Letters to the Editor
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The many fronts of the war on boys
This is an article that brings up a lot of interesting points, and makes it hard to make any general over-arching observations.
I think that there is a strong peer-pressure to not excell at school. I suspect that my friends and I barely missed the anti-intellecutal/studious trend of our peers in high school and college. I think it was starting, I'm sure others suffered more from it more, others less. It followed us into college- where study groups all took place off campus (odd, considering how much money and effort we spent to get to the campus to begin with).
Mostly, my study groups were mostly with friends and not with people in the same major or even the same classes. To people outside the 'group' I played the same tune I did in college 'yeah, I studied a little... no big deal...'
Salon had an article a few months ago about a college professor who went back to school (at a different school) to find out why her students seemed to be so bored all of the sudden (over the last 10 years or something), and she found that the desire to be 'cool' trumped almost everything else among the students. She found that most students studied alone (if at all) and always downplayed both how much studying they had done, as well as how much they cared about the class in general.
'Yeah, I studied a little... no big deal...' as a way of life. I think she found it to be worse among male students than female.
Some random thoughts and observations:
I think, though I cannot prove, that genders define themselves against each other. 50 years ago boys were supposed to be good at math and girls were not and they acted accordingly. Transitional period. Now girls are supposed to be good at 'school' and so boys are not.
I think, though I cannot prove, that people are very very lazy and are constantly trying to find a strategy that will let them get away with shit. Everything from I'm too smart to I'm too stupid to I don't care. Studying, practicing, whatever, is hard and you may still not make good grades or win the game... but if you quite (or threaten to) you can maintian your control over the situation.
I think, though I cannot prove, that these strategies work really really well, too. At least in school, on parents and teachers and peers. But it falls apart in no-nonsense environments (witness the letters from high school screw up to scholar via the marines).