A on the Lake: "Why Boys Fail"

A friend and I recently embarked on a 12 books in 12 days challenge. Oh my goodness it's been tough (and fun!), and I've been spending the past couple nights up way too late reading...and as a result sleeping in late. #12in12bookchallenge

Fortunately, today my dad ended up coming home early from volunteering--and we were able to head to the library this afternoon. (Sad but true: I was asleep at noon so did not make my morning trip to the library as planned

I picked up a nice stack of books...

...and I selected Why Boys Fail: Saving Our Sons from an Educational System That's Leaving Them Behind to dig into today.

When I was teaching, I admit that I often had to put individual behavior plans in place for boys more than girls. It bothered me immensely. When I led a professional learning community at my school last year around supporting students who were struggling behaviorally, socially, and/or emotionally, while we focused in on supporting two girls, the students we thought of as needing extra support were mostly boys. This was not unique to the school I worked at, because this was true of the first school at which I taught as well.

However, I'm cautious here to speak on behalf of anyone besides myself, and so I won't. I'm going to talk only about me as a teacher (and a young, learning teacher at that).

I often wondered: Am I doing something wrong? How can I better support these boys, and what am I doing to make learning more engaging and accessible for them? As I think back more carefully to being in the classroom, I actually think I only ever needed to make an individual behavior support plan for one girl. For boys? I made at least 3-4 a year. This is a jarring difference; why the boys?

Even though I was able to lead these students to academic (and for the most part social/emotional/behavioral) success in my class, what happened when they left my class? Oftentimes this success came as the result of individual incentives and consequences--was I actually giving them the tools and skills to be successful in first grade? Or in another school?

I don't have the answer here (never feel that I do when it comes to these problems in education), but I do think back to the things that helped these students be successful, and as with any individual behavior plan, I had to find out what my students liked and enjoyed.

So, what were their incentives? Well, when I asked their parents what their sons liked to do (or in general what their interests were), they had similar responses: playing outside, video games, sports, monster trucks. It sounds pretty typical and unsurprising--boys like cars, trucks, and video games. ...and as the author points out, for a sociologist, the why behind boys preferring these things vs. books, dress up, and drawing is fascinating. What leads to these differences? As a sociology major, I find this intriguing too--but as an educator, my job was not to figure out the root cause of their interests but rather to appeal to them.

I would get Star Wars and truck stickers; I began to search for books that appealed to my boys. Yes, we had a Star Wars A-Z book that was always quick to be selected in our classroom library. Our blocks center was a hot spot to find boys excited while talking, building, and yes even writing about what they built. I remember being purposeful in what I modeled during our non-fiction unit. On our criteria for success poster for non-fiction writing, though my students knew I loved penguins, I wrote about semis. Yup. I wrote about an 18-wheeler, because I wanted to pick something the boys in my class might find more appealing.

I'm hoping to finish the book tonight (I need to to be able to stay on track with this 12 in 12 challenge!), and I'm curious to read more about not only the context and data surrounding the gap between boys and girls in education...but also, ways to help ensure the teachers I work with take active steps to support their students equally. Though I'm "out of office" right now--not working, on vacation, email-free--I can't help but think about whether or not this gap currently exists in my teachers' classrooms, and if so, ways to support those boys who may be falling behind (or who may already be behind).

I'm a big proponent of preschool--and a strong preschool program at that, and I'm coming to believe even more firmly in the need for pre-k (and kinder for that matter) to focus in on supporting social, emotional, and language development. A time for all children to learn how to interact with one another--to learn what self-control and self-regulation are--and a time for reading to be presented in an exciting and engaging way that appeals to both boys and girls equally.

Much like there's a GoldieBlox to engage girls in engineering, we need something to engage boys in reading in the same way. It may very well exist, but have I seen something that gripped me in the same way the GoldieBlox videos have? Not yet. Are people fully aware of the gap for boys in education? I don't actually know that many are. So where to start? Well, I know I'll be buying all my friends who have kids books...and I definitely will be selecting some exciting, "non-traditional" books for those with boys.

Welp, my computer is about to die...and I have to finish this book, so to close, two lists of books to engage boys (one of my favorite books, The Phantom Tollbooth made The Art of Manliness' list) and an excerpt from Why Boys Fail.