This is from a child development seminar I went to by Dan Hodgins (the coordinatoer of early childhood education at mott community college in flint Michigan) Called "what about the boys? He comes to the seminar (Good stuff for kids with Bev Boss in california)to present about boys ~understanding their learning style, their behaviors and classroom needs.. Purple are my notes and comments...black are the points Dan covers. I am posting this because I think it's so important for peole to know that the education system and how we treat and manage our kids isnt working. And it's not working because it's not set up for their acual needs as indeviduals. It's very serious because hundreds of thousands of kids go to school every day...don't you want them to be actualy learning how they should be? this means all of your kids. These seminars are set up mostly for early childhood educators and daycare providers but as parents it's important we know these things too so we can understand our kids and parent effectively. Boy statistics: ~Last year 34% of preschool children were expelled and 87% of them were boys Preschoolers people!!KICKED OUT OF SCHOOL ~81%of children "kicked out" of school last year were boys is this NOT a wake up call to peole that something is wrong? That these kids are not getting what they need ~Boys are 6 times more likely to be "misdiagnosed" with add or adhd because people don't understand how their brains work and why they do what they do ~Boys are 4 times more likely to be labeled special education ~Boys are 7 times more likely to be labeled with reading or language delays ~Boys are more likely NOT to complete high school ~Boys are 9 times more likely to be labeled with a behavioral problem(s) ~Boys are 4 times more likely to commit suicide Developmental/ structural differences(boys from girls) ~In most cases girls brains mature earlier( boys can be 12 to 18 month behind) ~Girls acquire their complex verbal skills as much as 1 year earlier then boys ~The corpus collosum in girls is up to 20% larger then boys(corpus colosum is a part of the brain that helps people desifer good from wrong etc) ~Girls take in more sensory data (Girls ar emore detail oriented we can remember details~boys remember key points. Remembering from learning from action oriented learning. ~Boys have a thicker skull then girls Functional Differences ~The resting femail brain is more active then the (awake) active mail brain. ~Male brains turn on like a machine to do a task and then gose int o a pause state example: when a boy child hits another child he does not register it right away. thats why he may hit directly again (durring this pause state) or if you ask him right away why he hit he'll say I don't know. he really doesn't know. or if you ever feel like you are talking to a wall when you talk to your husband while he's watching tv~and he does not answer you~pause state. He can only think one one thing at a time. Women however can think of many things at once and pay attention Example: talking on the phone while watching tv and making dinner and reading mail. Woman can do all that at once and understand it all. Men are one task oriented. ~Male brain is more overwhelmed by stimulation more quickly ~Boys respond better to loud noises ~Six times more girls sing in tune ~Males do better then femails in bright lights ~Girls have better long term memory boys remember what they learn best if is acquanted with movement. Moys learn best when moving. this is why sitting still in school is so hard for boys. it isn't what their bodies and brains need. Language differences ~Communication among boys is 55% facial expressions and 38%voice tone, 7% voice alone ~On the average girls produce more words then males(girls by age 5 have 5-7000 words....boys 3-5000) there are plenty of exceptions to this ~Girls use words as they learn them (Boys learn the words then use them later) ~Boys work silently ~Boys work out codes among themselves ~Boys relate language with action Use of space ~Boys tend to need more space when they learn (Girls usualy stay within a confined space) ~Boys build tall and girls wide(girls take in more spacial information) ~Boys move more objects in space because thats what they need to be doing as I was telling Duck in a different thread...and as others have stated. Kids learn by moving. They don't sit still for a reason. Testosterone ~Preschool boys can have up to 5 spikes an hour obviously kids this age need an outlet for these spikes. They run and move and jump and spin and yell and throw as a natural energy release. ~School age boys have up to7 spikes an hour ~adolescent boys have up to 10 spikes an hour ~Boys engage in more motor activity durring a spike Feelings and emotion ~Boys process and release energy in quick bursts of energy ~Males are wired to have delayed reactions to problems ~Boys project emotions to outside space(girls are more inside) Males emotions are expressed more phisically ~Males can go into a "cave state" for protection ~Boys tend to not talk about their feelings (internalize them and act them out) this does not mean you can't and should not encourage your boys not to understand their emotions and have feelings and express them. Bonding and attachment ~Bonding and attachment must accur before the age of five this effects the rest of a child life! ~Roughhousing is essential for bonding (Hugging, handshaking, wrestling, backslapping, playful punching, pinching, are all modes of bonding) ~Gun play, sward fighting, kicking games are not violent initiators energy releasers ~Bossy kids are healthy kids kids with a voice that know what they want and how to get it. being assertive. not passive. ~Give choices that are powerful Learning ~98% of information we recieve leaves within 5 minutes unless it's "real"; hooked to an emotion or relevant to us thats why we need to teach kids with tools that are relevant to them. Nature and their actual needs in mind you can set up a learning environment to encompas a world they can fully learn in. With things that are there jsut for them. Even on an indevidual level from child to child. Having a classroom where you know your kids so well thatyou can know what each one needs...it's priceless...all the way through their whole education and upbringing at home. ( putting aside the no child left behind act and actualy teaching kids for what they need) ~Moveable objects are needed for learning! ~Power play is essential ~Firm adults this does not mean violent or abusive ~give kids time to solve problems ~Visual guidance be there to watch them These kinds of things are some reasons why kids are doing so badly in school. AND at home. Learning happens and propper development happens when a childs structure is set up around their actual learning needs. If you ever wonder why you kids are doing something it is a mirror of everything around them and if you think something is wrong then change somethingfor your kids sake.
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Applespark again. nice post, thanks for sharing all that info with us.
If I could I would give you rep points too but it's too soon since I gave you some for some other wonderful thing you said. I can tell you from expereince that Boys need more movement than Girls. My now grown Son still can't sit still & both he & I learn things better if we can do them than abstractly learning like reading or seeing a video. My Daughter on the other hand drinks in knowledge from reading & watching, later doing. We all have Asperger's Syndrome so sitting in one place is a difficulty for all of us. She has just been diagnosed. I recognize the traits in both my Son & me. None the less she is better at sitting in one spot than my Son @ a similar age or as I remember myself being. Throughout life females are more vocal than males (obviously with exeptions). I have an unstudied theory that Women actually created language. I suppose that there may be some who have somehow studied this but just from my observations of humans through the years it makes sense to me that back in the caves the guys would be sitting around grunting positivly about the great bronto shank before them & the gals would be starting to use sounds closer to words to convey the same thing. There are quite a few guys that still communicate at that level for that matter.
I have been in an all girls school, and people there said, that in some points during school time, it is actually very smart to seperate boys and girls. Not for religious-anti-sex things or oldfashioned role things (girl=kitchen, boys=manager) or things like that, just simply because of the points applespark mentioned before. There are numerous studys, that girls do a lot better in the siences when boys aren't around, and boys do a lot better in the language arts. Just simply because the teachers can adapt the classes to the needs of the students, and don't have to have to mix the "Styles", and fit no body..... Maybe there shouldn't be schools that are totally seperated, because in the higher grades, where people are 17-20 years old, and are mostly able to controll themselves and have learned their individual skills how to cope with the subjects, it would have been interessting to have boys around. But maybe schools that have classes for boys, and classes for girls, but under the same institution, so that they still can socialize during breaks and stuff
