It takes a village to raise a child
I'm reading a book for my class called "Boys Adrift" by Leonard Sax.
I'm getting close to the end of the book, and as I've been reading I've
been fearing for my sons a bit. This book is all about how more and more
recently boys tend to lose motivation and are content to live with
their parent's until they're 30, playing video games and doing little
else. It talked about how the education system has been changing in
recent years and how in many cases it tends to disengage boys from
school. Lots of smart boys just stop caring about school and call it
"stupid" and just stop trying while instead they put more and more
effort into video games.
Of course, these trends don't apply to all boys, but it seems to be happening more and more. Girls are starting to fall into this pattern too, but not nearly to the extent that boys are. He tried to guess as to some of the reasons why this might be. There is a whole chapter just about how clear plastics that we seem to use more and more contain hormones that mess with boys a great deal and hardly affect girls. It's really scary stuff. It makes me want to just go up into the mountains somewhere and hide from all of the negative effects that this world might have on my children.
The chapter that I just finished reading was talking about the cultures that have lasted for thousands of years such as the Navajo or the Orthodox Jews, while others have faded, been destroyed, or integrated with other cultures. The thing that seems to be consistent through all of these different cultures that have lasted is that they have some form of ritual to bring young men and women into adulthood. It's usually some sort of community thing, and is always separated by gender. Navajos take their boys when they reach about 13 and go hunting. All of the men in the village are there to give him advice and show him how to be a man, and when the boy makes his first kill, then he is welcomed into the community as a man. Girls are sequestered to her grandmother's hut for four days as each of the women from the tribe come to visit her and give her advice and show her how to become a woman. In each of these different cultures it is a group of adult men or women who do this, and never just the mother or the father. He then went on to talk about today how a lot of the young men that attend an all boy school with male instructors end up being better motivated harder working, more polite, better mannered, and more "gentlemanly" than boys attending a coed school.
This got me thinking about my boys. When I was in high school my friends asked my a few different times why we separate the girls and the boys for relief society/young women's and priesthood. I always just answered that men and women have different roles and so we need to learn different things, but I always found this answer a little bit feeble because the young women always have at least one lesson every year about the priesthood and their responsibilities. I do think that is part of the reason we separate, but I think Dr. Sax gave me the rest of the answer. Boys really do need to be around other boys and men who care about them, and who can help them make that transition to adulthood. The same goes for girls too. It really is more important than I ever really thought about before.
The more I learn about the way people learn, the more that I'm seeing that the church really is inspired. Things like having members of the congregation speak in sacrament meeting, while I always thought it was a good idea, I never really understood how hearing from your peers really affects a person, and how you are much more likely to learn a concept by not only hearing it lots of different times, but hearing it from a lot of different sources especially from other people you see as being on your level. If we had a pastor or someone speak all the time, we may learn the concept, but we wouldn't internalize it as well.
Anyways, I've been thinking about a lot of things that I want to write about lately... and it seems like I'm one of the only people in this family that actually ever blogs that doesn't have a separate blog. And I worry that if I write as often as I think of things to write about (which isn't likely) then I feel like I'm going to end up taking over this blog, and no one else hardly ever writes, or when they do, it's just to direct attention to a different blog that they have written elsewhere. SO I would feel bad if I started my own blog and stopped writing on this one because then no one would really write in here. Anyways, does anyone have any thoughts or opinions on that subject?
Of course, these trends don't apply to all boys, but it seems to be happening more and more. Girls are starting to fall into this pattern too, but not nearly to the extent that boys are. He tried to guess as to some of the reasons why this might be. There is a whole chapter just about how clear plastics that we seem to use more and more contain hormones that mess with boys a great deal and hardly affect girls. It's really scary stuff. It makes me want to just go up into the mountains somewhere and hide from all of the negative effects that this world might have on my children.
The chapter that I just finished reading was talking about the cultures that have lasted for thousands of years such as the Navajo or the Orthodox Jews, while others have faded, been destroyed, or integrated with other cultures. The thing that seems to be consistent through all of these different cultures that have lasted is that they have some form of ritual to bring young men and women into adulthood. It's usually some sort of community thing, and is always separated by gender. Navajos take their boys when they reach about 13 and go hunting. All of the men in the village are there to give him advice and show him how to be a man, and when the boy makes his first kill, then he is welcomed into the community as a man. Girls are sequestered to her grandmother's hut for four days as each of the women from the tribe come to visit her and give her advice and show her how to become a woman. In each of these different cultures it is a group of adult men or women who do this, and never just the mother or the father. He then went on to talk about today how a lot of the young men that attend an all boy school with male instructors end up being better motivated harder working, more polite, better mannered, and more "gentlemanly" than boys attending a coed school.
This got me thinking about my boys. When I was in high school my friends asked my a few different times why we separate the girls and the boys for relief society/young women's and priesthood. I always just answered that men and women have different roles and so we need to learn different things, but I always found this answer a little bit feeble because the young women always have at least one lesson every year about the priesthood and their responsibilities. I do think that is part of the reason we separate, but I think Dr. Sax gave me the rest of the answer. Boys really do need to be around other boys and men who care about them, and who can help them make that transition to adulthood. The same goes for girls too. It really is more important than I ever really thought about before.
The more I learn about the way people learn, the more that I'm seeing that the church really is inspired. Things like having members of the congregation speak in sacrament meeting, while I always thought it was a good idea, I never really understood how hearing from your peers really affects a person, and how you are much more likely to learn a concept by not only hearing it lots of different times, but hearing it from a lot of different sources especially from other people you see as being on your level. If we had a pastor or someone speak all the time, we may learn the concept, but we wouldn't internalize it as well.
Anyways, I've been thinking about a lot of things that I want to write about lately... and it seems like I'm one of the only people in this family that actually ever blogs that doesn't have a separate blog. And I worry that if I write as often as I think of things to write about (which isn't likely) then I feel like I'm going to end up taking over this blog, and no one else hardly ever writes, or when they do, it's just to direct attention to a different blog that they have written elsewhere. SO I would feel bad if I started my own blog and stopped writing on this one because then no one would really write in here. Anyways, does anyone have any thoughts or opinions on that subject?
Comments
Post a Comment