I know that this might be straying from my last post but I just had to ask your opinion on this issue.
Have you considered or wondered about the pilot project to promote single sex schools in Trinidad and Tobago? Someone shared an article 'Putting the "Boys Crisis" in Context' from the Harvard Education Letter that has caused me to ponder a bit on the issue.
This article highlights the literacy crisis of boys, as girls are constantly surpassing them with their literacy scores in various reading proficiency tests. Do you think anyone has considered how the promotion of literacy should be changed at these schools to cater for the boys? Do you think any special program has been developed?
The article also spoke of these gaps being due to various factors and that a lot of boys are actually better readers than girls. This I do agree with as there are many factors that would affect these statistics and things like socio-economic factors, demographic factors and we can speculate and investigate other factors.
However, despite these factors I still believe that the literacy approaches for various genders should be considered. Sadowski (2010) suggested that increasing students’ access to reading support at all levels of schooling can prevent reading challenges and that rather than make decisions on national or even district-level data, district officials may wish to investigate possible reading gaps in their own schools first, suggesting some action research.
What are your views? Should literacy be something we should consider deeply as we venture into the idea of same sex schools? Should the approach to teaching literacy be re-considered with respect to boys?
References used within post:
Sadowski, M. (2010). Putting the “Boy Crisis” in context. Harvard education letter, 26 (4). Retrieved from: http://www.hepg.org/hel/article/473
P.S.
We will get back on track with our last post but I will definitely be coming back to this topic so give me some food for thought in the mean time.
There have been a lot of pros and cons presented about the issue of same sex schooling.It is necessary to point out though that unless there are some significant changes to the ways in which basic literacy skills are imparted to each of the sexes,single sex schooling may be just as irrelevant in attempting to solve the problem.I agree that a closer analysis of the current approaches to teaching literacy skills may help in addressing present problems and raise the literacy levels of males.
ReplyDeleteClearly, the learning experiences in the classrooms may provide some clues into why boys are failing at the primary and secondary levels. The gender crisis in education has been a matter of grave concern in almost all Caribbean countries for the last few decades. We know that equality of opportunity between the sexes in schools, the gendered nature of subjects, girls' and boys' underperformance or overperformance in relation to each other have to be addressed.
ReplyDeleteResearch has discovered AND teachers know that the characteristics of boys differ from girls, thus requiring different approaches to teaching in terms of strategies, content, resources and classroom management. So, when will teachers get the message?
It is sad to see male students performing badly especially in the area of reading. A lot of research has been conducted in the manner in which boys learn as opposed to girls. Therefore from this frame of reference, I would like to suggest the development of special programmes to help these male struggling readers. It does not necessarily mean that boys and girls should be separated, however, effective teachers must adjust their teaching to cater for these differences. Once the needs of the learner are taken into consideration, then effective learning will take place.
ReplyDeleteHi Ms. Isaac,Lyn and Michael,
ReplyDeleteI have read your posts and you all have given me food for thought. I really would like to consider what research might have to say with respect to Michael's post. Hopefully I will have enough time to get back to the boys issue within my twelve posts. This does not mean I will stop posting after that but I know that I will definitely be on vacation.