英语阅读(4)第1次作业【参考答案】

2. Fulwood thinks the best way to stop crime is to respond to it after it happens.

Take Cues From Boys

1    For all the unfathomable horror of gang violence, open-fire shootings, decapitation and mutilation that has taken place in junior and senior high schools over the last several years in various parts of the world, there was one thing that came as no surprise to me. Boys did it. It seems clear to me, both as a psychologist and as the mother of two daughters and a son,  that we should be concerned about how we are failing our boys.  I ' m not suggesting that every boy is potentially bad--far from it.  But from observing my patients and my son' s friends, I think we are missing some important cues our boys are giving us.

2   Some would argue that we are doing nothing wrong and all we really need to do is monitor public entertainment and guard against the availability of weapons. A number of psychologists, concerned parents, government officials and educators claim the social effects of movies and video  games  seriously  undermine  kids'  resilience  and  self-control, especially young boys who are already having a hard time. They argue that movies and games invite the young (primarily boys) to enjoy the killing of vulnerable people. And a/though they admit that this may be a harmless activity for children who know the difference between fantasy and reality, it can act as a dress rehearsal for those who are unstable. I would argue, however, the problem goes far beyond these vices and we need to become more sensitive to boys' needs, to look at their daily lives, both in and out of school in our search for the answer to adolescent male violence and crime.

3   Although there has been extensive research carried out in the area of child development, studies dealing with psychological aspects of adolescent boys have never been fully explored. For years we have tended to play down the differences between boys and girls because of legitimate concerns about gender discrimination, even though research and common sense tell us they exist. Ask any parent who has raised children of both sexes. The differences show up at a young age, they persist, and they are probably there for good evolutionary reasons: They bring the sexes together and promote procreation. But recently, as we' ve begun to acknowledge gender differences, we' ve focused our attention on girls and expected boys to just "work it out", through the rough periods of their lives.

4   The statistics that cross my desk in research journals and police reports suggest boys may be the more fragile sex. Approximately three out of every four children identified as learning disabled are boys. On average four out of every five children identified as being hyperactive are boys. This sad reality can be agonizing for these poor struggling boys.

5   Boys are also more likely than girls to have drug and alcohol problems. Four out of every five juvenile court cases involve crimes committed by boys. Ninety-five percent of  juvenile homicides are committed by Boys.  And while girls attempt suicide four times more often, boys are seven times as likely to succeed as girls---usually because they choose more lethal methods, such as guns.

6   But how are we addressing boy’s problems? Most times we do not even take the time to identity the underlying problem. We simply regard them as "bad boys' at school and punish them by giving detentions, humiliating them in class, or assigning extra homework. Society and parents punish by setting curfews and placing them on probation.

7   Not only are He missing the sues about the underlying cause of boys’ behaviour, but we are also not attuned to their true needs and feelings. Years before violence perpetrated by boys in their early adolescence became a mainstream issue, educators at the Haverford School for Boys, a private prekindergarten through 12th grade school of 850 in Haverford, Pennsylvania, devised a questionnaire to find out what mattered most to their middle-school students. Survey results were very revealing. The boys’ main concerns centered on their feelings of powerlessness in dealing with various threatening social situations. When asked how they felt in these situations, the majority admitted not knowing how to deal with their feelings. What they claimed they needed most was to have a strong connection with some adult who might help them deal with their feelings.

8    Boys, it seems, have more problem than girls in virtually every category you can think of, .with the exception of eating disorders, but these problem are seldom recognised for what they are. Boys externalize their problem, taking their unhappiness out on others all the way from small acts of  mischief to horrifying acts of physical violence. Parents, teachers and other adults close to them do not realize the root cause of it all.

9    Since our kids spend the majority of their day in the structured setting of school, that's where problems are most likely to come to light. We all know boys mature more slowly than girls, and they reach the  cognitive milestones later than girls do, but the academic standards do struggling through their readers while girls breeze through, Average boys often wind up feeling less successful, and learning-disable boys can feel easily defeated. Given that girls excel in most academic disciplines at this point, boys begin to feel school are boy-unfriendly.

10  But what have schools done to accommodate these well-documented differences in rates of maturity? Very little. Schools, like researchers, have been concentrating on girls. In recent years, some parents have been holding their boys back voluntarily, because they don’t seem ready for first grade. Maturity differences persist through adolescence, although adults sometimes seem to ignore them.

11  Schools also do not take into consideration the amount of activity that boys need during adolescence. The “blowing off steam” during the school day is often necessary for boys. I’m not the first one to suggest this; even Plato observed that of all the animal young, the hardest to tame is the boy. A young boy put the matter to me succinctly:“I figured it out. I’m bad before recess.” But many schools have not accommodated boys’ need to work off excess energy. Instead, many have shortened lunch and recess periods to cram more class time into the day even as the pressure to became more competitive and test-oriented has increased. A fifth-grade boy once told me,“School just sucks the fun out of everything.”

12  One of the ways boys can blow off steam is in sports. Yet even this outlet is tainted by the student and adult adulation of athletes that pervades many of the big high schools. That’s a problem for several reasons: It gives athletes an inflated idea of themselves and non-athletes feelings of inferiority and resentment. The boys I see in my office often tell me many feel like failures when they get cut from a team—something that is increasingly likely to happen in our highly competitive megaschools. All kids need to exercise and play sports, and not just for the short time they have in their physical education classes. It appears though that very few schoolteachers or administrators recognize the benefits for boys.

13  While parents and school have often failed to respond to the cues, popular culture has picked up on them. Matt Groening, TV script writer and father, once said that he created“The Simpsons,”because of all the teachers who, when he was enjoying himself, would shoot him a look that said, “Take that stupid grin off your face right now.” he said he always felt so angry and sad because he wasn’t allowed to express himself. This animated TV show illustrates at home, at school, and in society in general. Groening has it right. I hear a lot about “The Simpsons” from the boys have to say about their lives.

14  There’s no question in my mind that I the past we’ve tended to overlook the needs of our ordinary boys. Like everyone else, boys of all ages need adults to love them, appreciate them and enjoy them, so that they can come to value and have faith in themselves. We need to help them find outlets for their natural exuberance, vitality and, even, devilishness. For the benefit of both our boys and our society, we need to stop and take notice of the cues boys are sending us, before it’s too late.

Question 11—2 are based on the passage.