Adecade or so ago, my brother and I were at my sister’s cabin at Lake Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Next to his towel on the dock was a paperpack, propped open. He’d been reading.
“Is that a book?” I still remember asking. I said it in good humor, but with sarcastic emphasis on “book.”
My brother, smart as a whip, is now a top executive at Plum Creek Timber Co. in Meridian, Idaho, near Boise. He used to say he made it through high school without reading a book. He was a hotshot basketball player at Spokane’s Ferris High School. He had many friends. School, though, wasn’t his thing.
On the dock that day, he said he reads a lot because he travels so much. He flies all over the world on business.
While I was in college, he worked in the woods. He literally learned the lumber business from the ground up. He now out-earns his two sisters by sums I don’t even want to know.
As a mother of two boys, a first-grader and a college freshman, I’m reading with keen interest this week’s Herald articles about gender and the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. Reporters Eric Stevick and Scott North analyzed WASL results, finding a wide gender gap at many schools.
Overall, 60 percent of boys in Washington’s high schools failed the WASL, compared with 54 percent of girls. At most schools, the gap is widest on the writing exam.
It’s an urgent concern, because plans are in place that require passing the WASL for graduation in 2008. The gender gap is a call to action for lawmakers, teachers, parents and students.
While certainly troubling, to this mom it’s not surprising. I don’t know why there are such pronounced learning differences between boys and girls. But having raised a daughter first, I’ve seen those differences up close.
From the time she was 5, my daughter wouldn’t put a book down. We’d be on vacation, maybe driving through spectacular scenery, and our girl would be in the back seat with her nose in “Anne of Green Gables.”
Before she could read, she loved to play school. She’d get a little table and gather notebooks and pencils. My sons never played school.
I remember the agony of teacher conferences when my older son was little. I’m reliving it with my first-grader, who has raised class clowning to an art form.
My first boy, instead of doing his assignments, only wanted to draw sharks. Those pictures got him in trouble in grade school, but as a high school senior he had an A in art.
By sixth grade, my daughter – raised in the same house by the same parents as her artistic brother – was already talking about being a lawyer. Tuesday, she was taking exams at Seattle University law school, where she’s a first-year student with a merit scholarship.
Always reading, always studying, always with a goal, my daughter is exactly where she said she’d be at age 22.
My 18-year-old son? He’s in college, doing well. But when I think of my boys, what comes to mind is “The Long and Winding Road,” complete with Beatles music.
Together, my older son and I survived his sketchy performance in math and science. I’d lecture him, then tell him to hang in there. We traveled together to colleges I knew would admit him.
I was not going to give up on this kid. And he has risen to the occasion, although career goals are a ways off.
He’s a boy, after all. That’s not meant to be sexist. And it’s not meant to discount a serious WASL problem. Whatever I may think of the test, these guys have to pass it if they want doors of opportunity to remain open.
Every night, my 7-year-old and I sit down with his schoolwork. Much of it is WASL-style math, with lots of story problems and not much arithmetic the way I learned it. Some is work he didn’t finish at school because he’s a goof-off.
In my family, “boy” and “goof-off” are kind of one and the same. That said, I know my sons will do well in life. I knew that about my brother, too.
I think one reason boys don’t perform well on the writing test is that many don’t read much. My older son was lucky to have English and history teachers he admired. They assigned books he liked. They forced him to write frequently. He’s now a terrific writer.
He had other teachers, especially one science teacher, who truly considered him a lost cause. Parents do hear much that’s discouraging. We shouldn’t despair.
I’ll keep reading with my little boy every night. I’ll help him with WASL math. When it gets too baffling, I’ll find someone else to help. We’re working on behavior. It’s going to be a long and winding road.
Here’s my advice to parents: Whatever the grades say, or the tests say, or the teachers say, don’t give up on your son – or your daughter.
Don’t make excuses for them. Don’t lower the bar. Don’t do their homework for them. Whatever you do, don’t ever give up.
What they have, along with high hurdles and high stress, is you.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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