Beginning with the individual

Chapter 18: Notes From the Front (pg. 251) "To his eye, boys who are failing to meet the expectations of our society are behaving in the ways we tell them to behave. If we want to change the behavior of boys, we need to change the negative, self-destructive, and contradictory messages we give them. 'I can see that in our society, we have deeply held ideas about boys-ideas that are traditional, ideas that are intergenerationally inherited- that are just not working.'" This quote comes from psychologist, Michael Reichert. Throughout the book Peg Tyre has looked at every aspect that can cause an impact on a boy's education. She explores each theme thoroughly and expresses her opinion on how it affects boys, but at the end she brings back the responsibilty to the teachers since ultimatley we have the sole power to change it all (pg. 282). I do not agree because in presenting all of these other contributing factors she is stating that the solution is not easy and there are larger factors involved such as Reichert says, society. If we take a closer look at soceity the focus is centered around the individual. In other words what I am trying to get at is that we need to look at ourselves first, the individual, and explore our views on boys (considering family values, upbringings and life experiences). In this way we can begin to change society, and this will also help us become better educators, which will help all of our students.

Response to Bradley's Quote

I really like this idea of finding exemplar programs to use as models. I have hunches and ideas of strategies, books, lessons, etc. to use that appeal to boys (without negatively impacting girls), but it would be great to have an expanded repetoire.

I would also be really interested to see what these exemplar programs actually look like - how different are they from practices that are just "good teaching"?

Page 223 - Single-Sex Schooling

This is my first post, very exciting...

This is from p. 223-224. I think it has clear implications for our school and our practice. I truly feel that most of us are already doing many of these things, but there's always room for growth and development. Plus, these are thing that would be helpful to think about when we're interacting with our boys versus our girls.

"Teachers [at a top all-boys school in England] were instructed to provide the following:

- classes with a coherent structure that is clearly explained
- vibrant and fast teacher-pupil interaction
- high levels of teacher input
- constant reinforcement of high expectations
- well-established baseline rules with known and enforced sanctions when the rules are broken
- short-term targets, public praise, the use of humor, informality, and topics that the students could relate to
- an environment in which sexist comments and stereotypical behavior are challenged and not condoned

The researchers found that many teachers started off focusing on what they thought would be the best way to teach boys. And, yes, they found that they needed to pay more attention to classroom management. They needed greater tolerance for noise and disruption. They needed to quickly put the kibosh on boorish behavior. In classroom discussions, the teachers found it helpful to refer to sports, technology, and music. But over time, the classroom techniques that they used to get boys to achieve turned out to look more familiar - yet be more elusive - than anyone could have anticipated. Good teaching for boys turned out to look a lot like good teaching."

Hhmm...

Chapter 20, page 284 - The Future

One more note: Teachers who express hostility toward the natural way in which little boys express themselves - even if it is sometimes noisy, noncompliant, quirky, rambunctious, aggressive, and, yes, a little irritating - should be removed from classrooms (and if possible from the profession).  To teach children, you have to love what they are.  And teaching little boys is part of the job."

Chapter 20, page 283 - The Future

"School administrators from elementary grades straight through high school need to keep the physical needs of all kids, but particularly boys, in mind.  Specifically, they need to ensure that our children get ample recess - not just time away from schoolbooks but free time, preferably outdoors, to run around, socialize without restrictions, engage in imaginary play (yes, even tag), play ball, and make plenty of noise.  We also need to make sure that more movement is integrated into the school day.  An hour of daily physical education would be a good starting place."

Chapter 20, page 280 - The Future

"Educational researchers need to find schools that are teaching boys well and to come up with some real-life, well-tested classroom techniques that will work for boys and won't hurt girls - practices that all teachers can learn about and adapt to their own classrooms."

Chapter 19, page 262 - College

"...Pell Institute Scholar Thomas Mortenson points out on his Postsecondary Education Opportunity website, the present generation of young men is less likely than their fathers to get a college degree..."