Educational Leadership - November 2010

n Problems with self-esteem development in adolescence.

They notice a different set of core
areas of difficulty for boys:
n Lower achievement scores in
most classes—especially among low-
income and racially/ethnically diverse
students—with particular problems in
literacy.
n Lagging learning skills in such areas
as note taking and listening.
n More struggles with
homework.
n Lower grades in all classes,
except some math and most
science classes.
n Less motivation to learn and
lower perception that the cur-
riculum is relevant.

Both boys and girls tend to need help in specific areas. But data show that schools are now failing boys, as a group, in more areas than girls (see “A Snapshot: Boys in School,” p. 42). More and more teachers are expressing the need for assistance in learning to teach boys effectively.

In March 2010, the Center on
Education Policy echoed teachers’
instincts when it released the
report Are There Gender Dif-
ferences in Achievement Between
Boys and Girls? In preparing the
report, the center examined state test
data from all age groups in all 50
states, finding
good news for girls but bad news for
boys. In math, girls are doing roughly as
well as boys, and the differences that do
exist in some states are small and show
no clear national pattern favoring boys
or girls. But in reading, boys are lagging
behind girls in all states with adequate
data, and these gaps are greater than 10
percentage points in some states. (Chu-
dowsky & Chudowsky, 2010, p. 1)

encing, millions of boys and men will lose out over the next decades.

The Elephant in the Room
Boys and girls, like men and women,
are not stereotypes; they fall along a
wide spectrum of learning preferences
and styles. In fact, there is a great deal of
overlap. Every day, teachers work with
boys who are verbal, collaborative, and
more emotive and with girls who are
dents” was in fact training for verbal and
sedentary learning. This presents a large
elephant in the room for teachers and
schools. Given the structures, expecta-
tions, and teaching styles in today’s
classrooms, teachers generally have
more difficulty teaching boys than girls
(Gurian & Stevens, 2005; Whitmire,
2010). In a classroom of 25 students,
we may notice that five to seven boys
are having difficulties, whether these are
overt issues or a tendency to check
out of the learning process. They
need a kind of instruction teachers
have not been trained to provide,
and the lack of such teaching pro-
foundly affects the overall grades,
test scores, and behavior of the
class, as well as a teacher’s sense
of whether he or she is teaching
effectively.

Dealing with this reality is an
important challenge for all of us who
care about education reform. If we
do not recognize it and work to close
the opportunity gaps boys are experi-
visual, competitive, and less emotive.

Strategies for Teaching Boys
and Girls Effectively

Here are some examples of strategies that teachers we have worked with are using to close opportunity gaps between boys and girls.

Strategy 1: Add Movement Chris Zust of Wellington School in Columbus, Ohio, gets her 1st grade boys and girls to stand up for reading group.

I play a game when the children have finished reading. I let them spread out around the room, and I throw a beach ball to them that has eight prompts written on it. Each time a student catches the ball, he or she has to answer a prompt. My boys are far more engaged with this activity than they are when I have them sitting at the reading table.

Pairing learning with movement is especially important for many boys because it helps them stay out of the neural rest (boredom) state. But because it increases brain activity, movement can also help girls learn.