Meet The Boys Part IV

Bam was a very interesting boy.  He loved to write, but not in school.  He didn't feel like writing essays in school was real writing because he wasn't expressing any part of himself through his writing.  He loved to write emails to people telling them about his life and asking about theirs.  He wasn't given many options in class to pick something for himself, so he generally rejected the projects that he was given.  If his teacher would have known about his personal interests, I feel like she could have catered to them and he would have flourished.  He was also very interested in going to college, and therefore kept track of his grades so that he could achieve that goal.

Wolf was a boy that really loved to read history and things related.  His passion rarely showed in class, but sometimes did.  He is really smart and wanted to be a history teacher himself.  I wonder what kind of teacher he will be, because he doesn't necessarily like the setting of school.  I bet he will be one of the ones who really engages students and makes history fun and interesting. He was very interested in different parts of history and actively engaged in things on campus that were related to history.

Stan is the third boy in this section.  He was always prompt to the sessions that the researchers held, and was always prepared.  This shocked his teachers, though because the previous year he had failed English due to lack of attendance.  He loved to read, but truly disliked English class because of it's strict structure and lack of freedom to learn for yourself.  He loved to draw conclusions from books as well as comment about the complexity of certain movies like the Matrix.  I think he would have reacted so well if his English teacher just gave him a little freedom to learn.

Larry was very interested in different parts of history and how they related to things that happened around him.  He experienced a strike at the local bakery and reported that it was just like the one he had read by Steinbeck.  He had a teacher that suggested materials to him and showed him how to read these different texts.

Are Teachers Teaching?

This section of the book talks about the boys reaction to the different teachers and their style of teaching.  It is interesting to see that as a whole there were certain aspects that really helped them learn and feel competent.  These boys overwhelmingly felt let down by their teachers, and were therefore less willing to work for their teachers.  They didn't want to do what their teachers were telling them because their teachers didn't take time to understand them and help them.  The boys felt like there was an unspoken contract that their teachers regularly broke.  Here are the five aspects of the "contract" that the boys felt strongly about:

1. A teacher should get to know me personally. 
2. A teacher should care about me as an individual.
3. A teacher should attend to my interests in some way.
4. A teacher should help me learn and work to make sure that I have learned. 
5. A teacher should be passionate, committed, work hard, and know his or her stuff. 

I feel like this is my new life statement for teaching.  I want to be one of these types of teachers.  The researchers commented that the boys responded positively to the teachers even if they only did ONE of these things!! How easy is that?  I don't ever want a student to not be interested in my class simply because I was unwilling to ask them about their interests.  Most of these boys want one thing: "a recognition that they brought interests and expertise from outside of school to the table."  They just want reassurance that they are doing something that matters outside of school as well.

"Busywork was mentioned by 24 of the boys in connection with school and they described it with disdain as a form of disrespect to them and their lives." (p.100)  Isn't this the truth about busywork for everyone?  I feel like this as well in college.  I also feel like my professor is just lazy when they give out busywork.  Why would they do it? It creates more work in the long run for them, and weighs down on the student.  These students just want things that challenge them and that are relevant to their studies.

The boys also wanted to do things that were hands-on, active and participatory when they were doing reading.  The researchers talked about how the boys over and over commented on how they wouldn't do the reading and just let the teacher just explain the material the next day.  However, when they were confronted with activity of actually playing out the book, they read and enjoyed it.  This indicates that difficult text can be made accessible by instruction.  But are we as teachers willing to do this?

On page 103 there is a quote that says, "One of the most important tasks for a teacher is to make sure that students are neither too overwhelmed not too bored by the material they must master."

Mostly Outside, Rarely Inside

Csikszentmihalyi said, "If literacy is for the sake of children, how come we so rarely bother to find out what they want to use it for?"

In this chapter the authors asked every boy to keep a journal about all of his literate activities.  These include reading, listening to music, playing video games, going to concerts, and surfing the internet.  They found that boys were most commonly excited and passionate about their literacy tendencies outside of school, but inside of school they merely saw the literacy as a tool rather than something to be passionate about.  Even though, in the previous chapter, the boys said that they valued the theory of literacy, in practice it was not something that they were interested in because it did not cater to their immediate needs and desires.

Interestingly, the boys mostly connected literacy to their school lives, and not to anything that they did outside of school.  Most of them didn't record certain things in their logs.  I think that this is due to the fact that boys think that literacy is feminine, so why admit to doing things that relate to it even outside of school?  They will not associate things that they are interested in with being something to do with literacy.  Why would they?  Another interesting thing is that they boys didn't really want to include things that they liked within their schooling.  They didn't want to bring in things that they liked into the school setting, almost as if school would ruin that for them.

The boys talked about how they do certain things that they are comfortable and strong in.  They talk about things that they feel competent in, and avoid topics that they are not sure about.  They would rather talk about their interests rather than something totally foreign to them, even though they are hesitant to do so in the school arena.  The boys felt like teachers were supposed to help them feel more competent in the area of school so that they could enjoy things in school like they do things outside of school.  Why are teachers not helping them feel like they are competent in school?  I think it has to do with the ratio of students to teachers as well as the determination of teachers.  If teachers don't really care whether or not their students feel strongly in a field, it hurts the student because no one is believing in them.

Meet the Boys Part III

Buster is the first young man we meet in this part.  He is an avid bike rider, but he tells them that that is not what defines him.  He is a people person and a tactile learner.  He admitted that he puts up with school because he knows that it is going to get him somewhere.  He was interested in pursuing a career in mechanical engineering in case his dream of designing bike frames fell through.  He identified most with the profile of the student who disliked school but was willing to take on the challenge anyway because he knew it would get him somewhere.  

Ian is the next boy that we meet.  He was a very good musician, he had been playing the piano for 9 years. He admitted that he was not a reader, but he admired the imagination of those who could really get into novels and informational texts.  He identified most with the profile that the boy got lost in his reading because Ian got completely lost in his music.  He was very firm and well rounded about who he was and that he was confident about it.  He talked about how he was a little different than most other boys his age, yet he didn't want to change anything. 

Alucard is the third boy that we meet.  He had a huge interest in cartoon art, and brought his sketch pad with him to the interviews.  He loved to read about the supernatural and about drawing, but showed little interest in reading in school.  He was from a very poor family and had to work to help pay bills.  Perhaps he felt like he needed to have a job instead of going to school. 

Geo is the last boy that we meet.  He is a football star, and wants to make something of himself through football.  He was very interested in his grades because of the effect that they have on college recruiters.  His motivation for school was his sport.  He wasn't interested in reading at all, but he loved football.  He would do the bare minimum in school because that is the way he felt his teachers were doing their jobs.  He would work hard in football, but not in the classroom.  

All of these boys valued school very much because they knew how important it was.  They were all willing to do what needed to be done in school, once again, a means to an end.  It would be so interesting if these boys were given the chance to express themselves in school.  What would they be like in the classroom?  I can't help but think about what if their teachers were nurturing them and taking an interest in their interests.

Do the Right Thing

This chapter is so very relevant to any parent and or teacher out there today.  The first part of the chapter talks about how parents ask their kids how their days went after school.  Most get the "It was fine" answer. This is hardly sufficient for most parents, but they decide to pick their battles.  The way that the two authors dealt with the problem of asking the boys about school is absolutely brilliant.  They made fake profiles of students that fit into different categories and asked the boys:

1. What, if anything, do you admire about the character in the profile?
2. What, if anything, don't you admire about the character in the profile?
3. Where, if anywhere, do you see yourself in this profile?

Wow.  This stuff works!!!! The answers were right on target.  They boys were not going to give them answers that they were expected to give because these questions were so personal.  Next time you want to ask your kid how their day was...try doing this! 

The most interesting thing to me about this chapter was the contradiction that it held with the previous chapters.  In the two earlier chapters we saw that the boys resented school and did not like it very much.  There were clearly other things that they would like to be doing than sitting in school all day.  However, this chapter revealed, more than anything, that the boys believed very strongly in the instrumental value of school.  They knew how important going to school was and valued it for that access that it granted them.  They all knew how important school was to their futures, and explained it in their own terms to the researchers.  They all agreed that the value of being literate was huge, and that it needed to be important.  They agreed also that those people who read more and were more involved in school usually did better later on in life.  

To these boys, school was more of a fall back plan than it was something that they wanted to do.  They all had other dreams and ambitions, but they were aware that they could fail and ultimately need something else to rely on, which would be their education.  The way that they viewed what school would do for them in the future had a huge impact on their individual engagement in school.  If they did not think that they needed school for their future goals, then they would not engage as readily as those who needed school for their futures.  

Lastly, for now, the boys all had an interesting interpretation of school.  School is a means to an end or is an obstacle that needs to be overcome in order to be successful.  Every single male that I have known has seen school this way.  Are they not enjoying the ride?

Meeting the Boys Part II

In this section of the book, you meet four more boys.  As I read more and more about all of these boys I get a little nervous about how hard it must be as a teacher to connect with them individually because they are all so different.

Zach was an honors English student who wanted to become an English teacher himself.  However, while he did enjoy the classical texts, he enjoyed a complex role-playing game that included everything in his life.  He and his friends played it, he read the books that corresponded to it, even listened to music that was relevant.  If, as a teacher you never got to know Zach, he would just be another great English student, but we would never know what was under the surface.

Gohan was rated as "at risk" of failure.  He wasn't really interested in school, and was a young father.  He loved to write poetry but his teachers rarely gave him the chance.  I think he would be more successful if teachers gave an option to write poetry rather than a term paper so that he could express himself.  I feel like teachers are often too lazy to cater to their student's learning needs, and this is a good example of this.  Once again, if we would look underneath the "bad student" mentality that we have, we would see someone who was indeed gifted at writing poetry.

Haywood was your typical American male, he loved video games and especially sports.  Underneath all of his "jock" cover, however, he showed a deep interest in historical movies and novels.  He didn't really have time to read outside of class, so a teacher would probably just think that he was uninterested in reading.  As with the other two, underneath we see that he has true literary talents and can exhibit them when he wants to.

Yuri is the final young man that we meet.  He goes to the same sports-centered school as Haywood, only he does not fit in there.  He dressed in goth style and set himself apart from everyone there on purpose.  Yuri also loved playing role-playing games.  He said that he would commonly lose himself in the games for hours.  He really enjoyed reading outside of school, but had a harder time in school.  He felt like the teachers were pounding away at mulicultural issues until they were not longer interesting.

These four boys have a lot in common, if you care enough to peel away their initial layer they all are interested in school and other literacy related things.  If you do not, you see four boys that are completely different and few are interested even remotely in school.  The book comments on how generalizations are comforting for teachers.  We use generalizations to make our lesson plans and how we instruct our classes.  However, meeting these different boys proves to  me that that way of thinking is wrong.  We shouldn't generalize because it hurts our students.  We need to put in the extra effort and figure out what they need and help them attain their literacy goals.

Feedback and Teaching Reading

Problems With Teaching


One study related to this book says, "teaching is providing the procedural means for a student's participation in a community task so that the student can move from being a novice to being an expert."  As teachers, we need to help our students understand the contexts of the material that they are reading so that they can apply it to their lives and enjoy the text more.  Unfortunately, in this study, only one of the boys experienced this in school from a teacher.  What needs to change?  As teachers, taking an interest in our students can be viewed as added work that is unnecessary.  But what is our goal as teachers?  We certainly don't do it for the money, so why be lazy about helping our students?  I feel like we are abusing our positions sometimes by being lazy and not creating the best learning environment for our students.  


Feedback


This study looks at how boys read and why they read, looking at the aspect of feedback.  For boys, reading extended texts like novels does not provide quick and clean feedback, which they like the most  Reading for information, however fulfills this need, and therefore boys are more likely to read it.  It's interesting because almost all of the boys, except two,  disliked reading novels.  They would rather read magazines, sports articles, even newspapers.  They had a purpose for reading and something to gain from it.  How do we help boys get something out of an assigned novel?  If we learn about our students and explain how this book can apply to their lives, I think that it would help.  


Only one student in the study said that his teacher helped point him down the right path for reading.  By doing this, we see that, like Gee's article, the teacher was guiding her reading apprentice.  She showed him how to approach different texts and what he could gain from reading them.  This was HUGE for the student.  He had never liked reading before, but after she helped him, he loved it.  What would our state be like if we did this with every student and every teacher?  I talked about the boys needing to feel competent in things in order to be willing to accomplish them in an earlier post.  The one student that had this experience with his teacher felt like he had control of the situation and that he was competent in his reading because he knew how to approach it.  He didn't feel as though he was overmatched by the material, rather that he was being challenged.  If we increase confidence in our students, I think it would go a long way.  

Going with the Flow: What Boys Like to Do and Why They Like to Do It

In this chapter, we see the two men writing this book asking what boys like to do and what the difference is between their interests and their interests in school.  They raise the question:  if boys are successful outside of school, then is it the context or the kids that are to blame for their problems in school?  They spend a large amount of time getting to know these boys outside of the education system and seeing what they like to do.  Overwhelmingly, the researchers found that the boys gravitated to activities in which they felt sufficient competence to have a feeling of control.

If the boys were not good at doing something, they would try for a time, and then give it up eventually.  They kept hearing from all 20 boys that they had to feel competent in order to be involved in an activity.  Only two boys connected the competency to reading and how they feel in school.  Both boys were learning to enjoy reading because their teachers had gotten to know them and suggested how they should read certain materials.  Interestingly, a lot of boys expressed feelings of being overwhelmed by books that were assigned in class.

We as teachers need to challenge our students, yet we cannot overwhelm them.  We are pushing them away from reading, when all they want is a challenge.  How do we find that intricate balance?

Bandura put it best, "It is difficult to achieve much while fighting self-doubt."

Meeting the Boys

In this chapter, the authors introduce 4 of the 20 boys that they used in their survey and explained who they  are.  Three of the boys were eleventh graders who were all at different kinds of schools.  The forth boy was a seventh grader at a rural school.  It is interesting to me that the two boys who were not native to the US were most interested in school.  We are commonly led to believe that minorities and those who migrate to the US are less interested in school.  That never really made sense to me, I just figured that they struggled with a new language and having to deal with that in a school setting.  For one of the boys, the researchers commented "Ricardo helped us understand that a teacher who looked only at his school literacy would miss much of his literate life and much of who he was and wanted to become."  Ricardo was very interested in visual arts all over the world, which is not something that is used very often to determine literacy.  Bambino, another boy was willing to work on what interested him in school, but little did that for him.  He was even willing to work for a teacher who recognized his interests and expertise.  Bodey, the seventh-grader, was very interesting.  He not only was failing English, but he was reading the books assigned outside of class for his own pleasure.  He didn't want to do reports on them, he just wanted to read the parts of the books that interested him.  I couldn't imagine what his grades would be if the teacher let him pick out what he wanted to read!!!!

Reading Don't Fix No Chevys

The book that I am reading is "Reading Don't Fix No Chevys".  It is about the literacy of young boys in our school systems.  I am reading the first two chapters currently.  It is so true that boys are not allowed to express themselves in schools.  From my own experiences, I am a girl, I have seen how girls are encouraged so much more than boys in our education systems.  Boys are not allowed to play fight, but girls can play "house".  Boys know the difference between play fighting and real fighting, so why aren't we letting our little guys become men?  The teaching sphere is dominated by women, and I don't think that we think about how much "girly" stuff we impose on the boys.  In the book, the authors talk about how, to boys, literacy is feminine so they go to great lengths to avoid it at all costs!  I never thought of literacy being gender oriented, but it truly is.  We do not want our young boys writing about death and war when they are in elementary school, but we let the girls write about romances.  I feel like the school system is against boys from the start, and there are things that we need to change.  Boys statistically read more informational texts than novels.  This is true in my own life.  I have read 6 novels so far this summer, and my husband has not read a single one.  But, he has read at least 15 informational car magazines.  In school, however, we are telling our boys in literature classes that they need to read these novels that they have no interest in.  Why do we do this to them? Are they really learning anything?  I don't think my husband remembers a single novel that he was forced to read in school but he can tell you the quarter-mile time, 0-60 time, and curb weight for any car in existence today.   When I start teaching I really want my little men to become men by doing what they want to do as far as reading.  As far as I am concerned, as long as they are reading, I don't care what the content is.  This book is incredibly interesting, and I really recommend it especially for women because we never went through these experiences in school.  This could be seen as a different Discourse that we can never be in, but we can come to understand it somewhat through studying it.  

Blogging about Blogging

I have had a blast learning how to blog.  I learned a lot from my sister and reading her blogs.  She went to Uruguay for a semester last year and was constantly blogging about her experiences.  It is such a great way of mass communicating with people when you don't want to share your story about your trip over and over again.  My sister, when she came home, would tell people to read her blog whenever they asked her about the details of her trip.  My cousin teaches English in South Korea and has had a blog going for over three years.  Hers is by far my favorite blog that I have ever read.  The key to blogging, I think, is to be real about what is happening and saying whatever you are really feeling about your situation.  It never hurts when those feelings are hilarious either.  A lot of the blogs that I read, which were all friend's blogs, varied day to day in length.  I think that people only have so much time to get their feelings down on to paper.  A lot of the blogs are interesting because it is for other people to have insights into their lives, so they are not always being completely honest about situations.  The majority of my friends were pretty consistent about using correct grammar, but the occasional slang would pop up every now and again.  My cousin's page is great because she is immersed in a culture that is completely foreign to her.  She has no idea what people are saying unless they are speaking to her in English.  Her blog is the one I will post a link to.