Why are girls more successful than boys in school?

Part 4: My own anecdotes

I’ve written on this topic three times (here, here, and here). I’ve since had a few more thoughts:

We aren’t looking at the gender gap as closely as other gaps

In the school district where I work, I don’t believe we look at the graduation gap between boys and girls at all. I’ve never heard anyone mention it; we look at all sorts of other gaps in school outcomes, but I’ve never heard anyone take this one seriously.

For reference, the 2021-2022 graduation rate for Albany schools, according to NYSED data:

Aesthetics of classwork

Something that I’ve been pointing out half-kidding for years, but now I believe has some deeper merit to it. In class, if there is a worksheet of any kind (or even a blank paper), if a student makes a mistake, they will almost always cross out the mistake and write the correct answer. There are, however, a small group of students (call it 5%) who, if they make even a small spelling error, they cannot cross the mistake out. They can’t make their paper “ugly”. This small, but not insignificant group of students, have been in the course of 16 years 100% female. My hypothesis is that girls tend to tilt more towards aesthetics, and aesthetics matter in terms of school success.    

Rough-and-tumble play

Boys like rough-housing more than girls, it’s important for physical and emotional development, and it’s frowned upon in schools. There’s a ton of research to support this, but I first heard about it from Peter Gray (although to be fair, I don’t remember if he differentiated between boys and girls. Others have.).

Competition as a four letter word

Competition and cooperation are both an important part of life. Boys, particularly teenage boys, tend to prefer competition; they tend to thrive off of it. At least in my experience, both at work and observing some homeschooling mothers, there seems to be a sense that competition is unhealthy, makes things not fun, puts too much pressure on kids, is maybe important in sports but nowhere else, leads to bullying, is not inclusive, discourages kids, etc. Competition can certainly be taken too far - not everything is a competition, and many things in school (and life) shouldn’t be a competition. However, teenage boys love to compete, and school (outside of sports) doesn’t feel like a place that values competition (again, my subjective experience). 

“Affectionate” nicknames

Most years I teach immigrant high school students, and this year I have a class of mostly rowdy Middle Eastern and south Asian boys. One group has a friend from Afghanistan that the other boys call “Taliban”. They also call each other “dumbass”, “Chinese”, “monkeys”, “ugly”, and sometimes level the charge that no girl will ever like them. I’ve seen female teachers and staff get very upset about all of this, and while I admit that these particular group of boys tend to take it too far (at least for a school setting), I also think that boys insulting their male friends to their face (the more inappropriate, the better) is a type of affection that girls and women don’t always recognize or understand. This peculiar feature of male socialization is not only disapproved of in school, it’s also often seen as morally inexcusable; it’s also often misread as “bullying”. 

The comedian Bret Ernst has a hilarious bit on this. It’s a conversation between him and his wife after leaving the restaurant (Ernst getting his “report card” from his wife):

Mrs. Ernst: You don’t even hear what comes out of your mouth? 

Bret: I knew I messed up with the Somalian.

Mrs. Ernst: I’m not even talking about that. 

Bret: What did I say wrong?

Mrs. Ernst: Your best friend said he gained weight, and you said yeah you did you fat fuck. You look like you ate your old self. Now why would you say that to him?

Bret: Because he’s a fat animal and he kept eating all the tapas or whatever that shit’s called and he’s my best friend.

Bret [to the audience]: That’s what men do, ladies, that’s what men do. That’s how we bond. We argue, we bond. I try to explain to my wife, like, we shit on each other. Like, if you have a physical disability or a shitty job, that becomes your nickname, you know what I mean?    

“Boys will be boys” is out of style

This is basically a catchall for the last three points. As a general rule of thumb, school people seem to fail to recognize in a meaningful way that boys and girls are different, and are more apt to frown upon typical, healthy boy behavior.