Educating Boys By Michael Irwin
According to the New Zealand media and some concerned parents, boys are having greater trouble than ever with schooling.
Michael Irwin has worked in education for over 35 years and takes the refreshing counter position that boys are generally fine and not inherently toxic creatures that need ‘fixing’.
He feels what does need fixing, however, are some of the parenting and teaching practices and environments boys are placed in for schooling and social development, which is why he wrote Educating Boys.
As a former teacher and principal, Michael has spent a great deal of his time dealing first-hand with boys of all ages struggling with reading or writing, struggling to adhere to the rules and routines of school and boys diagnosed with special needs or who find school boring. Most of the boys were not doing as well as girls in nearly every curriculum subject at school.
Too many boys are forced into reading and writing before they are ready. The result is a large number of boys failing in or hating reading or writing.
Joining a university as a senior lecturer gave Michael the opportunity to research and study boys’ schooling, academic success and social behaviours. He came to the conclusion that boys needed help, and in some cases they were being ‘short-changed’.
I found too many boys alone, without adequate support, guidance and love. To help boys they need schools, parents and communities to work together. To start this happening I decided a book might just start the debate and cause some schools, parents and communities to take affirmative action. Educating Boys has my ideas and ideas of hundreds of boys I have talked to on what can be done to support our boys and produce independent, strong and socially involved young men.
Michael believes schools have become language-laden institutions overburdened from top to bottom with semantics. He feels there is not enough physical activity in our schools today and that schools need to emphasise the use of play, physical activity and sport to optimise boys’ learning.
Parenting practices and family activities are seeing too many boys starting school lacking in language and social skills. Successful education of boys begins in the first months of life.
Michael has developed his own philosophy concerning children’s learning based on the following principles:
• Play is at the core of all learning. The making and the doing are key to the learning process.
• Challenge and making mistakes are crucial to developing awareness, creativity and understanding.
• Stimulation and using of the five senses creates powerful learning.
• Outdoor activities and experiences are crucial for developing awareness of self and others.
• Children learn in many ways, so activities must be geared for these differences.
Please Turn Over…
• Experiencing success is crucial to future learning; acknowledging a child’s personal bests.
• Physical and creative activity are crucial components for optimising learning.
• Expect the best from children. The German writer and philosopher Goethe sums up my philosophy for working with children:
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and help them to become what they are capable of being.
Educating Boys is about sharing ideas that will optimise boys’ education opportunities, putting the challenge, the curiosity and the want to learn back into boys’ schooling.
It is a comprehensive, practical look at how we educate our boys in New Zealand — what’s working and what isn’t, from kindergarten right through to secondary school.
Michael has listened to the opinions of the boys themselves and combined these insights with his own experience and the most recent research on helping boys to learn. Educating Boys is the essential handbook for people who want to help boys succeed at school and in life.
Michael Irwin is currently a senior lecturer in Education at Massey University in Auckland, and his doctoral thesis entitled Boys’ Perceptions of What Hinders or Enhances Their Education at Secondary School investigated the way we educate boys in New Zealand. He has worked in the Scouting movement for 20 years as a District Scouting Commissioner in the Waikato and has taken Scouts to the top of many New Zealand mountain ranges and canoed down a number of large rivers. Michael has attended educational research conferences in Australia, UK and Finland and presented research on aspects of boys’ education.
RRP $36.99 Harper Collins Publishers