WEBVTT

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So I'm here to tell you
that we have a problem with boys,

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and it's a serious problem with boys.

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Their culture isn't working in schools,

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and I'm going to share with you ways

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that we can think
about overcoming that problem.

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First, I want to start
by saying, this is a boy,

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and this is a girl,

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and this is probably stereotypically
what you think of as a boy and a girl.

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If I essentialize gender for you today,
then you can dismiss what I have to say.

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So I'm not going to do that,
I'm not interested in doing that.

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This is a different kind of boy
and a different kind of girl.

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So the point here is that not all boys
exist within these rigid boundaries

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of what we think of as boys and girls,

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and not all girls exist
within those rigid boundaries

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of what we think of as girls.

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But, in fact, most boys
tend to be a certain way,

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and most girls tend to be a certain way.

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And the point is that, for boys,

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the way that they exist
and the culture that they embrace

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isn't working well in schools now.

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How do we know that?

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The 100 girls project
tells us some really nice statistics.

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For example, for every 100 girls
that are suspended from school,

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there are 250 boys
that are suspended from school.

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For every 100 girls
who are expelled from school,

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there are 335 boys
who are expelled from school.

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For every 100 girls in special education,

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there are 217 boys.

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For every 100 girls
with a learning disability,

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there are 276 boys.

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For every 100 girls
with an emotional disturbance diagnosed,

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we have 324 boys.

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And by the way, all of these numbers
are significantly higher

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if you happen to be black,

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if you happen to be poor,

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if you happen to exist
in an overcrowded school.

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And if you are a boy,

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you're four times as likely
to be diagnosed with ADHD --

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Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

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Now there is another side to this.

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And it is important that we recognize
that women still need help in school,

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that salaries are still
significantly lower,

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even when controlled for job types,

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and that girls have continued to struggle
in math and science for years.

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That's all true.

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Nothing about that prevents us

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from paying attention
to the literacy needs

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of our boys between ages three and 13.

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And so we should.

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In fact, what we ought to do
is take a page from their playbook,

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because the initiatives and programs
that have been set in place

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for women in science and engineering
and mathematics are fantastic.

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They've done a lot of good
for girls in these situations,

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and we ought to be thinking about
how we can make that happen for boys too

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in their younger years.

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Even in their older years,

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what we find is that
there's still a problem.

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When we look at the universities,

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60 percent of baccalaureate degrees
are going to women now,

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which is a significant shift.

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And in fact, university administrators
are a little uncomfortable about the idea

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that we may be getting close to 70 percent
female population in universities.

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This makes university
administrators very nervous,

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because girls don't want to go
to schools that don't have boys.

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And so we're starting to see

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the establishment of men centers
and men studies

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to think about how do we engage men
in their experiences in the university.

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If you talk to faculty,
they may say, "Ugh. Yeah, well,

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they're playing video games,

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and they're gambling
online all night long,

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and they're playing World of Warcraft,

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and that's affecting
their academic achievement."

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Guess what?

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Video games are not the cause.

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Video games are a symptom.

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They were turned off a long time
before they got here.

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So let's talk about
why they got turned off

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when they were between the ages
of three and 13.

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There are three reasons that I believe

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that boys are out of sync
with the culture of schools today.

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The first is zero tolerance.

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A kindergarten teacher I know,
her son donated all of his toys to her,

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and when he did, she had to go through
and pull out all the little plastic guns.

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You can't have plastic knives
and swords and axes

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and all that kind of thing
in a kindergarten classroom.

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What is it that we're afraid that this
young man is going to do with this gun?

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I mean, really.

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But here he stands as testament

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to the fact that you can't roughhouse
on the playground today.

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Now I'm not advocating for bullies.

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I'm not suggesting that we need to be
allowing guns and knives in the school.

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But when we say that an Eagle Scout
in a high school classroom

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who has a locked parked car
in the parking lot and a penknife in it,

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has to be suspended from school,

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I think we may have gone
a little too far with zero tolerance.

NOTE Paragraph

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Another way that zero tolerance
lives itself out

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is in the writing of boys.

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In a lot of classrooms today,

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you're not allowed to write
about anything that's violent.

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You're not allowed to write about anything
that has to do with video games.

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These topics are banned.

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Boy comes home from school, and he says,

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"I hate writing."

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"Why do you hate writing, son?
What's wrong with writing?"

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"Now I have to write
what she tells me to write."

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"OK, what is she telling you to write?"

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"Poems. I have to write poems.

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And little moments in my life.

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I don't want to write that stuff."

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"Well, what do you want to write?

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What do you want to write about?"

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"I want to write about video games.
I want to write about leveling-up.

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I want to write about
this really interesting world.

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I want to write about a tornado
that comes into our house

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and blows all the windows out,

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and ruins all the furniture
and kills everybody."

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"All right. OK."

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You tell a teacher that,
and they'll ask you, in all seriousness,

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"Should we send this child
to the psychologist?"

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And the answer is no, he's just a boy.

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He's just a little boy.

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It's not OK to write these kinds of things
in classrooms today.

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So that's the first reason:

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Zero tolerance policies
and the way they're lived out.

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The next reason that boys' cultures
are out of sync with school cultures:

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there are fewer male teachers.

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Anybody who's over 15
doesn't know what this means,

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because in the last 10 years,

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the number of elementary school
classroom teachers has been cut in half.

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We went from 14 percent to seven percent.

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That means that 93 percent of the teachers

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that our young men get in elementary
classrooms are women.

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Now what's the problem with this?

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Women are great, yep, absolutely.

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But male role models for boys
that say it's all right to be smart --

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they've got dads, they've got pastors,
they've got Cub Scout leaders,

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but ultimately, six hours a day,
five days a week

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they're spending in a classroom,

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and most of those classrooms
are not places where men exist.

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And so they say, I guess this really
isn't a place for boys.

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This is a place for girls.

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And I'm not very good at this,

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so I guess I'd better go play video games

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or get into sports,
or something like that,

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because I obviously don't belong here.

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Men don't belong here,
that's pretty obvious.

NOTE Paragraph

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So that may be a very direct way
that we see it happen.

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But less directly, the lack of male
presence in the culture --

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you've got a teachers' lounge,
and they're having a conversation

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about Joey and Johnny
who beat each other up on the playground.

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"What are we going to do with these boys?"

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The answer to that question changes

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depending on who's sitting
around that table.

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Are there men around that table?

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Are there moms who've raised boys
around that table?

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You'll see, the conversation changes

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depending upon who's sitting
around the table.

NOTE Paragraph

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Third reason that boys
are out of sync with school today:

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Kindergarten is the old
second grade, folks.

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We have a serious compression
of the curriculum happening out there.

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When you're three, you better be able
to write your name legibly,

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or else we'll consider it
a developmental delay.

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By the time you're in first grade,

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you should be able to read
paragraphs of text

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with maybe a picture, maybe not,
in a book of maybe 25 to 30 pages.

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If you don't,

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we're probably going to be putting you
into a Title I special reading program.

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And if you ask Title I teachers,
they'll tell you

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they've got about four or five boys
for every girl that's in their program,

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in the elementary grades.

NOTE Paragraph

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The reason that this is a problem

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is because the message
that boys are getting

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is, "You need to do what the teacher
asks you to do all the time."

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The teacher's salary depends
on "No Child Left Behind"

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and "Race to the Top"
and accountability and testing

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and all of this.

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So she has to figure out a way
to get all these boys

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through this curriculum -- and girls.

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This compressed curriculum is bad
for all active kids.

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And what happens is,

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she says, "Please, sit down,
be quiet, do what you're told,

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follow the rules, manage your time,
focus, be a girl."

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That's what she tells them.

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Indirectly, that's what she tells them.

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And so this is a very serious problem.

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Where is it coming from?
It's coming from us.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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We want our babies to read
when they are six months old.

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Have you seen the ads?

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We want to live in Lake Wobegon
where every child is above average ...

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but what this does to our children
is really not healthy.

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It's not developmentally appropriate,

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and it's particularly bad for boys.

NOTE Paragraph

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So what do we do?

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We need to meet them where they are.

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We need to put ourselves into boy culture.

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We need to change the mindset
of acceptance in boys

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in elementary schools.

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More specifically, we can do
some very specific things.

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We can design better games.

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Most of the educational games
that are out there today

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are really flashcards.

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They're glorified drill and practice.

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They don't have the depth,
the rich narrative

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that really engaging video games have,

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that the boys are really interested in.

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So we need to design better games.

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We need to talk to teachers and parents
and school board members and politicians.

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We need to make sure that people see
that we need more men in the classroom.

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We need to look carefully
at our zero tolerance policies.

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Do they make sense?

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We need to think about how to uncompress
this curriculum if we can,

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trying to bring boys back into a space
that is comfortable for them.

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All of those conversations
need to be happening.

NOTE Paragraph

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There are some great examples
out there of schools --

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the New York Times
just talked about a school recently.

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A game designer from the New School

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put together a wonderful
video gaming school.

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But it only treats a few kids,
and so this isn't very scalable.

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We have to change the culture
and the feelings

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that politicians and school board
members and parents have

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about the way we accept
and what we accept in our schools today.

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We need to find more money
for game design.

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Because good games,
really good games, cost money,

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and World of Warcraft has quite a budget.

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Most of the educational games do not.

NOTE Paragraph

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Where we started:

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my colleagues Mike Petner,
Shawn Vashaw, myself,

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we started by trying to look
at the teachers' attitudes

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and find out how do they really
feel about gaming,

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what do they say about it.

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And we discovered that they talk
about the kids in their school,

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who talk about gaming,
in pretty demeaning ways.

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They say, "Oh, yeah. They're always
talking about that stuff.

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They're talking
about their little action figures

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and their little achievements
or merit badges,

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or whatever it is that they get.

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And they're always talking
about this stuff."

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And they say these things as if it's OK.

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But if it were your culture,
think of how that might feel.

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It's very uncomfortable
to be on the receiving end

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of that kind of language.

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They're nervous about anything
that has anything to do with violence

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because of the zero tolerance policies.

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They are sure that parents
and administrators

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will never accept anything.

NOTE Paragraph

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So we really need to think
about looking at teacher attitudes

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and finding ways to change the attitudes,

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so that teachers are much more open
and accepting of boy cultures

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in their classrooms.

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Because, ultimately, if we don't,

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then we're going to have boys
who leave elementary school saying,

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"Well I guess that was just
a place for girls, it wasn't for me.

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So I've got to do gaming,
or I've got to do sports."

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If we change these things,
if we pay attention to these things,

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and we reengage boys in their learning,

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they will leave the elementary
schools saying, "I'm smart."

NOTE Paragraph

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Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)