‘The trouble with boys’Author gives ideas on why boys don’t do as well in schoolStory and Photos by Brad Buck | The Free Press
It sounds like a catchy phrase, but The Trouble with Boys is the title of a book by Peg Tyre, an investigative reporter who, for years, researched why boys do not generally perform as well as girls in school.
Her instincts as a reporter led her to dig deep into data about what teaching and learning methods work for boys and girls.
Tyre spoke to a standing-room only crowd at the Santa Fe County school board meeting room Monday night. She also sold and signed copies of her book.
Her intensive research told Tyre many things: - Boys get expelled from preschool at four times the rates of girls.
- They are prescribed the lion’s share of ADHD medication.
- They get most of the C’s and D’s in middle school, and they drop out of high school more than girls.
- Currently, only 43 percent of college undergraduates in the United States are men.
Why the negative numbers?
“Being good in school is considered girly (to boys),” Tyre said. Their teachers are mostly women, and they often become disengaged. In particular, boys see reading as “girly,” because most of the books students read focus on females, she said. Boys are aggressive. They fantasize about more male things, like killing people, but as heroes, not as villains, she said. They want to read books like The Gas We Pass and The Adventures of Captain Underpants.
Teachers must walk a fine line when dealing with boys who want to write about violence and valor. They’ll write a narrative about one of their fairly violent fantasies, and their teacher will likely say, “that’s not appropriate,” and the boy gets the message that, “you can’t be yourself in that classroom.”
Further, boys come to school with less nurturing toward reading and with a more limited vocabulary, Tyre said.
A common notion used to be that boys performed better in math and science and girls did better in language arts and history. That’s changing, and boys are now falling farther behind in reading and writing, Tyre said.
“There’s this giant gender gap, and nobody’s talking about it,” she said.
And let’s face it, Tyre said, boys love to play video games. That’s not all bad, she said. People can learn by playing video games. If that’s the case, educators might consider using the games.
Another area where most boys do not excel is organization. Academic grades are so often tied to organizational skills, she said. So some schools give separate grades for students’ competency in a subject and for their organizational skills, Tyre said, a concept she applauds.
“Why are they so into video games? Well, they can win,” she said.
In the final analysis, Tyre said, in helping boys learn, “We don’t get there by ignoring the very real struggles of schoolboys.”
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Fourth time is the charm for spelling bee co-championStory and Photos by Brad Buck | The Free Press They say the third time’s a charm. For, Raj Singh of Santa Fe, the fourth time is proving to be the charm because he is now heading to the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee in May. He won the Santa Fe County Spelling Bee three straight years. Each year, he came in second at the state spelling bee. This year, it appeared he was the runner-up, yet again. And Raj can thank his father, Ganesh, for ensuring his son would compete at the national level. After Raj, 13, had apparently come in second at the New Mexico State Spelling Bee in Albuquerque a couple of weeks ago, he said he felt “empty inside.” Ganesh described Raj’s experience as traumatic.” But a few days after the competition, Ganesh looked up the word his son had allegedly misspelled: “Mesophilic.” Raj spelled the word “mesophyllic” correctly. That’s a homonym for “mesophilic.” In other words, it’s a word that sounds exactly like another word, but it’s spelled differently and means something else. Ganesh told spelling bee officials about the homonym, and after much anxious waiting over two days, was told Raj would be declared the co-winner of the state spelling bee, along with Hannah Evans of Albuquerque. Here’s how the goof went down. The judges did not give the definitions for the word “mesophilic,” Ganesh Singh said. As a spelling bee rule, for a homonym, the pronouncer has to give all the information in advance and tell the speller that the word he is being asked to spell has a homonym. Raj also did not ask for a definition. He asked the language of origin, that the word be used in a sentence and whether there were any alternate pronounciations. As a result of the new information from Raj’s father, Hannah and Raj now will both go to Washington, D.C. and, as Raj puts it, “eat ribs with Obama.” The trip to the nation’s capital, of course, means much more than dining with the president. About one to two hours a day of spelling practice go into preparation for the Bee, Raj said. We’re talking about essentially memorizing a dictionary. Typically the students memorize some 4,000 words. But then judges go to “challenge words” that are not on a list from which students prepare. In addition to committing words to memory, there are other techniques used by Raj and all the kids who reach the national Bee. It helps to know what prefixes and suffixes mean, word origins and Latin and Greek roots, he said. The competition itself is fierce. Most people have never heard of a lot of the words that kids are asked to spell at a Bee. “It’s like now or never,” Raj said of the spelling bees in which he’s competed, especially in the last few rounds. The toughest one Raj ran into in Albuquerque? “Carauba.” See if you can find that word in a dictionary. Raj, a seventh-grader at the Academy for Technology and the Classics, has encountered newfound celebrity status among his classmates. “They come up to me and ask to spell things,” he said. The attention is nice, but sometimes it gets annoying, especially if they ask Raj to spell made-up words, he said. School Principal Eileen Montoya said Raj exudes confidence, a helpful trait for any competition. “You’re a celebrity now. You’re famous,” she told him. Contact Brad Buck @
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City will tighten traffic code if proposed ordinance passes Written by Lee James | The Free PressThe Santa Fe City Council in its March 25 meeting will consider a bill that will tighten up the city’s Uniform Traffic Code.
The changes will involve prohibited activities while driving, injurious materials on city streets, restrictions in disabled parking spaces and its fine schedules among other changes.
The council will meet at 5 p.m. and again at 7 p.m. The traffic changes are the last item on the agenda in the evening session. Also on the agenda:
- A request for approval of a memorandum of agreement with the Mid-Region Council of Governments concerning $50,000 in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds, which are used to provide “welfare-to-work” transportation in Santa Fe County and in the city limits where fixed-route service is not provided. The MOA usually is presented at the beginning of the fiscal year but MRCOG discovered last week it hadn’t been done, said a memo from Jon Bulthuis, transit director.
- The council will hear some presentations on the Santa Fe Folk Market, Brain Injury Awareness Month and a 2009 Legislative Report at the beginning of the afternoon session.
- Bulthuis will seek approval for a grant application toward purchase of replacement compressed natural gas buses.
- The evening session will include a number of hearings on requests for liquor licenses, including a waiver request from Lan’s Vietnamese Cuisine LLC because it is within 300 feet of the College of Santa Fe.
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Biochar: Way to healthier soilStory and Photos by Brad Buck | The Free Press When you think of charcoal, you think of something that you put under your steak to cook it on a grill. Not always.
Some of the same material found in charcoal can be used to make biochar, and it can ease climate change and improve environmental health, a leading soil scientist says.
Biochar is a charcoallike substance produced through burning — or smoldering — biomass without oxygen, said Dr. Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University. Lehmann spoke at Santa Fe Community College last week to launch the college’s “Let’s Talk Green” series.
Known as Indian black earth, the modern practice of using biochar was inspired by an agricultural method of soil enrichment originally used by farmers in the Amazon between 500 and 7,000 years ago, Lehmann said.
Although the science is emerging, Lehmann suggests that biochar holds considerable promise as a tool to mitigate climate change and improve environmental health.
Carbon-rich soil also could prove promising for sustainability and productivity on modern farms, particularly those that are especially arid, such as in New Mexico, Lehmann said. On the other hand, biochar does not help increase farm productivity in areas with rich soil.
“I always say, if you have a good farm in Iowa, you will see little to no increase” in your crop yield, Lehmann said.
Biochar is a fine-grained charcoal high in organic carbon and largely resistant to decomposition, according to the International Biochar Association’s Web site: www.biochar-international.org.
It is produced from pyrolysis of plant and waste feedstocks. Pyrolysis is a process in which chemicals are changed through heat.
Biochar creates a recalcitrant soil carbon pool. Soil with biochar not only reduces fertilizer requirements but also the climate and environmental impact of crop lands.
Char soils also cut nitrous oxide emissions and reduce runoff of phosphorus into surface waters and leaching of nitrogen into groundwater. Renewable oils and gases co-produced in the pyrolysis process can be used as fuel or fuel feedstocks. Biochar thus offers promise for its soil productivity and climate benefits.
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