Boys & Girls

Blog #8: "Boys & Girls Learn Differently" Final Reflection

I think there is so much I have learned from this book that has really opened my eyes when it comes to being an educator. We know, as human beings, that there are evidential differences between males and females. But when it came to the actual anatomy and the brain structure of our students, it really sparked something in me that made me want to try harder as a teacher. We need to realize the differences, and address them in the classroom in our teaching.

There was so much research that backed up these findings in the brain. Examining the different parts of the male and female brains, and "how they operate" when it comes to certain activities, or mental processes. We always hear about how females mature faster than males, and how males need energy, etc. but it's all certainly true! Sometimes in society, I think we get caught up that "females need to be equal to males" and how there should be no discrimination against the sexes. But in all honesty, in order to succeed better in the classroom, they need to be treated differently. I think it's so important to realize just how different we all are, and how everyone has needs - whether we're talking about children with special needs, or  children without special needs - every child has needs they need addressed in the classroom. And we as educators, are responsible for meeting those needs.

As far as changing my perspective, I think this whole course has really opened my eyes to the differences among us. Growing up in an urban setting, I really thought I understood diversity pretty well. I have many friends who come from many different backgrounds, and I am very accepting, and always was growing up. But I think now that I am a teacher, I am looking at it through a different lens. Maybe I could of treated that one child during student teaching a little more sensitively, maybe I could of come up with a token economy for that difficult class I had during my long-term sub job. All of these things have really showed me that it is a lot of work, but just how rewarding diversity is in our lives as well. We as adults need to learn diversity, and embracing our differences, just as much as our kids do.

I think in "Boys & Girls Learn Differently", there were a lot of lines that I read, and would say "Well... duh." But when you really sit down and think about it? How often are we actually TEACHING that way that we think about in our heads? I know there is so much in my own teaching that needs to be changed... and I am aware of that. We are always self-reflecting, and we are always changing and learning. That's the whole point of our jobs. If you are not willing to learn new things as a teacher, or do the professional development, and better yourself for our kids? Than you don't deserve to be in front of them everyday. It's obvious that boys need to let out their energy in the classroom, and it's obvious the social issues that our children face in the school systems and in their lives. We see them more than their parents do, and we need to educate them to deal with such things.

So when it comes to boys and girls, and teaching them differently? It's something we all need to do. Hands down, they ARE different... so why can't we teach them differently?

Meghan C. Koch

Boys and Girls Learn Differently

Blog #8 Final Reflection (Week 3/31/11) Mary Kay Ward - Boys and Girls Learn Differently

After reading this book by Michael Gurian, I have learn much more than expected.  This book helps the reader to understand the overwhelming differences between the genders from birth through adulthood and how these differences really do impact the learning that takes place all the way throught the education process.  I only wish I had known about this topic when I was raising my own children - 3 boys and 1 girl.  I would have created a different environment in my own home so that my boys would have performed better in school and their love for learning had been more positive and not such a struggle.

Gurian writes about the differences between males and females by describing the different way they learn.  Girls are able to multi-task better than boys because girls use both sides ot their brain to process information, can hear better and are more physically active.  Boys, however, take more time in processing emotive information which takes boys more time to adjust to highly emotional charged situations and stressful situations.  These types of situations can create a lag time for boys and can interfere with the learning process.

Gurain also helps us to understand the diffferences in learning styles,behaviors, and school performance.  These differences give some advantages to the females and other advantages to the males.  According to Gurian, boys are more likely to have learning disabilities, poorer school performances, and more behavior problems than the girls.  On the other side, girls get less attention in the classroom from teachers, do not participate as much in athletics, and experience gender basis in the classroom.

Gurain suggests that if all schools and classrooms were designed with all children in mind, there might not be a reason to address the difference between boys and girls and therefore we would not need the ultimate school or classroom and we would be better able to understand and meet the needs of our children.  Knowing and understanding these fundamentals might help solve the problems of the boy/girls difference.

Below are some words and pictures I found interesting and related to this book.

Brain-based Gender Differences

• Deductive and Inductive Reasoning: Boys are more likely to use deductive reasoning, while girls tend to prefer inductive thinking.

• Abstract and Concrete Reasoning: Males gravitate towards abstract arguments; females do better at concrete analysis: E.g. boys tend to do better at math on the board, while girls prefer math manipulatives.

• Use of Language: On average, females write, read, and speak more words than males. In female groups, girls tend to speak equally often, while in a male group one or two students will often dominate.

• Logic and Evidence: Because girls tend to be better listeners, they feel more secure in conversation, and require less control of the discussion than boys. Boys will often ask for more evidence to support a claim.

• Use of Symbolism: While both boys and girls respond to pictures, boys are more dependent on pictures, diagrams,and graphs in their learning process.


—From The Boys and Girls Learn Differently Action Guide for Teachers, by Michael Gurian and Arlette C. Ballew (Jossey-Bass, 2003).

Boys and Girls Really Do Learn Differently!

Week 8 (3/31/2011) Natalie Gianvecchio, Final Reflection

The book Boys and Girls Learn Differently: A Guide for Teachers and Parents, really changed how I think about teaching to all learners. I never thought about how different boys and girls brains really are. From the beginning to the end, this book was packed with information, strategies, and techniques to help teachers provide both boys and girls with the best education possible. 

Diverse learners can range from students with special needs, to students who live in poverty, to gender differences. The differences in boys and girls is remarkable. Overall, boys are not as fit in the classroom than girls, so that makes it hard for males right at the start. Although, they do excel in certain areas of school such as math and science, where as females have always been known to excel in reading and writing. Teachers must use a variety of teaching approaches to teach to all of these diverse males and females. As a future teacher, I feel very confident after reading this book. I learned how to teach to boys and girls rather than just teaching using one approach. Teachers must be very flexible and ready to use a variety of differentiated instruction. 

I learned so many things from this book that I did not know before. I learned that mostly boys are classified with ADD and ADHD compared to girls. I also learned that girls can remember materials easier than boys. Males tend to be very hands on, so teachers must use that approach in daily lessons. Females tend to struggle with math and science. I myself struggled with math in school, but with a good and dedicated teacher females are just as likely to excel as males. Michael Gurian mentioned that females have come a long way in mathematics over the past few years. Males and females can all thrive in school with the proper instruction from a devoted teacher, which is exactly what I plan to be!

Below are some images that I really liked and I felt related to the book:

 

 

Natalie Gianvecchio

Blog #7 - 3/24/2011

"The Ultimate High School Classroom" (Boys & Girls Learn Differently) - Chapter 6

Creative Connector

1.) "We were girls and boys in high school trying to be women and men. The two teachers I respect most now, Mr. Cantlyn and Ms. Sylvester, knew how to talk to us as women and men, not just kids." (p. 267) At the high school level, I loved the teachers who would push us past our limits. They held expectations on us that were challenging - where we, as the students, were responsible for our own fate. You want to be an adult? Well, here's how I will treat you like one. It's too important at the high school level, to get them ready for their futures. At college, no one holds your hand or tells you when your assignments are due. There are no progress reports for your parents to sign, or the teacher is tracking you in a class of 250. It just doesn't happen. So we need to prepare them for that reality. My teachers would always yell and scream if it was necessary, or give lectures where we did feel guilty at the end of that class period for acting up, or not doing what was expected of us. And you know what? I respect those teachers more than the ones who just sat around, and let us get away with everything. We weren't learning if we weren't pushed.

2.) "Our educational system has been focusing on equal education for females since I started teaching twenty years ago. I have never been trained to focus on the male." (p. 252) As educators, this book has really opened my eyes to a world where we need to pay attention. There are two different genders in our classrooms, why are we not teaching them differently? We want to live in this world where "there should be no difference" or "a girl is just as important or smart as a boy". We all have different needs, as men and women... as girls and boys... and we need to address them in our classrooms. When I was in high school, the ways the girls were addressed, and the guys, all depended on the teacher. Some male teachers were harder on the boys than on the girls. But sometimes, I thought the girls needed to be laid into a little bit more. I was always a good student, but I'd definitely need to be lectured if I wasn't living up to my end of the bargain. So I think as teachers, we need to push our kids. And we need to be educated on how to teach them. Some educators just aren't doing their jobs.

3.) "In an age when too many children are leaving school before graduation, when a high school diploma is only the first mandatory step in gaining the skills and knowledge needed to compete in a growing global market, we must use every resource at our command to prepare our children to compete and succeed." (p. 320) Growing up in an urban school district, I saw kids come from many different paths of life. I had friends drop out of school before graduation. Whether it was for drugs, their families, home difficulties, teenage pregnancies... they did what they had to do. But what if our teachers had caught them? What if we could of changed their lives and kept them in school? It is our job to teach them to love school. It is our job to catch the children who fall through the cracks, so that they aren't ignored by the school systems. We need to grab these children, and put them into our care before it's too late.

Literary Luminator

1.) "It's our belief that the ultimate classroom must include teachers, supported by administrators and parents, who are both trained for and committed to gender-friendly education. Now that we have the scientific knowledge and empirical evidence to substantially document major differences in anatomical structure, neurological development, and the chemical and hormonal climate in developing boys and girls, we can innovate and sustain gender-appropriate educational techniques that bring the greatest benefit to all of our children, with all of their unique and personal strengths and needs." (p. 321)

2.) "It is natural for adolescents to seek identity-attention ("This is who I am; pay attention!") and use clothing for individuation ("I'm an individual and can take care of myself"), dominance ("I demand respect and can outcompete"), and mating strategies ("Look at how cool I am; you should like me"). The more individualizing, competitive, and romance-oriented the culture -- and ours is one of the most intense at pushing children to seek individual expression, rebel, compete and sexualize early -- the more the adolescent uses the colors of clothing, hairstyle, tatooing, jewelry, and other personal innovations to call attention to growing sexual, social, and personal identity." (p. 281)

3.) "It is still up to the high school teacher to help them achieve a balance between being young people to whom only intelligence -- not gender -- matters, and young men or women for whom being masculine or feminine is a worthy ideal, and essential to adult life." (p. 317)

Meghan C. Koch

School Uniforms are a must!!!

Blog #7 (March 24, 2011) Roles: Rigorous Researcher and Idea Illustrator, Mary Kay Ward

 

Rigorous Researcher

In this chapter, Gurian spends more time discussing the idea of uniforms in high school. Boys and girls dress with the idea that this is who they are and associate their identity with what they wear. " It is natural for adolescents to seek identity-attention ("This is who I am; pay attention!") and use clothing for individuation ("I'm an individual and can take care of myself)", dominance ("I demand respect and can outcompete"), and mating strategies ("Look at how cool I am; you should like me"). (M. Gurian, pg. 281). Our culture is one of the most intense at pushing children to seek their own identity through individual expression and our children are doing this by use of colors through their clothes, hairstyles, jewelry and tatoos, thus causing them to seek indivdual expression, rebel, be more competitive and want sex earlier.


Academics and team learning is what high school is suppose to be about and should be high on the list of priorities and not the attitude of "I am better than you" or "I don't care about anyone else", or "I came to high school to get laid." These behaviors must be made a lower priority and according to brain based research maturity and learning are the most important and "any other critical mass of other behaviors that impede the brain's ability to increase kowledge of social and academic technologies that enchance success and personal maturity must be made a lower priority." (pg. 281). Many schools are now requiring school uniforms to ensure that "students rights" are brought to the forefront and letting go of superficial ones. I would really like to see schools go to some type of uniform system. These uniforms do not have be identical, but should follow some kind of dress code, such as navy blue pants and skirts and a white polo shirt. Again, I have first hand knowlege of a high school dress code because my daughter is required to dress according to the school's dress code that she attends. By having a dress code, she does not have to compete with others in deciding what she is wearing and if she looks good enough and has impressed those around her. Also, by dressing like everyone else at her school, she can focus on the importance stuff; her academics. Gurian recommends a dress code for all schools. As much as must students will be rebel at first along with some parents, it isn't the uniform that will make or break who the students are, but will help students make a committment to themselves and their schoolwork. Above is a video regarding why schools should require uniforms.

 

Idea Illustrator

Teens and sleep is an area that so much research is starting to develop regarding teens and their sleep.  This research reports that generally teens needs about nine hours and fifteen minutes of sleep every night.  Without this adequate amount of sleep, the brain does not have a chance to move through the deep REM sleep clycles necessary for proper growth, healthy developmen and learning.  Michael Kipke, director of the academy's Board of Children, Youth, and Families states "Sleep experts feel stongly that high school timings are out of sync with the natral circadan rhythms of adolescents. (pg. 284)  M. Gurian's brain based research supports these findings.  Because of the hormones and the brain chemicals that are attaching the brain, adolescences are having a difficult time managing their homones and energy clycles.  I find this to be true when dealing with my soon to be 15 year old daughter, especially on the weekends.  She wants to stay up late on the weekends and then sleep in on Saturdays and Sundays.   After reading about this topic, I now have a better understanding of why this is happening.  The research shows that if schools start later in the day, they would have less disipline problems and increased learning among the students.  I like this idea because then maybe I would not have to get up so early in the morning.

Another area that I found interesting was the section on Standardized Testing.  What is the place of standardized testing in the ultimate classroom?  There are two important things to know about test scores - first students are getting higher grades in high school than on SAT scores and secondly, males outscore females by ten points on the verbal and forty points on math.  It is very interesting that the girls have better grade point averages and take more advanced placement courses than boys, but boys still out score the girls on the traditional SAT exams.  Why is this?  Brain-based research says that the student who favors deductive and quick abstract reasoning tens to do well in a multiple choice format.  Also, the student who tends to quickly single out information rather than thinking out a larger variety of possibilities also does better.  Also, the student who tends toward a higher risk taking and answers questions more quickly is likely to answer under pressure and risk guesses (Gurian 308).  This student could be male or female but studies show that there is a high statisical probability that the student is male. 
http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/papers/genderbias.html

Technology and Gender

Are girls really disadvantaged in acquiring technology skills?  I found this an interesting read because in today's education environment, you would think that it would not matter because both boys and girls have equal time on computers and both have had computers and technology in the classrooms since they began schoo land it would not matter whether it was a boy or a girl who used the computer.  M. Gurian's research found that males aggessively seek out the computers and are loud about wanting to use them.  Girls may step back allowing the aggressive user to dominate time on the computer Gurian 302).  We as teachers need to be more vigliant in this area to see that girls get equal time on computers and are not push out because boys are more aggressive.  Girls must be encouraged to use computers but they must also ask for tutorial help for sophiscated uses.

"Research now confirms what teachers have been observing since we started using computers in the mathematics classroom. In general, girls just aren't as interested in technology as boys are"( Cynthia Lanius Girls and Technology).

Ewww, did you see what she is wearing today??

Blog 7 (3/24) Natalie Gianvecchio, Chapter 6, Roles: Vocabulary Concept Vitalizer and Essence Extractor 

 

Vocabulary:

 

1.) Uniforms/Dress Codes- The idea of uniforms and dress codes was also mentioned in this chapter for high school students. Gurian states, "Both boys and girls dress in ways that we might consider inappropriate for developing a cohesive team-learning environment" (280). He explains that it is natural for these students to dress in such a way to make a statement or to show that this is who they are. High school is very much about appearance for this age group and relating to their peers. Gurian recommends a uniform or even a simple dress code so students can still wear what they want, but in an appropriate manor.

2.) Sex education- This was an important theme of the high school education chapter. This is the age group that needs this the most! Teenagers are confused and curious. They need to be educated not only at home, but in school as well. Gurian states, "Sex is one of life's most confusing and crucial activities; it is in no way merely the responsibility of the family. It has never, in fact, been only the family's responsibility" (294). He recommends bringing in males to talk with the boys about sex as well as females to talk with the girls about sex. Gurian also recommends having co-education discussions. High school students really need to understand sex education because this is the age that many of these teens begin to explore. It must be taught in high school!

3.) Standardized Testing- This area is another important vocabulary term mentioned in this chapter. High school puts a large focus on standardized testing such as the SATs for students getting ready for college. Gurian states, "There are two important things to know about test scores. First, students are getting higher grades in high school today without similar increases in SAT scores. Second, males outscore females by ten points in the verbal and forty points on math" (307). He also mentioned that recently, the SAT test added a writing section. "Girls have consistently outperformed boys on this test" (Gurian, 307). To do well on standardized tests, it really just depends on the student. Students who can think and reason quickly will do well on the multiple choice sections and the student who really likes to take their time on tests will not do well since it is timed and responses must be quick.

Essence of the Chapter:

In secondary education, teachers must prepare young men and women for the real world; life after school. 

Natalie Gianvecchio

Some are scared of Middle School students... but not me.

Blog #6: "The Ultimate Middle School Classroom" (Chapter 5) March 9, 2011

Vocabulary/Concept Vitalizer

• Single-sex education : (p. 208) "Middle school is the time of greatest hormonal upheaval in both males and females. Boys begin puberty with high doses of testosterone. Over just a few years, they need to learn to manage up to twenty times as much of this sex-and-aggression hormone as females." (p. 208) Educators discuss single-sex options in the Middle School setting, including all female and male schools, or female and male classrooms (based on the academic area). Moving back to the issues of competition, and going back into the history of tribes and "staying with your own" all takes a place in the discussion of single-sex education in our schools.

• Multigenerational schools: (p. 220) The discussion of having many different age groups in the same building, ranging from elementary school up to high school. "The sixth, seventh and eighth graders are constantly around younger children and have to be service oriented and mentorlike toward them." One teacher explains that "if they have a way to help others, most middle school kids really do want to help. They just need to be shown how, and given the opportunity."

• Team Teaching: (p. 220) "A team of teachers meets every morning, for a few moments, to talk about troubled students, what lessons they have planned, how they can support each other, and how they can weave a character lesson or something from a colleague's classroom into their own." Creating a sense of bonding among all teachers in the building, or atleast at the same academic area or grade level, is important for the success of students. It builds a community in all classrooms if this is done.

• Movement: (p. 245) "Given the reality of what is hapening to middle school students' bodies and brains, it si essential that we consider increasing physical movement during the school day." Movement helps kids stay focused, and they are able to get out energy and can relax more in the classroom. Goes back to the discussion of getting rid of recess or shortening the amount of recess in schools. You're kidding, right?

• Character Education: (p. 240) "The CHARACTERplus model" (chapter 4) focuses on community agreement regarding certain key character traits, and absortion of training in these traits into all aspects of schooling. (p. 240) Being that Middle School students are older, having them grow into respectful, caring individuals is important. So as teachers, we must have the focus in Middle School be on building good character, and being a good human being.

Essence Extractor

"We must adapt to the needs of Middle School students, embrace individuality, and have the focus be on helping them to grow as human beings and individuals in society."



Meghan C. Koch (Blog #6: Boys & Girls Learn Differently)