Boy trouble

A new book arrived from Amazon.ca today! Always a happy occasion.

I first read about Peg Tyre’s book, The Trouble With Boys, on Ars Technica. The article, called “Keeping violent media away from boys could be a bad idea,” caught my attention right away. I’ve never really believed that one can draw a causal link between video games and real-world violent behaviour. The media is always quick to publicize studies that claim to draw such a link, but they’ve never been convincing to me. Given the organizations wanting to ban or limit video games, it’s pretty clear that the point is banning the games and the reasons are presented in support of this goal, not the other way around.

I took particular notice of the article title because the closest I’ve seen the media come to this other point of view is reporting on the odd study that failed to link video game violence with real-work violence.

I decided to buy the book before I made it half-way through the article.

According to amazon.ca, the Washington Post said,

Striking… Tyre presents years of research and reporting from schools around the country and arrives at a gut-punch of a conclusion: Education in the United States is not geared to boys… Tyre has the numbers, studies and interviews to back it up.

Very interesting. Twenty years ago, the suggestion that males and females are different was about as politically incorrect as you could get. Whether it’s nature or nurture, boys and girls are different. If this is true, suggesting that they have different needs isn’t exactly a reach.

I look forward to reading what Tyre has to say on the subject.