Strider is often told that when trying alternative learning/creativity methods with boys in his classroom that he is wasting his time. Is the classroom stacked against young boys?
This is a comment by on the post “I Hope My Sons Don’t Go To High School…“.
Strider said:
I work in Special Ed, where we have many more boys than girls receiving services. I’ve noticed for a long time that with the majority of teachers being women, the majority of learning disabilities or behavior problems are identified in boys. When I try to engage the boys in their own learning styles–like talking a walk around the parking lot before a test, for example, or encouraging them to turn their imaginative ideas into stories–I’m told that I’m wasting time and that I’m allowing the students to manipulate me to get out of work. I’m not; I just know something about brain science and the ways boys’ brains work.
Classrooms are usually run by women, and while some boys can make the adjustment, some boys struggle more against their own natures in a female dominated setting. Maybe girls had to do the same thing 40 or 50 years ago, but not any more. Boys with LD already feel like there’s something wrong with them because they don’t read or write as well as other students–how can we allow them to feel like there’s something wrong with them for being male?
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Photo credit: Flickr / Au Kirk
I remember being dyslexic, and not being able to read up to grade 5, my parents and my sisters felt that if they continually shamed me, made me cry and fall down on the floor, I would somehow magically learn how to read. That did not work. I still feel angry and resent them for being so sick, it appalls me to think that how they could do that to a boy who is 7 years old. I didn’t expect anything better from teachers or outsiders. It is more important how things are at home, to help children with Learning… Read more »