Raising and teaching boys

This was a great article in Newsweek magazine. There are many young men at my school who seem very bright, but are having behavior issues. They are minor, but are still disruptive to the classroom environment.

I remember when I was in middle school, I was suspended four times. I could not stay out of trouble, and I was never a bad kid. There seemed to be something about the environment that allowed me to stay in trouble. I was aware of my behaviors as I always willingly paid for my mistakes except for the four times I was suspended. Three of the times stemmed from refusal to do punish work. A teacher said that I was talking, and gave me punish work. Since I wasn't talking, I refused to do the punish work. That turned into a behavior report which I refused to bring home, which turned into a referral that gave me detention which I refused to attend, which turned into suspension which my mother never punished me for.

The other suspension was for cussing at a teacher. I was wrong for cussing, but I was right to be upset.

When I went to high school, it was an all boy school, so naturally the faculty and staff were prepared to deal with us, so it was there that I prospered.

Since then, I have always supported the idea of separation of genders at schools. It made sense to me then even without a PhD study. Boys and girls are different, and we have to stop denying this.

I plan to pull my problem boy students aside today and talk with them about school. This article has been very inspirational to me.