“In the past, boys were more inclined to do well in school,” says Kamloops/Thompson school trustee Chris Rose, the conference chair. “Now, even young boys tend to pooh-pooh the idea of being smart and doing well in school. Any academic youngster is termed a ‘geek.”

Rose theorizes that, paradoxically, the problem may have started with educators’ emphasis on increasing graduation rates.

“We’re so concerned about kids getting a middle C right across the board that we’re not meeting the needs of kids who are exceptional, or who would benefit from being able to concentrate on a specialty. These kids are getting bored.”

Girls, tending to be “more studious, to follow instructions, to make sure they’re doing what the teacher wants them to do,” can shrug off geek labels.

Besides, notes conference keynoter Steve Biddulph, the Yorkshire-born, Tasmania-based author of Raising Boys, “From the 1970s and onward, there was a huge effort to raise girls’ achievement and opportunities, and this has been very successful.”

We forgot about boys, he says — but don’t reach for Marilla’s raspberry cordial just yet. What we can do is now put the same energy into reviving boys’ interest in school, Biddulph says. “If we make education more tailored to the special gender needs of boys, of their biology and their brain development, they could be much happier.”

From working with schools in Northern Ireland, England, Germany, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Biddulph will offer his British Columbia audience some strategies, including:

Give them male role models. Boys just don’t have as many now. “This is a result of many things, ranging from the disappearance of men into the workplace in the industrial age to the diffidence and shyness of men around children arising from lack of experience of being fathered well.” …

Source: Vancouver Sun, Canada
http://tinyurl.com/2cqgnm