Troubled Boys Mean Girls

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Troubled Boys- Mean Girls

• Understanding
• Intervention

South Central RPDC
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Male/Female Brains

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Cerebral Cortex
Parietal Lobe
Occipital Lobe
Touch
Motor Skills, Reasoning Personality
Vision
Hearing Language Speech
Frontal Lobe
Temporal Lobe
Brain Stem
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There are at leastreported differences in
male andfemale brains.
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Gurian, The Minds of Boys
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Frontal lobes The main language centers Of the
brain.
Touch
Motor Skills, Reasoning Personality
Vision
Hearing Language Speech
Frontal Lobe
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Corpus Callosum
Amygdala
Hippocampus
Cerebellum
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Corpus Callosum
Amygdala
Hippocampus
Cerebellum
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Interesting..

• .. it seems to be that the natural template of
  the brain is female

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Summarizing brain matters

• Boys tend to be logical (as opposed to emotional)
  and more driven to solve problems.
• Boys use less words when they talk.
• The first segment of a boys brain to develop is
  the part that governs spatial abilities.
• The last portion to develop is language.

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History tells us

• Biological changes in puberty began..
• 1850 Today
• 16 ?

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No evidence of change in emotional maturity.
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Boys/Girls

• Boys are biologically, developmentally and
  psychologically different.

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Boys and Girls learn DIFFERENTLY.

• Girls and boys play differently.
• They learn differently.
• They fight differently.
• They see the world differently.
• 
  Dr. Leonard Sax, M.D., Ph.D

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From Day One..

• Newborn boys and girls shows differences in
• Hearing
• Sight

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P cells M cells
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What happens when you give a child a piece of
paper and crayons?
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Boys draw verbs, Girls draw nouns Art is for
girls.

• Girls
• people, pets, trees
• arrange symmetrically, facing the viewer
• average of 10 warm colors.
• Leonard Sax. M.D., Ph.D.

• Boys
• action,
• looking at action from a remote vantage point,
  a rocket hitting its target, a car about to hit
  another,
• average of 6 cold colors.
• 
  
  

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What about giving directions?

• Boys
• Young men use the hippocampus.

• Girls
• Young girls use the cerebral cortex.

Dr. Leonard Sax, M.D., Ph.D.
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How do I get to the Robinsons new house?
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Navigation strategies use geometric cues and
recall of landmarks

• Women
• - seem to have an edge in factual recall
• - rely landmarks.

• Men
• - seem to use conceptional recall
• - depend on navigational cues

Robert Sylwester The Adolescent Brain Reaching
for Autonomy
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Responses to Stress

• The typical male stress response is a
• fight-or-flight, assertive response.

• The typical female response is often a
• tend-or-befriend, nurturing response.

Robert Sylwester The Adolescent Brain Reaching
for Autonomy
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Fight or Flight?

• When most young girls face the same, they
  feel dizzy and yucky. They may have an
  unpleasant, nauseated feeling.

• When most young boys are exposed to threat and
  confrontation, their senses sharpen and they feel
  an exciting tingle.

• Bottom line
• Many young boys get a thrill from violent or
• quasi-violent confrontation. Most young girls
  dont.
• 
  Dr. Leonard Sax, M.D., Ph.D.

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Risk-Taking

• Girls may be willing to take risks, but they are
  less likely to seek out risky situations just for
  the sake of living dangerously.
• Girls are likely to underestimate their ability

• One reason many boys engage in physically
  dangerous activities may be that the danger
  itself gives the activity a pleasant tingle.
• Boys systematically overestimate their own
  ability.

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Risky Behavior

• In experiment after experiment, researchers have
  discovered gender differences in childrens
  responses to risky situations
• 1. boys are more likely to erroneously attribute
  their injuries to bad luck than to any lack of
  skill or foresight on their part
• 2. were less likely to tell their parents about
  the injury
• 3. were more likely to be around other boys at
  the time the injury occurred

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Troubled Boys

• Strategies to help them be successful

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For every 100 girls

• enrolled in gifted and talented programs, there
  are 94 boys.
• who graduate from high school, 96 boys graduate.
• suspended from public elementary and secondary
  schools, 250 boys are suspended.
• expelled from public elementary and secondary
  schools, 335 boys are expelled.
• Ralph Fletcher, Boy
  Writers

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For every 100 girls

• 217 boys are diagnosed with a special education
  disability.
• 276 boys are diagnosed as learning disabled.
• 324 boys are diagnosed with emotional
  disturbances.
• 147 are diagnosed with speech impairments.
• 108 boys are diagnosed as hearing impaired.
• 189 boys have multiple disabilities.

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Here is what we know

• In the classroom
• - Boys are territorial.
• - The average boy is more active than
• ¾ of the girls.
• - They use less of their brain.
• -Gurian, Mind of Boys

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How do we help boys in our classrooms?
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Address the kinesthetic

• Over 50 of boys are kinesthetic learners.
• After 30 minutes of sitting, blood pools in the
  legs and feet. Need to move at least 10 paces,
  or do toe lifts.
• Consider Talk, Touch, Walk.
• Dr. David Sousa

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Here is what we know..

• Thoughts on Teaching
• - learn with less multitasking
• - better when focusing for longer periods
• on one task
• - relate to diagrams better than information
• dealing with words
• - do less well when moving from task to task
• quickly
• Gurain,Mind of Boys

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Boys are more likely to attach their learning to
physical movement.

• Strategies
• - Hands On
• - Cooperative Learning
• - Active Learning
• - Concept mapping
• - Frayer Model

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Frayer Model
Definition
Characteristics
Non-linguistic Representation
Non-Examples
Examples
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Active Learning

• Look to professional resources
• try some Tom Jackson activities

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More Cooperative Structures

• Gallery Tour
• List, Group, Label
• Centerpiece
• Showdown
• Think-Pad Brainstorming

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a note about boys and group work.

• When teachers put boys in small groups for a
  learning experience, boys will spend much of
  their time trying to determine who is going to be
  the leader.
• 
  Slocumb,
  Ed.D.

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Hazard Precautions

• 1. Remember the risky shift.
• (boys in groups do stupid things)
• Supervised is better than unsupervised.
• (football vs. the streets)
• Assert your authority.
• (dont argue or negotiateno means no)
• 
  Dr. Leonard Sax,M.D.,Ph.D

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The male brain needs to RECHARGE.

• The male brain is set to renew, recharge, and
  reorient itself between tasks by moving to what
  neurologist Ruben Gur has called a rest state.
  The rest state, which MRIs have now discovered
  to be essential to male brain activity, can
  create big problems in the classroom.
  Gurian, The Minds of Boys

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Recharging?
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Look to the pros for help with reading and
writing

• Michael Smith / Jeff Wilhelm
• Ralph Fletcher
• Janet Allen
• Cris Tovani

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The Boy Code
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At the heart of the Boy Code

• -The sturdy oak
• -Give em hell
• -No sissy stuff
• -The big wheel

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Toss in the impact of the ever-present Media

• In action films, Gurian explains, images move
  faster than the brain can process. The brain
  becomes overly stimulated.
• Drugs, sex, and even video games can cause brain
  cells to release excessive amounts of the
  neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain. Boys
  between the ages of 8 and 15 are the biggest
  consumers of video games. Slocumb

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Finally, there is television

• Children have learned adult behavior from
  television.
• Television reveals adult secrets.
• With no secrets, where does childhood go?
• Television continues to loosen its rules.

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20th Century Family
Nuclear Family Parents, brothers, sisters
Extended Family Grandparents, godparents,
neighbors, friends
Community Entities School, church, media
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21st Century Family Single parents, stepparents,
same-gender parents, grandparents,
brothers, sisters, stepchildren, half-brothers
and sisters, and THE MEDIA Slocumb, Ed.D.
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Differences in welfare, working-class, and
professional class preschoolers language
experience (Ruby Payne Ph.D.)
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Mean girls
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What, in your opinion, is a major problem with
girls today?
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Other girls, They get in ourway because theyre
so mean.
Karres, Ed.D, Mean Chicks, Cliques And Dirty
Tricks
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Hidden culture of aggression

• A world where beneath a chorus of voices, one
  girl glares at another, then smiles silently at
  her friend. The next day a ringleader passes
  around a secret petition asking girls to outline
  the reasons they dislike the targeted girl. The
  day after that, the outsider sits silently next
  to the boys in class, head lowered, shoulders
  slumped forward.
• The damage is neat and quiet, and the
  perpetrator and victim invisible.

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Silence is woven into the fabricof the female
experience.
Simmons, Odd Girl Out
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Aggression may be biological, but the face of
anger is learned.
Simmons, Odd Girl Out
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The Perfect Girl

• Sugar and Spice
• Sweet and Caring
• Precious and Tender
• Have lots of friends
• Never bossy, never mean
• Always kind
• Speaks quietly and calmly

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Princess Syndrome

• Every little girl wants to be a princess.
• Every parents wants their daughter to be a
  princess.

and/or
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a good girl

• is nice before she is anything else- before
  she is vigorous, bright, even before she is
  honest.
• Orenstein, Schoolgirls

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Girl Aggression

• Relational aggression
• Indirect aggression
• Social aggression

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Relational Aggression

• Harm others
• Uses relationships as weapon

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Indirect aggression

• Covert behavior
• Rumors

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Social Aggression

• Damage social status
• Hidden from adults

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Girl Codes

• shes all that
• flirt
• Im so fat
• copying

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Mean Girl Acts

• The Snob
• The Gossip
• The Teaser
• The Bully
• The Traitor

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The Snob

• But isnt the point of being popular to have
  friends? So why would you want to make enemies by
  acting like youre too good for other girls? Its
  senseless. Marie, 15
• I always felt like I was not good enough for any
  of them. Thats the way other girls were treating
  me. Mandee, 15

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The Gossip

• There was this girl who would be so mean to me.
  Whenever she made a crude remark or gossips about
  me, one of my best friends who was in the class
  with me would just laugh like so loud, but it all
  went on behind my back. Later, I found out about
  it. This lowered my self-esteem so much. Im
  still having trouble. Carmen, 19

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The Teaser

• Being called a name and made fun of is the
  worst feeling in the world. It hurts! Carinn, 16

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The Bully

• There are so many girls who are the victims of
  bullying peers. It often happens after school,
  that they get scratched or pinched for no reason
  except just being there. Leila, 14

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Girls who bully Boys who bullytypically. ty
pically.

• Have any friends
• Are socially skilled
• Act in groups to isolate a single girl
• Are doing well in school
• Know the girls they are bullying

• Have few friends
• Are socially inept
• Act alone
• Are doing poorly in school
• Dont know the boys (or girls) they bully

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The Traitor

• When your best friend turns on you and says
  mean things to you or about you- oh, the pain
  and agony! Phoebe, 15

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Cliques

• Who will survive?

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Isolation.

• Worthy of attention
• Terrifying experience

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Cyber-RA

• sending or posting harmful or cruel text or
  images using the internet or phones.

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Facts about Cyber Bullying

• 99 of students have used the internet
• 48 of students use the internet for at least one
  hour a day.
• One in four youth, ages 11-19, has been
  threatened via their computers or cell phones.
• One in five parents thought that cyber bullying
  was not very common or never happened.
• About 37 of parents were not worried that their
  child could be bullied by someone using a mobile
  phone.

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Ways Girls Cyber Bully

• Sending messages via instant messenger or text
  message
• Creating websites that ridicule others
• Breaking into someones e-mail account and
  sending material to others

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Signs that a child might be involved with Cyber-RA

• Spending long hours on the computer
• Closing down the screen when an adult enters the
  room
• Being secretive about activities online
• Change in behavior

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Ten Tips for Girls to Stop Cyber-RA

• Always tell someone you trust what is happening.
• You may need to tell the local police.
• Never reply to a bully or send a nasty message
  back.
• Keep and save messages.
• Take a break from your phone or computer.

• Make sure only good friends and family are in
  your phone/e-mail address book.
• Sign up for a chat room with a different chat ID.
• Be careful who you give your cell number.
• Your cell phone provider can change your number.
• Keep telling yourself This is wrong, its
  not my fault, and Im not putting up with it.

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Point to ponder

• With troubled boys, the problem is biologically
  based and requires adapting skills.
• With mean girls, the problem is behavioral and
  requires a social change.

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The Power of One

• Teach the difference between harmless teasing and
  hurting hateful words.
• Educate yourself and others about bullying.
• Suggest a Newcomers Club
• Provide women leaders/role models to share the
  effects of mean girl acts.
• Provide resources for girls.

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What a good teacher does

• 1. Tries to get to know me personally
• 2. Cares about me as an individual
• 3. Attends to my interests in some way
• 4. Helps me learn and work to make sure I
  have learned
• 5. Is passionate, committed, works hard, and
  knows his/her stuff
• Smith, Wilhelm

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Resources to Use

• Why Gender Matters, Leonard Sax, M.D., Ph.D.
• The Minds of Boys, Michael Gurian
• Boys and Girls Learn Differently, Michael Guiran
• Real Boys, William Pollack, Ph.D.
• Hear Our Cry, Boys in Crisis, Paul D. Slocumb,
  Ed.D.
• Odd Girl Out, Rachel Simmons
• Mean Chicks, Cliques and Dirty Tricks, Erika V.
  Shearin Karres, Ed. D.
• www.guyread.com
• www.rockhall.com

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rpdc.mst.edu