- “In 2008, the kindergarten curriculum at most North American schools, both public and private, looks very much like the first-grade curriculum of 1978. Nowadays it’s all about learning to read and write.” Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men (Leonard Sax) Page 16
- “Imagine visiting a twenty-first-century kindergarten—which is to say, a kindergarten where children are expected to do what first-graders were expected to do thirty years ago, a kindergarten where children are expected to sit for hours doing paper-and-pencil exercises. In the typical kindergarten, you will often find that the teacher has divided the children into two groups. Over here, with the teacher, are the kids who are ready to learn to read and write: mostly girls, one or two boys. Over there, on the other side of the room, are the other kids: the kids whom the teacher has (correctly) recognized are not ready to learn to read and write. That group is mostly boys, with one or two girls. There’s one thing five-year-old girls and boys are equally good at figuring out who’s in Dumb Group. By November, the kids in Dumb Group are aware of their inferior status, and they don’t like it.” Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men (Leonard Sax) Page 18
- “The teacher’s intentions are good. But most five-year-olds are keenly aware of their status in the eyes of the adults. A boy whom the teacher has relegated to the Play Group (a.k.a. the Dumb Group) may think the teacher doesn’t like him. He’s figured out that the smart kids are in the Accelerated Reading Group. He wasn’t chosen to be in the elite group. He knows that the teacher was responsible for that choice. So he may decide that the teacher doesn’t like him. That’s unfair and illogical, but he is not a grown-up. He’s a five-year-old child, and five-year-olds are often illogical. Many five-year-olds, whether girls or boys are likely to conclude that the teacher likes the kids in the Smart Group better than she likes the kids in the Dumb Group.” Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men (Leonard Sax) Page 19
- “Many parents have figured out that the accelerated pace of today’s kindergarten is not a good match for their five-year-old son. Particularly in affluent neighborhoods, it’s become common for parents to enroll their son in kindergarten one year later than the district would normally enroll that child; it’s not unusual to find that half the boys, or more, are enrolled in kindergarten at age six rather than at age five. In low-income neighborhoods—where many working parents simply can’t afford to keep their children home another year—typically fewer than 3 percent of boys will be held back.10 One reason that boys from low-income neighborhoods are doing so much worse in school than boys from more affluent neighborhoods, beginning in early elementary education, may be that the boys from more affluent neighborhoods are starting school at a later age, on average, than the boys from the poor neighborhoods.” Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men (Leonard Sax) Page 21