating in society. 60% of college students are women. This trend will likely continue.

This generation of boys is poised to be the first generation in history less well-off than their fathers. 

Gratitude for what men do

During WWII, some men had been comatose or catatonic for years, lying in British hospital beds. When the bombs started falling, these men snapped out of a coma to help. They became ambulance drivers and firefighters because they were needed. If given the opportunity, men will crawl through glass to have a purpose in the "tribe." The same tendency in males that makes them violent also makes them urgently want to put their lives on the line to serve their community.

But, as the African proverb went, they would rather see the village burn if left without a purpose. 

The education system tries to squash this tendency for sacrifice at every turn and replace it with calm obedience. The result is that we're seeing fewer and fewer men engaged in the world. The boys are dropping out, and it's not good for anyone.

If boys need to be drugged to comply with the education system, then perhaps it is not working for them. 

Boys need male educators around and ways to express and release their energy, away from the scrutiny of overly protective administrators. 

Boys have always been the ones who sacrifice themselves for the safety of the community. Boys are the ones who fight wars. Boys are the ones who fix powerlines in the freezing rain. 

We can break the cycle by bringing education back home. Family structures are good, but communities can fill in where there are gaps. If you are a single mother, create opportunities to allow male family members to interact with your kids. Let kids play roughly if they want. Let them have adventures. Find mentors that want to take them under their wing. If you have a family, spend more time with your boys. It matters more than you think. Get them involved in activities that are proven to integrate their aggression (sports, hobbies, business projects, creativity).

Some programs to help boys thrive

Acton Academy 

Acton Academy is a school system that uses the Socratic method to get kids more involved in learning. They treat their students like “heroes.” 

The outcomes are very positive.

Montessori school

Montessori school is a proven method for giving kids more caring attention, disciplined learning, and much more time for unstructured play. 

Montessori schools are making a comeback because the outcomes are much more positive than traditional schools. 

Homeschooling

If you are a parent and have the community and family structure to be able to homeschool, this might be the best possible thing to do for your boy. 

Homeschoolers turn out much more well-adjusted than kids who go to public school in many areas – and this might be especially true for boys who struggle to sit in classrooms. 

Self-authoring

If you cannot make any big changes to the education of your boys, there is a simple thing you can do for free: have them write. 

After writing for an hour about what they want out of their future, what they learned from their past, and what sort of person they are, boys improved their outcomes significantly. 

In the Mohawk study, the group doing the worst in school was minority boys. By writing about themselves and what they wanted out of life, they outperformed the highest-performing group at the school – the non-immigrant girls. What is the best predictor for the success of the intervention? How many words they wrote.

We just need to give a little purpose, structure, and a pathway to succeed. The boys will happily transfer their energy to something more productive if given the opportunity. 

Thanks for reading,

Taylor + rebelEducator team

David Perell @david_perell

The road to success as an adult is paved with the things that made you weird as a kid.

How MrBeast learns

John Taylor Gatto @realjohngatto

The “Curriculum of Family” is at the heart of any good life. We’ve gotten away from that curriculum – it’s time to return to it. The way to sanity in education is for our schools to take the lead in releasing the stranglehold of institutions on family life,

What we’ve published this week:

The granddaddy of modern education

Why smart top-down interventions fail