Coach Flowers

Here’s a clue…In chapter 4, Gurian states

Brain Research indicates that at least a third of the class day should be reserved for self-direction, and some children can support more than half a day.  For the developing brain, self-direction has many advantages; in a supportive, well-led environment, the mind gravitates toward learning what it needs in order to grow.  If a classroom lets the brain explore, it moves in the neural motions required.  

Sound familiar?  In our district, many teachers strive to take a constructivist approach to learning in their classroom.  According to Jonassen (1994), there are 8 characteristics of a Constructivist Learning Environment…

1. Provide multiple representations of reality
2. Represent the natural complexity of the real world
3. Focus on knowledge construction, not reproduction
4. Present authentic tasks (contextualizing rather than abstracting instruction);
5. Provide real-world, case-based learning environments, rather than pre-determined instructional sequences
6. Foster reflective practice
7. Enable context-and content dependent knowledge construction
8. Support collaborative construction of knowledge through social negotiation

Chapter 4 & 5 of Gurian’s book are brimming with suggestions addressing that continuing conundrum, How do we meet the needs of each of our students, all of the time, everyday?

Many of his suggestions mirror Jonassen’s description of a Constructivist Learning Environment…

• Talking about our thinking
• having experiences with real objects to use as manipulatives
• working in same and mixed gender groups
• creating meaningful experiences for practicing key concepts
• teaching across the curriculum
• role playing

…and SO MANY more, very specific examples!  Take a look at chapter 4 & 5 of the book and self reflect on your own classroom practices.  Do you find yourself using any of these techniques?  If so, are they successful?  Do you use any other techniques that we may all learn from?

“Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not a preparation for life but is life itself.”

From our research, we have learned that boys and girls tend to react differently to stressors.  

Scientists have long believed that the human reaction to stress was “fight or flight,” but most stress research had been done on males.  A UCLA study-reported…that part of a woman’s response to stress is oxytocin, which buffers the fight-or-flight response and causes her to tend to children and gather in friendship and collaboration with other women.  During these acts, more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect.  This calming response does not occur in men, because testosterone, which stressed men produce in high levels, seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin.

What does this mean?  This means that we can not initially problem solve and rationalize with boys when they are stressed.  

When sensory information laden with emotive content comes into the female limbic system, brain activity may move quickly into the four lobes at the top of the brain, where rational thinking occurs.  This makes a female more likely to process hurt and talk about it with others, since more of her activity moves up to the hemishpers that verbalize and reason over the crisis….In similiar conditions, the male brain seems to move information quickly toward the bottom of the limbic system and the brain stem, so the male is likely to become physically aggressive or withdrawn (fight-or-flight).  The male’s response short-circuits intellectual and academic learning because his emotive processing takes longer and involves less reasoning.

We must first teach them some self-calming techniques, since their bodies do not do this naturally.  So what can we try?

•  Simply walking can create a calming effect in boys.  Removing the male from the stressful situation and taking the long route to your destination may calm the boy enough to reason once you get there. 
• Offer boys quick-release techniques (ripping paper, hitting a pillow) this gives them a quick opportunity to release their tension and prepare for communication.
• Make sure that those boys that are easily triggered toward aggression have someone in the building that they have formed a bond with.
• Always keep their behaviors private, if you notice that a boy is having trouble calming himself (which usually translates into a class disruption), do not bring the undesired behavior to the attention of the whole class.  This can further trigger his aggressive response, simply approach him from behind and lean down to talk to him privately.
• Do not eliminate healthy competition from your curriculum.  ”Competition is natural to the male brain…” and gives them a healthy avenue to release some of their built up aggression.

Remember that there are exceptions.

Many girls become aggressive and shut down after a crisis, and many boys can shut off their emotions and get to work.  However, if we see children who are having trouble learning because they do not have the emotive skills to process feelings quickly or in healthy ways, we must intervene to help them move the emotive information upward.

Try some of these things and let us know how they work and if you try something else that you find successful, do share!

Maslow’s Heirarchy of needs suggests that before one can be focused enough for learning, basic needs must be met.

Author Daiv Russell says that…

While many school age students will not reach the level of self-actualization, nurturing all of the students, as they make their way along the Maslow Hierarchy, can enable them to reach their own varying levels of success. Maslow indicated that each person has his or her own desires required to reach the next level, and it is up to the educator to find that in each of us.

This is in direct correlation to what Gurian tells us in Chapter 2 of his book, but as always Gurian gives me that much needed scientific basis that I yearn for.  

Gurian says that 

A child’s brain needs bonding and attachment to fully grow and learn; without attachment, it does not grow well-behaviorally, psychologically, or intellectually…In the neurological path of attachment loss, the stress hormone (cortisol) rises, flooding the brain and making some neural activity slower (for example in the learning centers in the top of the brain) and other activity quicker (in the brain stem and lower limbic system, where anger and fight-or-flight responses increase)

Wow!  Think about how many of our students are experiencing ‘attachment loss’?

In Chapter 2, starting on page 31 for kindergarten and 34 for primary grades, Gurian gives many examples of how we as classroom teachers can help to foster this attachment with our boys and girls.

Pay close attention to page 35, where Gurian references one of SJSD’s very own, 2nd grade teacher at Coleman, Carol Meyers.  Try some of these tried and true strategies and let us know what you like!

According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, a blog is 

a Web site on which an individual or group of users produces an ongoing narrative.

What an excellent resource for a group of busy individuals that find trying to sync their calendars for a time to meet and discuss literature nearly impossible.  Using this blog, we can meet at your leisure and discuss all of the fascinating things that we are learning about gender learning differences. “So, how do I do that?” you say.   After you read a blog entry that you find particularly intriguing, follow these steps to make a ‘comment’.  

•  Click on the link that says ‘comments’ on the entry that you want to comment on.

• A page will show up that is very similar.  Scroll down and you will see this…

• Fill in your name and email address.
• Type in the anti-spam word.  (This is just to prove to the computer that you are a real person.)
• Write your comment in the box provided.  Do not hesitate, it’s just that easy!
• Finally, Don’t forget to click ‘submit comment’.

This will keep our ongoing narrative going!  Good luck.  

So John Gray has always told us that 

Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus

This allusion that boys are so very different from girls that we should be from different planets, may not be too far fetched.  I am not suggesting that Gray’s comical analogy of being from different planets should dispute Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.  I am, however, discovering that there are many physical and chemical differences that make  us react and engage in activities very differently.

As we read the first chapter of Gurian’s book, we take a closer look at many of those differences.

Gurian tells us that…

The Corpus Callosum is the bundle of nerves that connects the right and left brain hemispheres.  It is up to 20% larger in females than in males, giving girls better cross-talk between the hemispheres.

There is more development in females than in males in…occipital lobes, where sensory processing often occurs…Girls take in more sensory data than boys do.  

Males tend to have more development in certain areas of the right hemisphere, which provides them with better spatial abilities…

The male brain secretes less serotonin than the female brain, making males more impulsive and fidgety.

Oxytocin…being more constantly stimulated in females, make the female capable of quick and immediate empathetic responses to others’ pain and needs.

Boys move more emotive material down from the limbic system to the brain stem, where fight or flight responses are stored; girls move more of it upward to the upper brain, where complex thought occurs.

What does this mean inside the walls of our school?  Gurian teaches us that females function better with memory and sensory intake, while boys strengths are in spatial tasks and abstract reasoning.  In Chapter 1, beginning on page 16, Gurian begins to discuss some strategies to begin taking a look at how we can meet our students gender needs.  After you read this first chapter, keep us posted about the connections that you are making with the students in your classroom.  Tell us what your noticing and what your trying, we will all learn from each other!

As teachers, we are always struggling to find the missing links in our curriculum.  

• “Why am I not reaching all of my students?”  
• “Why does it always seem to be the same students that aren’t getting it?
• “What can I do differently?”

  We analyze the data!  We create spreadsheets and line graphs that track the patterns and inconsistencies that are occurring in our youth’s performance on assessments.    To a classroom teacher, this can be daunting. The problems jump out at us, but the answers remain a hidden mystery.  

At our schools, we have discovered gaps in performance based on socio-economic status, race, and gender.   So what does this mean…

First, we must realize that this is not a localized problem.  Nationwide, teachers and administrators are searching for answers that will transform their schools into  communities that meet the needs of all of their learners.  

As a stepping stone in this process, we are linking arms and studying research that has been done in the area of learning differences based on gender.  Michael Gurian is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty five books based on brain research that offer insights into the differences in boys and girls.

Gurian and his co-writers argue that from preschool to high school, brain differences between the sexes call for different teaching strategies.

I am not insinuating teachers should stereotype children based on gender, but they do need to know that they function and learn differently.

Look here for future postings from the information that we are gathering in our book study.  It is my goal that this can be a forum where you can gather strategies that you can easily incorporate into your daily curriculum that will impact the effectiveness of our instruction.