The Boys Are Not Alright January 17, 2011
Posted by alwaysjan in Food for Thought, Teaching.Tags: Boys and Video Games, Compacting the Curriculum, Education, How Boys Learn, Teaching, Teaching Boys, TED, The Boys Project, Zero Tolerance
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If women are from Venus and men are from Mars, then girls and boys are light years apart. Nowhere is this more evident than at school. I recently came across a 12-minute video, Gaming to Re-engage Boys in Learning, that features a former third-grade teacher, Ali Carr-Chellman, discussing why so many boys are turned off by school from ages 3-13. Ms. Carr-Chellman, who now teaches at the Penn State University College of Education and is a game designer, cites three reasons why boys have such a difficult time in school. The statistics cited, “For every 100 girls…” are from The Boys Project.
As a teacher and the mother of two boys, I found this fascinating. This year I applied for and received my first grant that provides funds to add more high-interest books for boys to the classroom library. I wrote about boys’ reading preferences in Boys Book Club.
Just last Friday I told my boys I was going to bring in my son’s old Spawn action figures, so they could play with them during Friday Club. But first, I needed to confiscate all of their weapons. There was a collective groan, so when I watched this video, I had to laugh.
WARNING: You might never look at boys the same, and that could be a good thing.
planetjan 