Is your son’s school boy-friendly?
Is it place where his enthusiasm for learning is encouraged, even if his preferred style of learning is hands-on? Or does his school insist that students sit quietly while filling out worksheets? Does his school take away recess as a punishment, or do the teachers and administrators of his school understand that recess is necessary for active children?
Veteran educator and author Kelley King outlines the principles of boy-friendly education in her book Creating the Playbook: A Practitioner’s Guide to Creating a Boy-Friendly School. King recently visited BuildingBoys to help parents better understand the concept of a boy-friendly school — and to show them how they can work to make their son’s school a more boy-friendly place.
Note: The audio isn’t great in this video, but the content is phenomenonal. We’ve added some notes to help you understand the words, and hope you’ll hang in there for the whole thing. We’ll get better at recording videos. We promise!
One Response
Great stuff! I can remember these issues being issues when my son was in school. He needed to be engaged, and to be able to participate, as in, discuss what was being lectured. He would get so bored and come home and vent his frustration. I remember this especially in high school. That used to make me sad; he was so interested but wasn’t being engaged.
And I remember coming to his elementary classrooms when I was doing arts-related workshops. I always got the students up and moving and doing, and they always seemed to love that. I didn’t realize how important that was for engagement, necessarily, as I wasn’t trained as a teacher; I just wanted them to have fun while they were learning about classical or modern art. And I wanted them to want me to come back, because I really enjoyed learning with them.
This needs to be shared with schools, teachers, administrators!