2013 Senior Admissions Handbook - The Southport School

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16 The Southport School Senior Handbook 2013 Boys’ Education Meeting Contemporary Challenges in Boys’ Education With all the new research and growing number of ‘experts’ in the field, you would think modern parenting would be somewhat a breeze. Nothing could be further from the truth. Finding ways to successfully navigate your family through the complexities of modern living while often juggling additional responsibilities can be a challenge. However, when your child’s school is active in discovering, interpreting, evaluating and presenting the latest research and methodologies, the way forward can suddenly become very clear. TSS, under the Headmastership of Greg Wain, is such a school. Greg’s keen professional and personal interest in matters relating to the education and raising of children, particularly boys, gives parents a clear and straightforward presentation of what works and what doesn’t and why. Since his arrival at TSS nearly five years ago, Greg has offered primarily new parents the opportunity to attend one of his Boys’ Education Information Sessions in which he discusses the need for boys’ education which is focused on what works best for boys. However, he also has recognised the need for current parents to renew their thoughts on raising their sons based on this new brain research and these sessions have now been extended to include all parents. Many parents, after hearing Greg’s presentations, have been pleasantly surprised at how simple some of the techniques are which help with raising children, particularly in the adolescent years. “Often Mum and Dad attend together and several couples have remarked it is the best marriage guidance counselling they have received! This comes from the research showing the hard wiring and developmental differences between boys and girls as well as men and women – men are not hopeless, just different!” said Greg. “When these differences are understood, men and women are better able to see various strengths and challenges. “There are a number of physical brain differences which we are only now beginning to appreciate courtesy of the advancements in diagnostic equipment,” said Greg. Historically, much scientific research on brains was done after the subject was usually advanced in years and deceased. Advancements in technology mean that brains can now be studied during the subject’s lifetime with age comparisons made using the same subject. “Already basic differences are showing boys and girls are very different, not just in terms of their development, but also in how as men and women we perceive and interact with and within the world. “For example, physical differences in the formation of the cochlea mean boys do not hear as effectively as girls. Female teachers need to talk relatively loudly, certainly louder than they might perceive is necessary, in order to be heard by boys. On the plus side, boys are 10 times less likely than girls to be distracted by extraneous noise. This means girls prefer a quieter learning environment while boys can ‘tune out’ superfluous noise quite effectively. This probably explains why males are so good at watching the television and not being distracted by anything else happening in the house at the same time!” Using the example of pre-school aged children, Greg highlights another major difference between boys and girls, which emerges at quite a young age. “Girls will see ‘what it is’ so if you ask them to draw a picture of their playground they will fill it with details such as colours, flowers, swings, toys and other children. On the other hand boys see ‘where is it in space’ and try to capture the motion of the scene. This typically leaves you with a ‘pretty’ picture by the girls while the boys often present a picture with very little use of colour but lots of lines to represent movement. Both drawings are valid yet show the difference in our ‘hard-wiring’. “I strongly hold the belief that teachers who understand these differences will be more effective in the classroom particularly in an all-boys’ environment such as TSS.” Greg says dealing with teenage boys can be more successful when techniques, which take into account the differences between males and females, are used. “If you want to get your point across to a boy, speak low, slow and loud and use motion to attract and keep attention. Don’t depend on facial information as this is often overlooked by males,” said Greg, who also said this holds for husbands as well as boys! “You can engage boys in books by talking about time-lines or an exciting event first, which gives males a point of reference from which to engage in the book.”
The Southport School Senior Handbook 2013 17 Greg said it was important to remember that boys do have emotions, yet they often lack sufficient emotional vocabulary to enable them to express their feelings, again because of hard wiring developmental differences. “This can become quite crucial for males as they become adults and make it difficult for them to connect with others when the world is not going according to plan. As parents and educators it is up to us to help them develop their vocabulary to allow them to verbally express themselves in times of emotional need, but also to understand boys, and men, may not need to ‘talk things through’ as much.” A great believer in the brain differences between boys and girls, and armed with a growing bank of evidence to support this, Greg says it is important to find the right way to ‘reach’ boys in order to ‘teach’ them. “This starts as easily as identifying the learning styles of individual students and then applying teaching techniques to suit,” said Greg. “At TSS we are encouraging teachers to find out the learning styles of their individual students. One simple model we use is VAK. Visual learners learn by seeing, auditory learners learn by hearing and kinaesthetic learners learn by doing. “I have a theory that the school curriculum, mostly in words, advantages auditory learners, many of whom, being well rewarded by the school system, return as teachers and teach in their auditory style, relying predominantly on talking, reading and writing.” However, Greg says between 30 and 40 per cent of students are visual learners and many others are kinaesthetic learners. Visual learners need to ‘see’ the whole before they can understand the ‘parts’. “For a visual learner, skim reading first to get the whole picture and then going back and reading in detail is the best approach. Visual learners need lots of charts, mind maps, diagrams, maps, and to use colours to highlight important information.” On the other hand, kinaesthetic learners need to be able to move around regularly, take frequent breaks, use bright colours when re-writing notes, and to trace key words with their fingers. “At TSS we want our teachers to ensure, over a day, and over a unit of study, that all learning styles are catered. “As a boys’ only school, we have many visual and kinaesthetic learners, and we encourage our teachers to have a globe or map of the world in class, and a time-line along the wall so boys can ‘see’ and ‘point’ to where things are in the world, and on the time-line of world events. This plays to their relatively advanced spatial relations intelligence.” This simple approach and change in traditional teaching thinking not only helps visual and kinaesthetic learners but all learners by associating what they are learning with a place and a time – and learning by association of concepts is a very effective learning technique. “Recently we also began exploring a more advanced learning style system called Paragon, which is based upon Myers- Briggs personality theory, so our learning styles are linked to our personal styles and thinking style preferences,” said Greg. “By reintroducing our parents to the Boys’ Education Information Sessions we aim to strengthen the bond between the School and parents to create a cohesive team effort to help all our students grow to their potential in a nurturing and safe environment.”
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2013 Senior Admissions Handbook - The Southport School

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