To Dustin and His Underachieving Friends

My View

Familiar with Dustin Kudlick? He is the lead character in my favorite comic strip, Dustin, by Steve Kelley and Jeff Parker.

At 23, Dustin is described as “a recent college graduate who majored in English because he already spoke the language. Unencumbered with ambition, Dustin’s goal is to find a career that yields the greatest pay for the least amount of effort.”
Dustin has returned from college to live at home with Ed, his attorney father; Helen his talk-radio host mother; and Megan, his studious and ambitious younger sister. The daily strip won the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award in its first year and now appears in more than 300 newspapers.

Why has it become so popular? It may be that Dustin’s situation is becoming the new normal.

Poor Portrayal

In the second chapter of Masterminds and Wingmen: Helping Our Boys Cope with Schoolyard Power, Locker-Room Tests, Girlfriends, and the New Rules of Boy World, author Rosalind Wiseman presents some startling data:

• 70 percent of high school valedictorians are female;
• For every 100 girls ages 6 to 14 with a learning disability, there are 160 boys;
• For every eight qualified female college applicants, there are two qualified males; and
• For every 100 women ages 15 to 19 who commit suicide, 549 males do.

Wiseman’s data confirm my observations throughout 40 years as a school psychologist and district administrator. Boys have been significantly overidentified as needing remedial help or special services at an early age in part because they do not perform as well academically as girls. As a result, they lose confidence and motivation. They may be just as intellectually competent but display it differently than girls.

I once counseled a fabulously underachieving lad who, when confronted with data showing no difference between his state test scores and those of his peers, responded, “Well, I guess this show is over. It’s been a great run for eight years.” Another underperforming middle school boy reasoned, “No need for me to try, I plan on living in our basement.”

Style Differences

What is the cause of this underachievement? One potential answer may be found with reading instruction. Reading is presented earlier (age 4 now, compared to 7 previously) and emphasizes abstract sound/symbol association. The use of this method has allowed girls to attain reading competence while young boys have struggled.

Socially, competence develops over time. By the middle school years, boys think they need to display few of the qualities shown by girls — academic competency included.

A second possibility is that male academic underachievement is unintentionally being taught. Teaching as a helping profession is almost entirely populated by women in the early grades. When a struggling boy repeatedly asks a female teacher, “Could you help me with this?” and she complies, or when he is sent to receive remedial instruction from a female reading specialist, is he actually being taught that without this assistance he is helpless?

Perhaps it is time to recognize differences in learning styles and to separate early-grade classes by gender. We also might confront the significant gender imbalance among elementary school staff. The Troops to Teachers program of the U.S. Department of Defense, for example, helps military personnel, mostly males, begin careers as teachers.

The early elementary school years are critical to forming competence, or the feeling that effort makes a difference. The successful child attains self-confidence, discipline and a strong sense of industriousness such as that displayed by Megan, Dustin’s studious, motivated younger sister. We need to get Dustin there, too.