Response to ‘British Educators Explain Why Boys Fail’

July 11, 2011 at 9:54 am
filed under boys, News, Teaching

When will the realization be made that it is not necessarily about different ways to teach different people?

Umpteen years ago people felt that girls were getting a disservice so it was time to change how teachers taught girls.

Now it is the boys who are getting shafted and it is time to change how teachers teach once again. And Education Week has made it all quite dramatic:

Undoubtedly things will eventually tip the scales toward boy-teaching and girls will soon be failing once again. Or maybe boys schools are suffering from under-enrolment and this is a brilliant marketing campaign.

Sigh…

(I feel like a broken record lately)

It is not this or that, it is both this and that.

We can focus on an inclusive teaching philosophy that teaches everyone. We really can and it’s not rocket science.

Let’s start with the same list I came up with when talking about how teaching kids with special needs was not rocket science, shall we?

• Offer a variety of activities that use different modalities of learning
• Provide scaffolding and support as needed
• Provide a safe way for students to seek some down time when it is needed
• Get to know my students’ likes and dislikes, interests and abilities
• Talk with my students and their parents about their progress on an ongoing basis

This just makes too much sense to me. I get irked that we are muddying the waters, looking for magic bullets when all we have to do is care more about our students as people.

3 comments

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1. Diane Goldie

   on July 11, 2011 at 1:45 pm

   Oh I’m thrilled to have met you.Through your blog at least.
   I couldn’t agree more.
   It’s all about what you are looking for in the first place. If you want to see difference, you’ll find it.
   If you want to find similarity, you’ll find that too.
   Teach the human being not the gender, add some humour and movement and enthusiasm, and all will be well.

2. Tracy

   on July 11, 2011 at 9:12 pm

   Thanks for your comment, Goldie! I agree, we find what we look for, thanks for the reminder :)

3. Elona Hartjes

   on July 15, 2011 at 12:33 am

   So simple, so true.