Gender Specificity in Pedagogy

The belief that our teaching pedagogy is not very supportive of many of our boys is not a new idea. What amazes me is that we do not have more schools who have addressed the need. We have charter schools which began for the arts and sciences or technology or environmental education… But, how many charter schools promote themselves as striving to meet the needs of a population which brings “impulsivity, single-task focus, spatial-kinesthetic learning and physical aggression?”

Now, let me add that this school would not only meet the needs of our boys. There are some girls who need more experiential and kinesthetic learning opportunities. They need to have nonverbal planning tools to improve their reading and writing. They need to roll up their sleeves, put on their hiking boots, take a sampling bag, and head for the woods or the hills or the stream.

What if we would have a school which is run more like summer camp? Everyone would have blocks of activities throughout the day which are truly active. Math and science would be learned through experimentation, data collection and manipulation of the data and things collected. Reading and writing would be tied to researching and sharing information which supports the current experiment. Social Studies would be learned as students seek to locate similar projects and environments around the world.

What if the school allowed students to let off pent up energy by learning and playing games and sports from all around the world? Coaches and trainers would assist the students in learning about body systems and collecting data related how body systems are impacted by the game or sport being played.

I smile, because I can remember having some of these conversations in the late sixties and early seventies. Even with the research which points to the increase in students who learn in ways other than verbal-linguistic and mathematical-logical, we have not really changed our teaching practices to engage our students who are spatial and kinesthetic learners or naturalists or musical.

I ramble, but I also wonder if some of our non-traditional teachers could create such a learning environment. If there are, I hope I learn about them for I would like to support their efforts!