Boys Flourish in a Single- gender Environment
From the Academic Director
Boys Flourish in a Singlegender Environment
L
Last month, the new education director of the Toronto District School Board, Chris Spence, made headlines when he called for ‘boy-friendly’ classrooms to address male underachievement issues. St. Andrew’s new Director of Academics, Mike Paluch, had this to say: As a teacher who has recently moved from a coeducational environment to an all-boys’ independent school, I am consistently struck by the validity of the single-gender classroom, at least for boys. I did not come to this point of view lightly. When I began my journey as an English teacher in an all-boys’ classroom, I was quite convinced that teaching was teaching, and that the ‘hype’ around single-gender education was just an expression of nostalgia for the ‘good old days’. I couldn’t have been more wrong. My all-boys’ English classroom was certainly different than what I had been used to – it was quiet, but infused with a kind of latent energy that was waiting to be tapped. It didn’t take long to recognize that I needed a new strategy if I was going to engage these boys. I looked to my colleagues, those who had been teaching boys for years—in some cases, decades. They knew instinctively what worked and what didn’t; they had somehow unlocked the secret to engaging boys, and they did a damn fine job of it. It was evident in their interactions with their students, and in the successes achieved by their boys, not only in the areas of academics, but also athletics and leadership. Defining what my colleagues were doing proved tricky for me. I knew that some teachers were fostering competition, while others were incorporating role play into their classroom activities. Some of my colleagues had their students producing ‘products’—some that could ‘go’; some that ‘illustrated’; some that could be ‘used.’ Still others were able to promote adventure and discovery, or incorporate the element of surprise into a lesson. Humour was ubiquitous. The results were impressive – boys who were engaged, happy, and not without aspirations for a better future. I wanted a guidebook for the effective teaching of boys. There was good literature out there, but there didn’t seem to be a definitive guidebook to effective practices in teaching boys in general. The answer to my call for a ‘guidebook’ for teaching boys 72 Fall 2009
emerged in the form of some very valuable professional development that I experienced through the IBSC, the International Boys’ Schools Coalition. Each year, this organization facilitates a global action research project on a topic pertinent to boys’ education. My team looked at how we might use literature to enhance and broaden boys’ understanding of masculinities. It was a fascinating journey, in particular because it required me to look more deeply into the research pertaining to singlegender education. By the end of the project, I began to see some patterns emerging in terms of what worked best with boys and what didn’t. When I attended the IBSC conference in New Zealand last July to present our group’s findings, the coalition afforded conference delegates with a tremendous resource entitled Teaching Boys: A Global Study of Effective Practices. Here was the guidebook I had been looking for, presented in the form of authentic feedback from the experts: teachers of boys from around the globe. A quick perusal of the table of contents of this text is both revealing and summative; teachers of boys consistently recognize that boys love products, gaming, motor activity, role play, performance, open inquiry, teamwork … the list goes on. At St. Andrew’s, some of our school’s faculty members are involved in a committee dedicated to promoting excellence in teaching and learning, and we’ve turned to the IBSC’s Teaching Boys publication for some inspiration. It’s not our only focus – there’s a larger picture here, and it involves investing in our boys the skills needed to solve 21st century problems– problems such as global warming, poverty, malnutrition and hunger, and illiteracy. Tackling these issues will be no simple task, and they can only be addressed by students who can learn what it takes to be resilient, collaborative, creative, and compassionate. One of humanity’s greatest liabilities is the unengaged male. We owe it to the young men who are “more likely to be suspended” or who “underperform compared with girls” to afford them an opportunity to learn under ideal conditions with their best interests in mind. I have seen firsthand that with the right instructional approach and a commitment to the development of body, mind and spirit, the all-boys’ environment enables boys to flourish. MIKE PALUCH
Boys Flourish in a Singlegender Environment
L
Last month, the new education director of the Toronto District School Board, Chris Spence, made headlines when he called for ‘boy-friendly’ classrooms to address male underachievement issues. St. Andrew’s new Director of Academics, Mike Paluch, had this to say: As a teacher who has recently moved from a coeducational environment to an all-boys’ independent school, I am consistently struck by the validity of the single-gender classroom, at least for boys. I did not come to this point of view lightly. When I began my journey as an English teacher in an all-boys’ classroom, I was quite convinced that teaching was teaching, and that the ‘hype’ around single-gender education was just an expression of nostalgia for the ‘good old days’. I couldn’t have been more wrong. My all-boys’ English classroom was certainly different than what I had been used to – it was quiet, but infused with a kind of latent energy that was waiting to be tapped. It didn’t take long to recognize that I needed a new strategy if I was going to engage these boys. I looked to my colleagues, those who had been teaching boys for years—in some cases, decades. They knew instinctively what worked and what didn’t; they had somehow unlocked the secret to engaging boys, and they did a damn fine job of it. It was evident in their interactions with their students, and in the successes achieved by their boys, not only in the areas of academics, but also athletics and leadership. Defining what my colleagues were doing proved tricky for me. I knew that some teachers were fostering competition, while others were incorporating role play into their classroom activities. Some of my colleagues had their students producing ‘products’—some that could ‘go’; some that ‘illustrated’; some that could be ‘used.’ Still others were able to promote adventure and discovery, or incorporate the element of surprise into a lesson. Humour was ubiquitous. The results were impressive – boys who were engaged, happy, and not without aspirations for a better future. I wanted a guidebook for the effective teaching of boys. There was good literature out there, but there didn’t seem to be a definitive guidebook to effective practices in teaching boys in general. The answer to my call for a ‘guidebook’ for teaching boys 72 Fall 2009
emerged in the form of some very valuable professional development that I experienced through the IBSC, the International Boys’ Schools Coalition. Each year, this organization facilitates a global action research project on a topic pertinent to boys’ education. My team looked at how we might use literature to enhance and broaden boys’ understanding of masculinities. It was a fascinating journey, in particular because it required me to look more deeply into the research pertaining to singlegender education. By the end of the project, I began to see some patterns emerging in terms of what worked best with boys and what didn’t. When I attended the IBSC conference in New Zealand last July to present our group’s findings, the coalition afforded conference delegates with a tremendous resource entitled Teaching Boys: A Global Study of Effective Practices. Here was the guidebook I had been looking for, presented in the form of authentic feedback from the experts: teachers of boys from around the globe. A quick perusal of the table of contents of this text is both revealing and summative; teachers of boys consistently recognize that boys love products, gaming, motor activity, role play, performance, open inquiry, teamwork … the list goes on. At St. Andrew’s, some of our school’s faculty members are involved in a committee dedicated to promoting excellence in teaching and learning, and we’ve turned to the IBSC’s Teaching Boys publication for some inspiration. It’s not our only focus – there’s a larger picture here, and it involves investing in our boys the skills needed to solve 21st century problems– problems such as global warming, poverty, malnutrition and hunger, and illiteracy. Tackling these issues will be no simple task, and they can only be addressed by students who can learn what it takes to be resilient, collaborative, creative, and compassionate. One of humanity’s greatest liabilities is the unengaged male. We owe it to the young men who are “more likely to be suspended” or who “underperform compared with girls” to afford them an opportunity to learn under ideal conditions with their best interests in mind. I have seen firsthand that with the right instructional approach and a commitment to the development of body, mind and spirit, the all-boys’ environment enables boys to flourish. MIKE PALUCH
