Failing to Realize
“Several years ago, we had a Pre-K class comprised of eight girls and one boy, the kind of demographic quirk that happens in a small school like ours. I like to really go with the flow with this small class of oldest kids, following their energy and interests, letting thing ramble from and rumble from one thing to the next. It was getting near the end of our day, when I noticed Sam sitting on the corner of the rug on which we tend to convene for discussions. His body was twisted into a sort of awkward pretzel, muscles tense with the effort, his face clenched in concentration, although he wasn’t focused on what we were doing, but rather, it dawned on me, on the effort of staying seated on the rug.“Holy crap! I realized, we’d been more or less sitting on the damn rug all day. As the girls intensely engaged whatever process in which we where involved, Sam was engaged in willing his body to sit quietly. I forced a wrap-up of the discussion and we spent the final 30 minutes basically running in circles, an activity that Sam engaged with the joy of a freed prisoner.“Boys get expelled from preschool nearly five times more often than girls. Boys are diagnosed with learning disorders and attention problems at nearly four times the rate of girls. They do less homework and get a greater proportion of the low grades. Boys are more likely to drop out of school, and make up only 43 percent of college students. Furthermore, boys are nearly three times as likely as girls to be diagnosed with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Considering 11 percent of US children — 6.4 million in all — have been diagnosed with a ADHD, that’s a lot of boys bouncing around US classrooms.”
Read the full, amazing blog post by Teacher Tom here that highlights an disturbing trend in schooling affecting boys when we fail to realize what they really need.
black board, white chalk 
Thanks for sharing Tom’s article. It was very interesting and aligned with what I have seen in the classroom on a daily basis. It makes me consider ways to improve my own classroom instruction and learning environment.
Thank you for taking the time to comment. I really enjoy Teacher Tom’s perspective and take on issues related to teaching and learning, especially because my own son is four. And as you mentioned, it really makes me think about how to approach how I homeschool my son and what opportunities/experiences should be made available to him.