LEWISTON – One way to improve how boys do in school is for teachers to find out what they’re interested in, and occasionally use those interests in class.

Boys do better in classes when they believe the teacher knows and cares about them. Teachers “who go the extra distance to help you, teachers who don’t come down hard on you if you fail, who make you have the will to want to succeed” make a difference, said Tamarick Peters, a sophomore at Lewiston High School.

And schools could try to change how boys regard academic work. Too many think getting help after school is “what girls do.” Boys who go for help are seen “as a wuss,” said Layne Gregory, Maine Boys Network coordinator.

Those are among the findings in the report, “The Gender Gap Divide in Academic Engagement, Perspectives from Maine Boys and Young Men,” from the Maine Boys Network released Friday.

A daylong conference was held Friday at Bates College with educators and students talking about how to turn around statistics that show boys are lagging behind girls. Those statistics include:

• Fewer males than females go to college; nationally males make up less than 44 percent of the college population.

• In most schools boys get the majority of D’s and F’s.

• Boys are an average of a year to a year and a half behind girls in reading and writing.

Too often, boys don’t want their friends to think they try, said Bowdoin College senior Eric Harrison, 21, who attended Friday’s conference.

“It’s OK if the top 10 students in your class are girls, because you know it’s not because they’re smarter, it’s because they’re trying harder,” he said.

One way schools can change that culture, Harrison said, is to get boy leaders to talk openly about working hard. That could convince others.

In reaching “The Gender Gap” findings, researchers conducted focus groups with more than 500 boys across Maine.

“We did ask straight up how school’s different for boys and girls,” said Bates College psychology professor Georgia Nigro. Boys answered that girls behaved differently than boys in school, and their behavior was more pleasing to teachers. Girls were treated differently by teachers, and sometimes that treatment wasn’t earned and was unfair, boys answered.

Nigro said she was surprised how much boys talked about the need for caring teachers. “They used words like ’empathy.’ At the same time they deeply worry about being judged by virtue of being a boy.”

Nearly two-thirds of boys interviewed said their love of a class had to do with the teacher. “It could be the worst subject, but if the teacher was enthusiastic and inspiring, they were going to love that class, too,” Nigro said.

Boys do care about school and want to do well, said Mark Kostin of the Great Schools Partnership of Portland. “What this report does is ask teachers to ask themselves, ‘Am I doing everything I can to get to know what this student likes, what his interests are, what his life is like outside of school, to give this kid a better chance?'”

Because boys often don’t open up, researchers recommend using strategies such as talking to boys in groups where they banter with each other. Another is talking to boys in informal settings.

Boys sometimes question the need for certain learning, and could benefit by more immediate reasons to succeed.

One example is Lewiston’s new policy that failing students can’t play sports. That helps by providing a more immediate goal, said Lewiston High School sophomore Tamarick Peters.