The Trouble with Boys
A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems
at School and What Parents & Educators Must Do.
The book that started a national conversation about gender and education, the The Trouble with Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School And What Parents & Educators Must Do has been hailed by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Redbook, U.S News & World Report, People Magazine, Parents, the Today Show, Fox & Friends and Anderson Cooper 360. The author has lectured and conducted workshops around the country, giving teachers, school administrators and concerned parents a clear idea of the problems that beset boys from all walks of life and helping families and schools come up with new tools to insure all children achieve their best.
"Passionate, powerful and persuasive, Peg Tyre's beautifully researched book, The Trouble with Boys offers the reader a compelling explanation for why boys are not being served well by America's schools. I recommend this book to any mother who is confused or worried byherson's struggles in the classroom. What you learn here will help you to guide your son's education. I suspect that teachers may feel that Peg Tyre has given voice to their deepest doubts about the things we make boys endure in school. I urge all educators to read The Trouble with Boys. You won't teach boys in the same way once you've finished it."
—Michael Thompson, coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Raising Cain
The Trouble with Boys, is an attempt to frame a discussion about education and gender in a new way. Tyre is not interested in rehashing a debate about gender politics left over from 1978. We can no longer talk about gender and education like a seesaw—when girls are up, boys are down and visa versa. Yes, the struggle for equal rights for women continues—and there is much work to be done, particularly when it comes to equity issues in the workplace. Yes, there needs to be more women in technology and computer fields and more women in corporate board rooms and in Congress. But we don't get there by ignoring the very real struggles of schoolboys.
A long time education journalist, Tyre's spent many years in classrooms and visiting schools, talking to parents, teachers and school administrators. Over time, she began to sense that something had changed in our culture and our schools that was causing boys to fall behind. Tyre began to comb through data—and what she found was not comforting. Boys are left back at twice the rate of girls, they are diagnosed as having more learning problems and attention issues. They get more C's and D's. They do less homework. At last look, the National Honor Society was nearly 70 percent female. While they get slightly higher scores on the SATs, many fewer boys than girls take the SATS.
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Reviews
"Tyre delivers a cogent, reasoned overview of the current national debate about why boys are falling behind girls' achievement in school and not attending college in the same numbers. While the education emphasis in the 1990s was on helping girls succeed, especially in areas of math and science, boys are lagging behind, particularly in reading and writing; parents and educators, meanwhile, are scrambling to address the problems, from questioning teaching methods in preschool to rethinking single-sex schools. Tyre neatly sums up the information for palatable parental consumption: although boys tend to be active and noisy, and come to verbal skills later than girls, early-education teachers, mostly female, have little tolerance for the way boys express themselves. The accelerated curriculum and de-emphasis on recess do not render the classroom "boy friendly," and already set boys up for failure that grows more entrenched with each grade. Tyre touches on important concerns about the lack of male role models in many boys' lives, the perils of video-game obsession and the slippery dialogue over boys' brains versus girls' brains. Tyre treads carefully, offering a terrifically useful synthesis of information."
—Publishers Weekly (6/30/2008)
"A terrific book, solidly documented…Should be helpful to parents and teachers who need to understand why boys are falling behind and do something about it."
—Diane Ravitch, Professor, New York University's Steinhardt School of Education, and author of LEFT BACK: A CENTURY OF BATTLES OVER SCHOOL REFORM
"This is a book with an important point to make, whether or not you have a son struggling in school. Tyre incisively explains how institutions and cultural mores, not parenting, are contributing to the growing alienation of boys from school. Hers is a welcome and much-needed report card."
—Cleveland Plain Dealer (9/28/08)
"Tyre's new book has ignited a new national conversation about a generation of boys we hope to raise to become productive, caring young men."
—Tampa Tribune (9/28/08)
"A clear-eyed, wide ranging, deeply thoughtful book about what's going on with boys…and why we should care. This is the book about boys that could change our world."
—Jon Scieszka, Library of Congress appointed "Ambassador for Children's Literature," and author of numerous bestsellers and award winners including "The Time Warp Trio" books, The Stinkey Cheese Man and Math Curse
Crown Publishing Group, Hardcover, September 2008, ISBN: 9780307381286
Crown Publishing Group, Paperback, August 2009, ISBN: 9780307381293
