Boy Friendly Schools
More About Raising and Teaching Boys
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
The Oregonian has a blog for parents. The Omamas, Journalist Moms Working for You frequently has interesting information, relevant to parents, teachers and mentors.
Today’s post, Raising Boys, is especially resonant. It includes some ideas and some resources that parents can use now - during the summer time, and information that may help parents insure that their boys thrive once they are back in school.
Be sure to listen to the podcast, and check out the resources, including the Guys Read info from the Multnomah County library.
Topics: Boy Friendly Schools | No Comments »
Boys Advocacy and Mentoring: A day of training for people who work with boys
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
I have written several times in this blog about the special challenges of educating and working with boys.
This workshop, offered by Lewis and Clark College, is quuite relevant to the work that so many of you are doing these days, so, though it is through another school, I felt it was well worth listing here. If you attend, please share what you learned.
Also, be sure to visit the website for ideas, resources and more information.
Helping Boys Connect Through Physical Challenge and Strategic Storytelling
Friday, June 26, 2009
9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Lewis & Clark
Albany Quadrangle - Smith Hall
How can we see boys as something other than as problems? How can we effectively help boys resolve the difficulties they face? This workshop will challenge you to see boys in new ways and provide you with the means to mentor young men to be more interpersonally engaged. Participants will learn about the research that underlies the BAM! approach as well as practice the adventure based activities and strategic storytelling methods used in BAM! groups.
Having worked independently for many years as advocates for boys, three Portland professionals teamed up to support boys and the adults who care about them. Peter Mortola, professor at Lewis & Clark and school psychologist; Howard Hiton, professional counselor in private practice; and Stephen Grant, social worker and school counselor, share a passion for boy’s issues. The result of their collaboration is a curriculum entitled BAM! Boys Advocacy and Mentoring, A Guidebook for Leading Strength-Based Boys Groups. (Routledge, 2008) BAM! groups encourage school-aged boys to accept broader perspectives on what it means to be male and helps them build the relational skills they need to become healthy men.
This workshop will give participants all that they need to effectively lead a BAM! group as well as ideas and strategies for working with boys in educational and counseling contexts.
This day of training is for:
- counselors,
- parents,
- mentors,
- coaches, and
- others who want to gain insights and skills for working with boys.
Instructors: Peter Mortola, Howard Hiton and Stephen Grant
Noncredit or PDU/CEU: 7 hours, $195
Optional continuing education credit: CEED 866, .5 semester hour, $235 Cost includes a copy of the BAM! Guidebook and lunch.
For more information on BAM!, refer to the BAM! website.
Team discount: $180 per person for three or more individuals registering at the same time for non-credit/PDU/CEU only. All registrations must be received together.
Registration Information
For more registration information
Topics: Boy Friendly Schools, Recommended Resources | No Comments »
MORE Ideas for Encouraging Boys to Read
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Thursday, November 13th, 2008
Thanks to all of you who have responded to my post about boys and literacy. Thanks to author Rosanne Parry for sending links to two great sites that are filled with ideas, suggestions, and book recommendations specifically for boys.
Guys Read is a website with a mission - “to motivate boys to read by connecting them
with materials they will want to read, in ways they like to read.”
Created by children’s book authorJon Scieszka, this site includes a great list of Guy’s Picks books for all ages, as well as everything you need to do to start your own Guys Read Group. Highly recommended!!!
Guys Lit Wire is a blog ”helping you find the reading material YOU want. ” Though the blog is big and messy and hard to follow, it is loaded with great resources and suggestions.
Check out these resources, and please send us YOUR suggestions.
Topics: Boy Friendly Schools, Literacy | 1 Comment »
Boyz n the Book: Johnny can read, but won’t and who can blame him?
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Thursday, November 6th, 2008
A thought provoking article in a recent Weekly Standard magazine points out that there are far more women than men in college these days. The article, Boyz n the Book: Johnny can read, but won’t and who can blame him? (by Mary Grabar) states that “a generation ago, women made up less than half of students. …In 2005 that made up 57 percent of fall enrollments, and the Department of Education estimates the gender discrepancies will increase every year in the foreseeable future.”
Why? The article suggests that the problems that boys are having with reading create a set of problems with study habits and school performance that affects their future success in school.
And, it suggests that their reading problems may be connected to a lack of male influence, and books written to appeal to their interests. “Socially … boys have few male reading role models at home or at school.”
Boys like action, danger, competition, conflict, tests of strength, and strategy,” in their play and their books. This may explain their love for video games, especially those that “present a quest in which the imperiled hero tries to find clues or treasures so he can go on to the next level.” But, the article points to a “lack of ‘masculine’ books that appeal to boys on such topics as sports, war and competition.”
Research on children’s reading interests “consistently shows that boys like to read nonfiction, especially historical nonfiction, (biographies, books on important wars/battles), adventure stories, books on sports, books on facts, and science fiction. Yet, most of the books assigned in school are novels or memoirs.”
Pair this with the fact that most librarians and teachers are women; that mothers read to children more frequently than fathers, and that “those responsible for promoting reading … promote those virtues that appeal to girls, … games and books that tend toward the virtues of cooperation and sensitivity,” and a possible answer to why boys don’t read as much as girls (and therefore are less academically successful) begins to take shape.
The research in this article makes it clear that if we are to encourage boys to love reading, they need books that provide masculine themes and role models. They need stories about soldiers, heroes, male athletes and adventurers. They need to find what they love in books … AND YOU CAN HELP.
Men, please tell us about your favorite books. What books turned you on (or off) to reading? What books do you teach in your classrooms? What books inspired you? Which were the ones you could not put down? Which are the ones the boys you work with love the best? What books would you recommend for the boys you know?
If you could suggest one way to get boys to read, based on your experience, what would you suggest?
Please share your answers and comments here – click on the COMMENT button below. Thank you in advance for your responses.
Topics: Boy Friendly Schools, Literacy | 4 Comments »
How to Create a Boy-Friendly School
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Wednesday, September 10th, 2008
The subject of how boys are struggling in school and in life seems to come up regularly in the media. Two years ago, PBS ran a powerful documentary, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Lives of Boys, which “explores the emotional development of boys in
This week, there is an article in Newsweek, Struggling School Aged Boys. Though the medium is different, the message is the same. Many boys, (according to the research) an extraordinary percentage of them, are having emotional or behavioral problems that are affecting their lives, and their ability and willingness to stay in school. Many of the problems are severe enough to cause parents to consult a doctor or health care professional.
As an educator, parent, and citizen of the nation that leads the world in fatherless families, violence and failing boys, I can’t stop thinking about the faces, and the voices of the boys in the film, and the issues and problems of the boys I see and hear about every day. So, the questions keep playing in my head … How can we do a better job of raising our boys? And, what can Oregon educators do to create a boy friendly school - a place where boys feel safe, welcome and able to learn and be themselves?To clarify my thoughts, I contacted Marilyn Brown-Dikeos, whose program Empowered Learning includes strategies that teachers, mentors and parents can use to help boys feel safe and respected in the classroom. She offers the following insights and strategies.
1. Honor the risk of learning. Trying to learn something new can be risky for a boy who is afraid to fail. Help your student’s understand that learning is a process that includes trying, doing, and making mistakes. It is not about achieving perfection. Value a student’s attempts to master a new subject or skill. Celebrate effort and recognize even small accomplishments along the way.
2. Provide safe entry points to learning. Group learning and project based activities offer multiple entry points for students. The ability to choose a role or task which will allow him to work from his strength may help a boy feel confident enough to enter into an activity.
3. Allow students to self-evaluate. Many boys struggle in school because success and failure are tied up with their sense of themselves. A boy who gets a bad grade or fails a test is likely to feel stupid and embarrassed in front of his classmates. Rather than risk failing again, some boys simply stop trying. One way to work around this is to allow students to grade themselves according to the criteria you set. When they turn in a paper ask, “What grade do you think you earned?” Allow them to tell you how they might have done better. Remind a boy that understanding how to do better next time shows that he is learning.
4. Treat them with respect and kindness. Just because boys don’t show their emotions, we tend to treat them as if they aren’t there. In fact, research shows that boys are even more sensitive and more eager to please than girls. Treat them as if they are fragile. They are.
5. Provide opportunities for boys to talk about their feelings – through sports or chess or other games. Boys need to be reassured that their inner lives are NOT shameful, that play violence is not violence. Use their violent games and fantasies as a starting point for conversation or story writing.
6. Boys need to move around. Recess time is being eliminated as school days are shortened. Try to find ways to build action and motion into your activities and schedule.
7. Boys need to feel safe. They need an adult to talk to about bullies, fear, humiliation and their need to be protected. They also need an adult to show them that men are caring, compassionate and kind.
8. Offer opportunities for boys to resolve their own conflicts. Conflict resolution takes communication skills, the ability to listen, willingness to compromise, and often, creativity. It can help boys reflect on their actions, and see them from someone else’s point of view. Best of all, the ability to resolve a conflict without rage and aggression can result in friendship, something that no boy can succeed without. Related Resources: For more information about this subject, help for parents, and classroom ideas, visit the following websites
Raising Cain: Boys in Focus
http://www.pbs.org/opb/raisingcain/
The PBS Parents Guide to Understanding and Raising Boys
http://www.pbs.org/parents/raisingboys/index.html
Boys in School
How to help boys adjust to school and schools adjust to boys.
http://www.pbs.org/parents/raisingboys/school.html
Buy the Program
Raising Cain (DVD)
http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=2175911
Topics: Boy Friendly Schools, Creating a Positive, How to Help, RESOURCES, Relationship Strategy | 1 Comment »