Monday, February 09, 2009

I'm Always the Exception!!

I'm sorry but I could speak to so much on this. Many thanks to Zac for finding this. This is the most ungrounded piece of work I have ever seen. I almost didn't get past slide number 8 which basically said boys can't multitask. But then I went on to slide 30 that said to not talking to boys about feelings. This is the kind of rhetoric used in society that "trains" our boys to act the way they do!

Anyway, keeping it short and sweet. It is funny that this came up, because the thought that I had for my post to the blog was that as I was looking over behavior issues and academic achievement among my students for upcoming parent teacher conferences (12 boys 13 girls) it came to my attention that the boys in my classroom are doing quite well, 11 of the 12 boys are reading at the level they need to be (no exaggeration, don't ask me how this is! The one below grade level is an ELL student!) and the discipline problems are very minimal. Whereas I have 3 girls that get pulled for Title I reading, get pulled for a seperate group during Peer Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) and 3 that are constantly in safe seats or buddy rooms!

I'm not making any conclusions from this, I'll leave that to you. But it seems to me that Ms. Elliot may want to do a little more research of her own before she makes these gross generalizations about boys.

Sorry, I know, longer than you or I probably wanted!

1 comment:

comoprozac said...

I think you're right on. We should teach boys how to discuss their feelings. It doesn't mean we assume they know how or are unable, it just means that we may have to give them the words and the opportunity.

I also wonder if your approach is really reaching the boys in your class like no other female teacher could. Or maybe they want to perform for you...or maybe you're a good teacher.