Word: focusing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...anxiety--misfits in the classroom and video-game junkies at home. They suffer from an epidemic of "anomie," as Harvard psychologist William Pollack told me, adrift in a world of change without the help they need to find their way. Even in the youngest grades, test-oriented teachers focus energy on conventional exercises in reading, writing and other seatwork, areas in which girls tend to excel. At the same time, schools are cutting science labs, physical education and recess, where the experiential learning styles of boys come into play. No wonder, the theory goes, our boys get jittery, grow disruptive...
Even here, though, there may be grounds for a hopeful outlook. Boys at the fourth- and eighth-grade levels are showing modest improvement in reading and now trail their female classmates by slightly smaller margins than before. If that's a sign of improved teaching and parental focus on reading, then we ought to expect gains in the higher grades soon...
...doing better because we're paying them more attention. We're providing for them better; the proportion of children living in poverty is down roughly 2% from a spike in 1993. And we're giving them more time. Parents--both fathers and mothers--are reordering their priorities to focus on caring for their kids. Several studies confirm this. Sociologists at the University of Michigan have tracked a sharp increase in the amount of time men spend with their children since the 1970s. Another long-range survey, reported by University of Maryland researchers, has asked parents since the 1960s to keep...
RUDY GIULIANI, former New York City mayor, insisting that the Administration should focus on al-Qaeda's resurgence in Pakistan and Afghanistan...
...dramas lacked complex women in the early days because they lacked female leads, period. Women were more likely to star in soaps or sitcoms, which had more of a domestic focus. Even as women landed roles outside the home in real life, it was easier to find a multifaceted woman on Mary Tyler Moore or Maude than on Charlie's Angels or Police Woman...