It's a Boy Thing

Change is an inherent feature of our education system, but it has to be said that the changes have been coming thick and fast in recent years. Our Curriculum was undergoing what is euphemistically described as a 'refresh' over the last few years, only for us to find that it's now in the bin, to be replaced by a new 'revision'. Similarly our national assessment system, NCEA, which is in the middle of 5 year revision, has been ditched in order to go back to a system that seems reminiscent of the one it replaced 20 years ago. Bags and Chris reflect on these changes on the day they were announced and start putting together plans.

Bags and Chris, in a moment of unexpected synchronicity, both have a class that is uncannily silent. We ask a question: crickets. They're doing good work, they're great young men - but as a group: diabolical. We explore the possible precursors for this and we look at what action we can take to get the boys talking.

In the third week of the school year, Chris and Gena explored the new year as a fresh start, including Chris' newly 'upgraded' classroom (complete with LEDs and a lava lamp). The conversation shifted to celebrating Gena's outstanding achievement of three English scholarships at Otago Boys, including one outstanding scholarship. We discussed the importance of maintaining high expectations, establishing powerful routines, and the positive impact this has on student learning. We reflected on how setting ambitious targets ourselves models the very dispositions we ask of our students, and shared insights about the learning relationships we build with boys who may not verbalise appreciation often but deeply value rigorous, disciplined learning environments.

As a coda to last week's episode about the harm AI is doing to boys' learning in English classes, today Bags and Chris offer some discrete and specific examples of what actually happens in their English classrooms.

We may be in the minority, but Bags and Chris are in full accord on this one: AI is going to do until damage to boys' learning in English.

Only this week, articles in the Christchurch Press "Number of illiterate uni students ‘at crisis level’" and the Otago Daily Times article "Despair over Literacy Levels demonstrate that the literacy of University students in the towns where we teach is falling off a cliff–and we already know that this is even worse for boys.

This conversation explores exactly why AI is such a disaster for the classroom, what we're doing about it, and why we thing it should go the way of "Whole Language" teaching of reading and Modern Learning Environments - to the dustbin.