Transcripts

Michael Gurian:
When we saw that girls were not doing as well on the SAT's in math and science. We never for a second said, "there's something wrong with the girl."

Michael Gurian, author of the book, The Minds Of Boys…

We immediately said we have to alter the way we teach math and science to accommodate these girls who are falling behind.

But in general school performance and on tests scores boys performed worse than girls and Michael believes we need to change the way boys are taught to conform with the way their brains work. Note taking for example…

Females take way better notes than males do. It's a real problem. Well, a lot of why they don't is because they are zoning out. They're sitting in a classroom, hearing a bunch of words and zoning out and they're not writing them down- they're in a rest state. So, we suggest to teachers, and this is one thing that we have success data on, the teachers allow the boys to move around while they're taking notes or while they're writing something. And, or give them something to squeeze in their non-writing hand, that keeps the brain awake.

Homework is another problem.

One of the reasons boys are getting "D's" is they're not doing their homework. They're even lying to parents and saying they are. And this is especially true of third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh graders. We need to sit with them and if they have questions we help answer their questions but mainly we're there making sure they're doing the stuff.

You can link to Michael's website from ours: somethingyoushouldknow.net - I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.