"Are Boys Losing Out?"

Submitted by anthony on Wed, 2008-01-30 20:12

Article here. Excerpt:

"Dr Sax, who is founder of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education in the U.S., claims that boys are suffering a toxic mix of failing to be engaged by the curriculum, over-prescription of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drugs and a lack of suitable role models. They no longer experience the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat due to a lack of competitive sport in schools. And they often return home to play computer games that make them disconnected from the real world as they displace family activities such as having dinner together."

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I was recently giving a presentation to 5th grade religious education class. The teacher was a very nice female. One of the little boys had a great deal of energy. It was really a problem for him to sit still even though he was interested in what I was saying. He just simply had too much energy to be sitting there so he would get up, walk around and then sit on the floor. He was even doing sit ups at one point. The teacher lightly scolded him. As a man, my feeling was that as long as he wasn't disctracting anybody else it wasn't really a problem to let him do what he needed to do. When the talk was over he was the first one to ask questions and clearly understood what was going on.

I felt sorry for him because what was he supposed to do? He was 9 years old and had a great deal of energy. There was no way he was going to sit still no matter how interested in what I was saying. And the funniest thing was, he probably enjoyed the talk the most out of all the kids in the class.

I don't know if seperate schools are the answer, but clearly we need a new model of how to get boys engaged in the classroom.

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Submitted by Flighty on Thu, 2008-01-31 01:47