Challenges

The grade 8 all boys class is proving to be the biggest challenge this year. The all girls classes and the grade 7 all boys class have settled fairly well but the grade 8 boys class is providing us with the most challenge. Today Marg and Farah are sitting down with the research to do some re-vamping of the program and to look at how to move the class forward.

There are definitely some improvements from the beginning of the year but we are still coming up against the heirarchy in the class. The boys have not settled into a team yet and there are some boys in the class with enough power to disrupt the class. In discussing this challenge Marg, Farrah and I came up with a strategy to combat the need for attention. The boy who we perceive to be the power broker in the class is rebelling to a certain degree against his mother and her control. We are going to work to build him up in his mother's estimation and try to convince her to give him a bit more independence and trust. In return we have told the boy that he needs to begin to show the kind of leadership and behaviour that makes the new found independence and trust well founded.

The gender steering committee is continuing to revisit the research to ensure that we are implementing the strategies that need to be in place to assist the boys in being successful. Our revisit indicated that in fact we had put some structures in place that were not in the best interests of the boys and may be contributing to their difficulties. One of the most interesting pieces that we had overlooked is the tendency of teachers to talk and lecture too much. The research shows that not only is this not an effective strategy when dealing with boys but it actually turns them off. Instead of them taking in the message the teacher is trying to give, the boys just tune the message out completely.

I think one of the challenging pieces in trying to meet the needs of the boys in the all boys class is that it requires us as teachers to make huge changes in the way we conduct business in the class and huge changes in the strategies that we use. That means that we need to constantly be self-reflective and be very conscious of what we are doing and how we are presenting information in the class.