Why Boys are just as good as girls

Readers of The Independent may have seen the article by Andrew Cunningham in today's issue (8th February), entitled "Why girls do so much better than boys"

In response to this article, Dr Mortimer, our Assistant Head (Academic) and Head of English has written a letter to the Editor, which we print in full below. The letter was published on Thursday 15th February.

Sir: As an English teacher in a boys’ boarding school, I find myself in curious agreement with Andrew Cunningham (“Why girls do so much better than boys”, 8 February). Many of his comments about the work ethic and enthusiasm for literature among his female pupils seem at first glance to be critical of boys by implication: statements such as “It’s a battle to get boys to read” and “Girls seem so much more creative” will no doubt be seen as inflammatory.

In fact, Cunningham’s critique is not really of boys as learners at all, but of coeducational environments in which, by necessity, boys’ needs and interests cannot be put first. It is my experience that teenage boys can be every bit as motivated to work purposefully in English lessons as their sisters; they can similarly be stimulated to read texts of considerable complexity. My eyes were opened when I first taught Pride and Prejudice to a group of boys (yes, we teach Jane Austen to our fourteen year olds!) The Darcy/Lizzy love-plot plainly bore little interest for them; they were instead fascinated by the catty narrative voice, preferring Regency irony to Regency romance. As a result they handled the text with impressive sophistication that left more touchy-feely responses looking rather mawkish.

Debates on the merits of single sex education for boys often make claims that cannot in fact be demonstrated to be the case: however, in my experience, boys’ schools are able to foster a culture in which no activity or academic discipline (choral music, debating, drama, private reading, writing poetry, modern foreign languages) is perceived as feminine. Forty percent of our Sixth Form last year continued with English studies after GCSE, the boys choosing to study the subjects they enjoyed without needing to consider how macho (or not!) they might appear.

Yes, boys are masters of the deferred deadline; they can demonstrate laughably ‘fancy footwork’ when important assignments are inadequate or incomplete; their stratospherically unflagging optimism is often as frustrating as it is charming. They can, indeed, be torpid. But boys can also be impulsively enthusiastic, touchingly willing to engage emotionally with characters and texts, and (once their interest is aroused) determined and forceful readers. They are often unafraid of making mistakes, too: classroom discussions with twenty opinionated sixteen-year-old boys may not be elegant, but they can be exhilaratingly combative. The secret is to place boys in a context in which their competitive natures and their tenacity can flourish in a constructive way.

Single sex schools are fortunate in that they are able to do just this.

Dr Nigel Mortimer

Head of English