The Trouble With Boys by Peg Tyre: A Must Read Book!

"The Trouble With Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators Must Do" is a very interesting book that I read when the electricity was out for 5 days. The book was written by former Newsweek reporter Peg Trye after the responses whe received to a Newsweek cover article she wrote in 2006. This book looks at the trend in education that has boys underachieving and struggling in school. As an elementary educator I see part of this problem. I did not realize that it now extends up into colleges where we now are having a "girl" problem. Many girls, after working hard and reaching for their dreams, are finding it harder to get into some colleges as a college may be more willing to take a "weaker" academic boy in trying to maintain a more equal balance of student enrollment.

Upon my first read I found many interesting ideas, but what resonated with me was how she tracked the changes in education through the years. I found many of the trends that she mentioned were changes that were part of my education. From the experimental 60's, when I was part of a school system that liked to try "new" ideas in education, to attending a College Prep boarding school that had just started admitting girls as students. Even in my teaching career when it was drilled into us to teach to the girls the changes continued. Peg Tyre now maintains that we have to do the same for boys!

I agree with Peg. I have always been an advocate for finding ways to teach all students and that when we teach boys we need do it in boy-friendly terms. Many boys, and some girls, do not learn best in an classroom environment where they are made to sit still, be quiet, and to complete worksheets, and to keep all their work looking "pretty". As an elementary male teacher, I sometimes find that this is a hard concept to get across to some teachers. One comment that I liked in this book, and that I didn't expect, is that while Peg Tyre agrees that we need more male teachers in the elementary schools, she does say that "good teaching is good teaching" and that female teachers can do all the things necessary to help her male students achieve.

It certainly is a topic that I don't find addressed in the schools as much as I would like to see it being talked about (which should be as often as possible!). I wonder what would happen if on the state testing one of the subgroups that the test looks at would be the boy students.

I will have to reread the book again to collect my thoughts as I read it in the dark under some blankets and with gloves on my cold fingers. I was not interested in taking notes or marking up the book. I certainly feel it is a book that teachers and parents should definitely read.

Here is an excellent "authors/google" lecture given by Peg Tyre about the boy problem and her book. You can get a good feel for the book by listening to her speech.

Here is an appearance by Peg Tyre on the Today show.

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Simply Immature

"The Encyclopedia of Immaturity" by the Editors of Klutz is a book you want to read (many times) if you are an elementary school teacher. I think it particularly suits fourth grade teachers well as this is a book that basically describes what it is like to be inside the mind of a fourth grader. You will laugh and giggle as you read through the book and may even try a few (or many) of these pranks, jokes, and tricks on your students, family, and friends. These are the kinds of things you wish you knew how to do when you were in fourth grade because you would certainly get everyone's attention. I recommend this book to everyone that enjoys a good laugh except the students in my fourth grade class!

My third grade daughter and myself spent many a delightful hour howling with laughter at this book as we waited for our electricity to be restored after the recent ice storm (it took 5 days!). Here is what the ice storm looked like at our house. There was lots and lots of noise all night as branches and trees crashed to the earth. There is now a lot of clean up to be done.

A Simple Way to Project Images and Movies in the Classroom

I have always enjoyed bringing technology into my classroom. Unfortunately schools find it hard to enable teachers to use the newest and most interesting technology because of the expense. That has left me trying to figure out how I can get a projector into my classroom and I really couldn't find an inexpensive way to do so. This week, I finally did find something extremely cool and useful that I think teachers could put to good use in their class and it does more than just a standard projector.

Th 3M Micro Professional Projector is a wallet sized projector that can be connected to computers, iPods, digital cameras, and other pieces of technology to project images on a wall or screen. It uses LED lights so it doesn't get hot and you can carry it around and project wherever you are because it can be powered by its own battery. It projects an image large and clear enough to fill up the screen in my classroom (although it looks better with the lights out). I took photos and movies on my digital camera and was able to show them immediately to my class. I see it as being very useful to show all the short movie clips I use in my classroom. Of course now I will have to get a video iPod to store all those movies! I think it would be very easy to keep my videos (such as the animoto videos of my student's poetry)on an iPod and project them on a wall or board when I am meeting with a small group or if I am teaching a whole class lesson. I see so many practical uses for the projector that I think it is a great use and addition of technology to my class.

I was worried that it would be hard to focus or the images would not be clear. I was surprised when I tried it that the focus remained true even if I was holding the projector in my hand. The images and movies were clear and focused and certainly grabbed my student's attention.


UPDATE:
Here are some newer low-cost more advanced alternatives:

AAXA LED Pico Projector with 80 Minute Battery Life, Pocket Size, Mini-HDMI, 15,000 hour LED Life, and Media Player

Taotaole Multi-media 150 Lumens Portable LED Projection Micro Projector

MeGooDo Multi-media HD Portable 1080P LED Projection Micro Projector

AAXA P2 Jr Pico Projector, 55 Lumens, Pocket Size

3M Mobile Projector MP220

Monoprice 109990 Mobile Media Display Pico Projector and Battery Backup

A Simple Way to see Tiny Things

My class has been learning about rocks and minerals. I made "mock" rocks so that each student could break a rock down into smaller "minerals". First they broke apart the mock rocks into red gravel, blue gravel, oyster shells, and a powdery "other stuff".

It was easy to see the "minerals" that made up the rock, but they weren't sure what the other stuff was. So we put it in water and overnight some sediment has settled on the bottom.

However the water was cloudy so the water was placed into cups and evaporated. When the water was gone some cystals had grown on the bottom of the cup. We had sheets that showed different types of crystals and the students were able to identify the crystals as salt crystals. We looked at some of the salt crystals under my digital microscope and were able to see them more clearly. Here are a few of the photos we took.

After leaving the crystals out for a bit it seemed we had some "life" starting to grow under the microscope!

The digital microscope I use in my class is called the Intel Play QX3 and it easily hooks up to a computer through the usb port. The software is fun and allows you to see things at 10x, 60x, and 200x the normal size. You can take pictures, movies, or time lapse photography and then for fun play around with the pictures and add things like little salamanders or other creepy things that kids seem to like (see picture above). The class always enjoys seeing close up photos of their eyeballs, skin, or the fabric of their clothes. Anything tiny is fun to look at with this microscope. It is a wonderful and fun tool to have in the classroom. Here is the microscope that I use:

This looks like a lower cost way to do the same thing:

Teachers Raise Achievement with High Expectations

Faubian Elementary is a school in Portland, Oregon with many minority students from low-income families. However, the teachers at the school have high expectations for their students and because of their hard work the school the school has made dramatic jumps in their statewide assessments. Viewing the video below shows us what a crucial role the teachers play in creating a superior educational environment. The teachers collaborate and work together using a variety a techniques that best suit the individual needs of each student. What I noticed was the flexibility the teachers had to do what they thought was best for the students. The teachers seemed active and willingly engaged in doing the "hard work". I also noticed that a "program" didn't "run" the school. Teachers bought in because they were valued and were considered "the experts". For example, from an article about the school I learned that for 2 hours every other Monday,

"The staff meets to tackle one in a rotating list of topics: math, reading,writing, and life-skills education. They use the time to assess data, develop curriculum, discuss the needs of individual students, and participate in professional-development workshops -- sessions often led by Faubion teachers who have completed outside training on particular skills."

That sounds like a lot of meeting time, but note that it is the teachers who are considered the experts. They don't follow what they are told they must follow, but instead there is a choice involved. When given the choice, the teachers do what needs to be done and they seem to do it willingly, happily, and with great success.

"The key to this training is that teachers choose what they want to learn; each year, they agree on one weak area to give particular emphasis (this year, writing), and it's typically the area where test results show students need the most help. As Harbolt says, "We figure if they're weak on it, we must be weak on it.""

When the teachers are considered the experts, they do the "expert" things. There are a lot of innovative and interesting techniques going on throughout the video.




Lessons learned:

If you want to create a successful school, it takes hard work.

It's not about the "program"! It is about the best experts in the business: the classroom teacher. Treat the teachers like the experts they are. Give them the power and the support they need to do what they know needs to be done. Then, and only then, will wonderful things happen! Bravo! to the Faubian Elementary School!

A Reading Program in Need of Improvement!

Today's Washington Post reports on a Reading Program in Need of Improvement. The article "Study of Reading Program Finds a Lack of Progress" by Maria Glod takes to task the $6 billion Reading First program after a congressionally mandated study determined that students have made no greater improvements or scored no better than students in similar schools who did not use the Reading First program. Of course Reading First is a program funded by the No Child Left Behind law. Here is a sad comment from the article:

"It is a program that needs to be improved," said Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst,director of the Institute of Education Sciences, the department's research arm."I don't think anyone should be celebrating that the federal government has spent $6 billion on a reading program that has had no impact on reading comprehension."

Of course the article also mentions that not so new allegations that some of the people who had oversight over the Reading First program also had financial ties to the publishers of Reading First materials. Did I mention that this is a $6 billion program? I think I smell a program in need of some corrective action.

There are some really useful things in the Reading First program and there are some dreadful things. However when will the politicians learn that it is not a program that works with students, it is the teachers. Hire good teachers and support them as much as possible so that they can do their job, but don't expect a $6 billion program to be the answer. It sounds like a lot of wasted money.

A Simple Way to Learn Luxembourgish (or many other languages)

One Minute Languages is an interesting website where you can learn the basics of another language in ten short 'couple of minutes' lessons. So if you ever wanted to learn Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Russian, Japaneses, or a roster of other languages this is the place to go. Your students might find it fun to learn how to greet someone, to count to ten, or to learn a few useful phrases in different languages. If you are reading a story that takes place in one of these countries, this might be a fun website to share or use with your class.

And if you are not sure why you might want to learn Luxembourgish, just become a fan of the Tour de France. Last year three of the tours top riders where from Luxembourg. Two of them wore the yellow jersey (as tour leader) for six of the stages. What is Luxembourgish for yellow jersey?