|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Presenters at last Thursday’s symposium on boys and men all landed on one message: we are failing them.
By any measure, boys and younger men have been failed by educators, academics, politicians and others in authority. They trail girls and women in education (at all levels), have the highest rates of suicide and drug addiction by a wide margin, and increasingly are living at home with their parents as adults.
Sean Kullman, Pleasanton resident and father of two boys, is a stay-at-home dad now after spending 20 years in education. He readily admits to being a data nerd and likes nothing better than digging into statistics. Joining him at the symposium at The Club at Castlewood were veteran educator (now consultant) Dr. Glynetta Fletcher and entrepreneur and congressional candidate Vin Kruttiventi (he’s running against incumbent Eric Swalwell in the 14th district where Democrats enjoy better than a 2-1 registration margin).
Kullman offered a telling point when he noted that President Biden’s budget proposal mentions girls and women 81 times with no mention of boys and men.
To Fletcher, who pioneered the first all-male middle school classroom at her school, it comes down to differences in the brain. In female brains, the lobes communicate together, while males operate in parallel without those ties. Males develop more slowly, starting in the womb through adulthood.
For decades most education has essentially been sit quietly and absorb the material from what the teacher says or draws on the board. Girls do just fine with that approach—not so guys.
They need to move and learn by doing. Her guideline in her class was a different activity every 15 minutes and accepting some form of chaos. She readily admits it was physically and emotionally challenging to teach that way, but her class soared on every significant metric. That experience begs the question of why one gender classrooms are not in every school. She structured her presentation in the same way.
In conjunction with the event, Kullman released his organization’s data-driven 2024 report on the status of California boys and men. It’s a sad story. He said that no matter what economic status, the bottom three were Black boys, White boys and Hispanic boys (no specific order, it changed).
- Behind in reading at all levels with just 24% 11th graders meeting reading standards. Only 38.4% reach the college-ready standard and there are 344,000 18-25 year olds fewer than women with college degrees.
- Men account for 75-80% of suicide, 82% of overdose and 78% of opioid deaths.
- Dad-deprived households. Now 34% live in female-led household. Results are 89% of prison inmates come from fatherless homes and 90% of homeless youth.
By any measure, it’s a complete train wreck that is largely ignored. Kullman, who leads the Global Initiative for Boys and Men, and Fletcher are out to change that. His detailed report is an excellent starting point and both emphasize to start small (pilot it in one class as Fletcher did at her school). Incidentally, if you ever get a chance to hear her speak, grab it. She’s engaging and personable with a good sense of humor.
The 2024 California report is available at www.gibm.us.
This is an amazing — July-August like — hot spell for October. It hit 107 at my house on Tuesday afternoon and 109 on Wednesday. The good news is that it’s been in the mid-50s over night so things are cooling down. Once the sun sets, the temperature plummets. It’s what folks living in the mountains used to call rock cracking weather —freezing at night and hot enough to melt plenty of snow during the day.
Station closed? BART could abandon Tri-Valley stops under doomsday budget cutsFebruary 9, 2026 8:36 am
'United and serious': Dublin teachers union authorizes strike amid stalled negotiationsFebruary 8, 2026 12:48 pm
Engaging event. Thanks to Tim Hunt for bringing this to the attention of Californians and the city of Pleasanton.