Chapter Eight
Guidance
with Boys In Early Childhood Classrooms
By Margaret King with Dan Gartrell (From The Power of Guidance: Teaching
Social-Emotional Skills in Early Childhood Classrooms, Delmar, released
this fall)
Quick
Take:
In a workshop once, Dan asked the early childhood teachers attending to think
of the one child in their class that they found most challenging. He then asked
how many of these children were boys and how many girls. Twenty-seven of the 31 attending (all of whom
were women) indicated boys. Many
teachers find boys and their behavior, well, challenging. To Margaret King (first author of the
chapter) and myself, the matter is not just “the gender issue” of “women
teachers versus young boys.”
Rather,
the main issue is that for reasons of development and temperament, many boys
have difficulty fitting the traditional classroom expectations of many
teachers--even when these teachers hold a lot of other expectations that are
developmentally appropriate. The matter
is one of the attitudes and techniques and not just the obvious gender
factor. True, some men teachers may have
an “inside track” on how to improve the match of young boys and the educational
program—just because they’ve “been there, done that.” And certainly, we need men teachers as well
as women teachers dedicated to teaching young children—the chapter in fact ends
on this topic. But women teachers as
well as men can learn to use guidance with boys, and that is what this chapter
is about.
For
authors and readers alike, precautions need to be taken when regarding material
directed to either subgroup of children, boys or girls. There is a decided need to avoid gender
stereotypes pertaining to the one group and neglect of legitimate needs of the
other. In writing this chapter, Margaret
and I attempted to keep three considerations in mind:
•First, many boys show little of the typical
behaviors of some boys that bother some teachers. We all need to avoid the stereotyped thinking
that “boys are this way; girls are that way.”
•Second, this chapter is really about making
early childhood programs more developmentally appropriate for all children. Our thinking is that the adaptations of
program and intervention strategies discussed here fundamentally benefit both
boys and girls. (For instance, for
long-term health reasons, girls as well as boys may benefit from increased
physical activity during the day.)
•Third, some teachers--we think many--enjoy
working with both boys
and
girls who radiate a certain rambunctiousness and independence of spirit. We hope that readers will be not just “newly
aware” but basically reinforced in their responses pertaining to the boisterous
enthusiasm brought by some children into early childhood classrooms.
“Active,” “aggressive” “challenging,” and
“noncompliant” are words often used to describe young boys. Even the most
competent teacher is sometimes challenged by the behaviors exhibited by
boys. Many teachers find it difficult to
distinguish problem behavior from “boy behavior” that is normal. Educators frequently describe boys as
socially immature or developmentally young.
In a recent study Pastor and Reuben (2002) found that boys too
frequently are labeled ADD or ADHD.
Teachers often view boys who are energetic
and active as difficult to manage. They seem to spend a lot of time engaged in
“off-task behavior” looking for and finding “mischief.” Their behaviors may not match the traditional
view of a smoothly operated classroom. In some classrooms it may be one or two
boys who experience difficulties, while in others it may be the majority of
boys in the classroom.
A
Composite Case Study
This chapter
presents a “composite case study” of several classrooms and teachers who have
met and positively addressed the “boy problem.”
This term is a misnomer, of course, typically used by teachers who have
become frustrated in their efforts to understand and manage the behavior of
boys in their classes. The case study follows
“Juanita” in her progress from a teacher-technician who endures the class she
is dealt until her patience runs out, to a teacher-professional who commits
herself to changes in the educational program and her own response-styles. By developing this composite case study, we
discuss how teachers, as guidance professionals, can bring caring leadership to
their work with young boys in their classes.
The chapter
concludes with a response to a recent study of NAEYC membership, The
Importance of Men Teachers and Reasons Why there are so Few (Nelson, 2002)
and a comment about the role of men teachers in guidance.
Ten of the
fourteen children in Juanita’s class of three-, four-, and five-year olds were
boys. A group of boys (between seven and
nine) were making the classroom difficult for the teacher to manage. Sometimes they worked individually. Other times they worked collectively. The boys would dump containers of small
Legos, unifix cubes, or small blocks when the teacher was not looking. Other times they would wrestle with each
other during story time or during other group activities—sometimes escalating
into serious conflicts. When asked about
their behavior, they would say “For fun” and then they would giggle. Even though the adults did not think that it
was funny, the boys seemed to enjoy their “mischief.” There was no question:
the overall pattern of “mischief” was becoming persistent and disrupting the
flow of the classroom. Juanita found
herself worrying about the effects of frequent conflicts on the boys
themselves, the rest of the class, her assistant and herself.
Juanita needed
help in figuring out what to do. For
this teacher, the solution was not simple because her classroom was well
organized with well-defined areas and well-planned activities based on her
knowledge of children’s developmental levels and interest. This was the first
time in her five years of teaching that she had a class that she could not
manage. After attending a workshop at a
conference titled “Boys in the Classroom,” Juanita began to recognize something
she only half understood before: that the problem was not the boys themselves,
it was the way she was teaching them.
Juanita realized that she saw the boys in her class as less mature and
more “rowdy” versions of the mature children in her class, mainly girls who easily
followed directions.
From the
workshop, Juanita applied the criteria of mistaken behavior to analyze the
pattern of conflicts she was seeing. The “mischief” often began as Level One, Experimentation Mistaken Behavior. Boys would get over-involved in a situation
and the “experiment” would get out of control; or they would test the limits of
situations to find out about the consequences.
By taunting or teaming, the boys also got each other involved, so
Juanita was seeing Level Two, Socially Influenced mistaken behavior as
well. With one or two of the boys, the
mistaken behavior was more serious Level Three, Strong Needs Mistaken Behavior.
Juanita knew these boys to have difficult lives outside of the classroom. Just as she needed to give these two guys all
of the assistance they needed, she had to make the class a more safe and
positive community for all.
Juanita
decided that she needed to change her classroom. An overriding thought was whether or not the
problems in her class were related to gender differences. In other words, she wondered if she were more
responsive to the needs only of the girls; therefore, creating an environment
that was less boy-friendly. She decided
that she would address her concerns by asking two questions to guide her process
of change:
•How could she create a classroom that was more responsive to the needs of all the children, and especially the boys who were not integrated into the culture of the classroom?
•How could she
more appropriately handle the mistaken behavior of all children, and
specifically individual boys, who were experiencing the greatest difficulty in
her classroom?
The chapter
now focuses on these questions.
Question: How can
Juanita create a classroom culture that is more responsive to the needs of the
children in her class, and especially the boys?
To begin the process of creating a classroom more inclusive of the needs
of boys, Juanita analyzed what was specifically happening in the
classroom. The teacher needed to
understand what was happening in order to begin implementing change.
Using anecdotal
observations of selected situations, Juanita documented how children were
spending their time as well as typical samples of off-task behavior. She made a series of two part write-ups. Part
one was objective description of exactly what she saw, heard (and on one
occasion smelled) in the selected situations.
For example: “Noah was lying on
his side in the block area, stacking the small unit blocks. Julian came running by, going after a toy
truck that had just become available. He
tripped over Noah’s leg and scraped his knee on the heater grate. With his other leg he started to kick at
Julian, who was still lying down. I
separated the children and explained to them what happened. Julian was crying pretty hard so I used
reflective listening to calm him down.
Then the three of us talked about what happened. I explained it was an accident.”
In part two, Juanita recorded her personal
attempts to understand the meaning of the observation within the context of her
classroom. For example, “I saw that
Julian thought he had been tripped and was more angry than hurt. I held him and explained what had happened,
letting him know it was accident and it was all right to cry about being
hurt. After he calmed down, we went over
to where Noah was holding his own leg and talked about it”
Juanita used this
two-part system to objectively separate her observations from her thoughts
about the observations, so minimizing quick and judgmental opinions. Her
approach was to mentally note at the time situations she needed to study; she
then wrote the anecdotal observations after school, like the one involving
Julian and Noah. She found she could
remember most of the details! Over a period of two weeks, Juanita kept a
journal of the two-part observations, noting her observations and reflections
about them for all incidents she thought pertained to her focus.
Specifically in
terms of her observations of Julian, Juanita observed several episodes where
the boy had mistaken unintended behaviors by another child as being done “on
purpose” and had become angry. She
wondered what prompted these quick angry responses. She was able to document a pattern, and now she
was faced with the challenge of not only solving the immediate situations
involving conflict between Julian and other children, but helping Julian deal
with his anger. At least, she concluded,
she had made progress in terms of understanding this particular child.
In general,
Juanita learned from her observations that both boys and girls exhibited
mistaken behaviors in the classroom, but that the mistaken behaviors of girls
were less noticeable by the teacher. For
example, girls engaged in more verbal aggression with their peers whereas boys
engaged in more physical aggression. The
physical aggression was more difficult for the teacher to redirect or change.
[This observation is consistent with research on peer relationships of boys and
girls (Grossman and Grossman, 1993, Kindlon and Thompson, 1999, Pollack,
1998).]
Girls in the
classroom were more often on task. The activities and experiences available to
them throughout the day held their attention.
They would spend long periods of time, typically 15 to 30 minutes,
engaged in the same activities which were
often creating in the art area and writing notes, letters, words in the
writing area. Sometimes they would
remain for extended periods of time in the dramatic play and housekeeping area
of the classroom. Dolls and stuffed
animals were popular in their dramatic play.
Several of the
boys on the other hand were less engaged, typically spending fewer than 10
minutes in the usual activities of the class.
These guys would go to an activity, look it over, and move on as if they
were searching for, but could not find, something to do. When they were “on-task,” they spent most of
their time in the block area or turning miniature figures and materials into
superhero situations and staging make-believe conflicts. When they were not involved with such
activities, they tended to engage in rough and tumble play or testing the
patience of the teacher and other classmates.
[The activity preferences by the girls and boys were consistent with
research on play choices (Ligh, 2000; Pitcher & Schultz, 1983).]
The observations
as well as information gathered from other sources about gender differences
focused Juanita’s attention on how she could make the classroom more responsive
to the needs of the boys and develop strategies for dealing with the mistaken
behaviors exhibited by boys in a more positive way.
Making
the Environment Encouraging
Through her
observations, the workshop she attended, and conversations with her colleagues,
Juanita realized that the boys were off-task because they were unable to find
interest in many of the classroom activities.
A first step Juanita took was to modify the learning environment by
considering the needs of specific boys in her classroom. Many boys are not only in need of more
physical activity, but they may also be developmentally younger than girls by
six to 18 months (Soderman, 1999). The modifications Juanita made to the
classroom supported the activity levels of boys and their development. The
modifications offered more opportunities for
•indoor and
outdoor large motor and whole body experiences;
•sensory
exploration and experimentation experiences;
•building and
constructing experiences;
•novel dramatic
play experiences, games of strategy; and a variety of literacy materials.
Juanita focused
on these areas of activity because they reflected the interests of boys. These activities also took place in areas of
the classroom where Juanita tended not to plan.
Only through observation did Juanita begin to see the importance of
giving focused attention to these areas.
Physical activity is very important to all children, especially young
boys. Most children enjoy using their bodies, running, jumping and physically moving
their bodies. Juanita’s observations
guided her to think about ways to enhance opportunities for large muscle and
whole body experiences in the indoor and outdoor classroom environment. Some of the strategies that Juanita
implemented were to:
•Use the outdoor space as a teaching and learning tool. Juanita planned at least one activity in the
morning outside. The outdoor activity
was as simple as taking a nature walk or as complex as creating a water system
using pipes and joints. She was careful to have the outdoor activities happen
in small groups, each with an adult.
Sometimes the small groups went outside separately, other times
altogether.
•Plan activities during outdoor play. Most of the time outdoor play was free time
with children running, jumping, playing with balls, riding tricycles, and
swinging. Juanita decided that she would
add one teacher-planned activity each day.
Sometimes the activity was an obstacle course or a chasing bubbles or a
climbing game. The children could choose
whether to join and Juanita was pleased that often many of the boys did. Juanita began seeing outdoor play as an
extension of her classroom.
•Create a large motor environment indoors. Juanita decided to work with other staff and
her director to transform a large storage area into an inside large muscle
activity room. Large mats, balls and
climbing equipment were placed in the room.
Juanita used the room for rough and tumble play, dancing and movement,
and climbing activities.
•Create a large motor center in the classroom. Juanita added a center in
the classroom for large muscle activity.
She included beanbags for throwing, carpet squares for jumping, boards
for walking and music for dancing. She alternated this equipment with a “physical
fitness center” that included a makeshift weight table with “weights,” (plastic
bottles filled with sand and attached to a sawed off broom handle), a
mini-tramp that the children could use with wrist weights (around their
ankles), and a mini-exercise bike one of the parents devised.
•Integrate whole body movements into activities. Juanita planned
activities to
include large body movements. In art,
children would use feather dusters or actual paintbrushes to paint on large
pieces of Plexiglas or cardboard and with water on the walls outside. Large hollow blocks or cardboard blocks were
sometimes used in the block area. Daily
music activities almost always involved movement.
Sensory Exploration and Experimentation
Boys enjoy engaging in
exploratory and behavior such as digging in sandboxes and taking blocks apart
(Grossman and Grossman, 1994). Like many
early childhood classrooms, Juanita’s classroom had few opportunities for
spontaneous and continuous scientific exploration. She made these changes to her program:
•Explore and experiment.
Juanita decided to create daily
opportunities for exploration and
experimentation. Each day she planned an
activity that allowed children to answer the question, “ What happens if….”.
•Sensory
materials. Sand and water as well as play dough, clay,
“glurch,” and Stayflo with white glue silly putty became an integral part of
Juanita’s classroom. Combining and
mixing substances as well as pouring and filling with solids and liquids were a
daily occurrence. A parent who was a
secondary teacher said he was pleased to see the classroom’s “applied
chemistry” program.
•Cooking. Cooking is another way to create opportunities for
experimentation and exploration (applied chemistry, physics, math and
biology). Juanita decided that she would
plan and implement a simple cooking activity weekly. Preparing fruit salads,
vegetable salads, puddings, and pancakes are just a few of the recipes she
implemented. In addition, she provided
opportunities for children to assist in the making of silly putty, play dough,
and goop.
Building and Construction
Juanita knew that building
and construction was a favorite activity of the boys. They spent a significant amount of time
playing with blocks, Legos, and other construction materials. Juanita did not do much planning for these
activities. For example, she made blocks
available every day but only got involved when she needed to remind the
children how to use blocks appropriately. A woodworking area was virtually non-existent
in her classroom. Juanita’s art
activities were two-dimensional on paper and the boys did not usually actively
participate. Juanita decided that she
needed to enhance the choices available to children by introducing three
dimensional construction and carpentry activities. She used a variety of strategies to modify
the environment to include activities of building and construction. She included pads and pencils so the children
could make plans and notes on their building.
•Block Building. Juanita enlarged
the space in the classroom for block building.
She decided that blocks would be integrated into the classroom. She worked with the children who were
interested in building by encouraging free play of the blocks as well as
thought out planning of what they intended to build. Sometimes children drew the plans. Other
times the plans were verbal. Juanita also documented children’s play in the
block area with digital photographs and video.
Juanita included both unit blocks and large hollow blocks throughout the
year, but regularly changed “accessory items” to fit themes and sustain
interest.
•Woodworking. Juanita introduced
woodworking into the classroom.
In addition to just having
materials available for children to experiment and practice with (enjoyed by
both boys and girls), Juanita worked with the children to create
developmentally appropriate woodworking projects. She invited parents and local
carpenters into the classroom to help with the center. She found that several
of the fathers and significant guys were interested in helping to provide
materials for this activity area.
•Art and Writing. Juanita added to the construction and building materials
to the art area thus allowing more choices for whole hand manipulation of
materials as well as fine motor manipulation.
She added large writing and drawing utensils so the children could
choose between wide and narrow. She
provided blank sheets of paper stapled down the left side, and introduced them
as Action Picture Books that the boys and girls could make.
•Table top
manipulatives were added. Juanita
brought in large manipulatives such as Duplos in addition to Legos. She realized that even though boys liked to
build, they did not seem to build easily with Legos. Many of the boys had difficulty putting the
Legos together so she decided that Duplos would be better for creative work and
Legos would be for developing fine motor skills.
There were other
changes that Juanita made to the environment that were less dramatic. She decided to change the housekeeping area
from time to time introducing different play themes such as camping, gardening,
fishing, and restaurant. Juanita
introduced active but educational computer activities and games of strategy
requiring the boys (and girls) to work in cooperative groups.
She reduced time
spent in full class, circle times, having the class do stories and focused
activities in smaller groups instead. At
group story times, informational books on themes of interest to boys were
shared into addition to their favorite picture books. Juanita introduced a writing center, and the
older boys began making “books” of their “adventures” as spy kids and mugwumps.
Juanita found
that in the process of making her environment more encouraging for boys, she
also empowered the girls in her class to become more active, independent, and
creative. The teacher was pleasantly
surprised when two parents who were “fitness buffs” complimented Juanita on the
physical activity she was encouraging in all of the children. Changing and
modifying the program became an ongoing project for Juanita--and as she
observed the children in her classroom, she continued to make changes. Most of all, in making these many changes to
her program, Juanita modified the actual culture of the classroom. Previously bored and uninvolved, the boys
became more engaged, significantly reducing program-influenced mistaken
behavior.
Juanita also
noticed that the girls, less bothered by frequent conflicts, seemed more
relaxed and comfortable. Several girls
were becoming more engaged in activity areas they hadn’t been involved in
before such as large muscle activities and woodworking. Physical activity
became integrated throughout the curriculum and became more an intentional part
of her educational program. She began to
think that making these changes was contributing to a more developmentally
responsive program for all the children in the class.
The goal of improving the match between young boys and the
program is to reduce classroom conflicts, not to think of eliminating all
conflicts. While reducing the kinds of conflicts introduced by the educational
program, the teacher works to make the conflicts children do experience into
learning opportunities. She makes these
teachable moments useful in guiding children in the use of democratic life
skills. These skills, the abilities to
•express strong emotions in non-hurting ways
•appreciate one’s own views but also the views of others
•make decisions intelligently and ethically,
need to be the educational goals for girls and boys in a
democratic society (Gartrell, 2003).
In order to learn these skills, it is necessary for children
to have an opportunity to experience conflict in an environment where adults
can help them work on developing appropriate responses to difficult situations.
When children are taught appropriate strategies to manage conflict, they are
progressing in learning democratic life skills. In the same way that frequent
conflict in classrooms creates concern, a classroom where no conflict is
observed should also create concern.
The next part of the chapter deals with how to interact with
boys when they do experience mistaken behavior.
Important to keep in mind is that the quality of the interaction between
the boy and the teacher is more important than the mistaken behavior in which
the boy is involved. The interaction is
very likely to determine how the child will respond in the situation, and feel
about himself coming out of the situation. We return to our composite case
study of Juanita and her class of 14 three-, four- and five-year olds,
including 10 boys.
Having begun the changes to her educational program, Juanita
became more aware of how the boys were responding when she intervened. Quite different than the girls, some boys
would protest loudly or look down so she could not make eye contact with them.
Occasional comments from some of the boys were “I’m not listening to you” or
“You can’t make me.” On rare occasions a
boy might even strike out and try to hit Juanita.
One day when Juanita was redirecting Jasper, an active
four-year-old boy, as a result of a problem in the block building area, he
started screaming, calling her an idiot and butthead. Three of his friends who were also upset,
began handling the blocks aggressively.
When Juanita tried to talk to the boys, they covered their ears with
their hands. Juanita finally took Jasper
by the hand, moved their conversation to the hallway, and had the assistant
teacher talk with the other three boys.
At the end of the incident, Juanita wanted to retaliate and punish them
for their actions. She felt angry and
humiliated by the oppositional and defiant behavior exhibited by the boys. After all, she is the teacher and why would
these boys think that they could ignore her and not follow her directions. Juanita decided that she needed to think
about what had happened with that group of boys and what she needed to do to
make sure that it would not happen again.
After talking with a colleague, Juanita decided to analyze
the particular needs of these individual boys and reflect about the social and
emotional development of boys in general.
As a result of her reflection, research, and additional discussions with
colleagues, Juanita realized that she needed to do more than just change the
overall climate of her educational program.
Juanita recognized she needed to work on the quality of her
interpersonal relations especially during conflicts, as the interpersonal
atmosphere influences how children construct feelings about themselves and
these feelings impact their behavior (Devries & Zan, 1994). Boys are more likely to receive harsher
discipline than girls (Kindlon & Thompson, 1999). Boys may feel as if they have been singled
out or that the teacher’s response to the event was unfair. Boys, even young
boys, seem to have a strong sense of justice and fair play.
Working with her colleagues, Juanita decided upon several
strategies to manage mistaken behavior in ways both supportive of the
individual and protective of the classroom community. Juanita discovered that
these strategies work well with girls as well as boys;
however they are essential for helping boys to learn the
democratic life skills necessary for social competence. When boys show mistaken behaviors teachers:
•Defuse the situation. If emotions haven’t
hit the boiling point, the teacher works to downplay the conflict. Sometimes
the situation is accidental, or at least not totally intentional. The teacher points this out and informally
mediates: “Carlos, Ephram didn’t mean to
knock over your tower. He feels bad
about it. I wonder how the two of you
can fix it?” The teacher identifies and
accepts emotions, so the child knows the teacher cares. Example:
“Julian, it is alright to cry.
That hurt when you fell over Noah’s leg.
You have a real owie on your knee.
Let’s get a band-aid for that and see how Noah is doing.”
•Use humor (but carefully). Humor is a
great tension reliever in conflicts—and often is not used enough. Humor suggests that the adult is in charge
enough not to get “up-tight” and so tells boys they don’t have to get “worked
up” either: Example, teacher gets down
to where two boys are quarreling and says with a smile, “You guys are like
gorillas with stomach aches over here.
Time to take your Pepto Bismo and get your friendly faces back.”
Humor
used with children should be consistent with what we know about each child and
their understanding of humor, and should not be beyond their understanding or
sound sarcastic. Humor takes thinking on
your feet, and for many of us, actual practice.
The joke doesn’t have to be hilarious--just bring smiles--but it does
have to be friendly, not laughing “at” but laughing “with.”
•Calm everyone down. The point of
intervention during a conflict is to resolve it with all parties feeling all
right about themselves and the situation.
Neither adults nor children can resolve conflicts when emotions are
high. A first step, then, is for the
teacher to get calm, then help the child or children to calm down. If the child
is a boy the teacher needs to remember that his level of calm may be different
from her definition of calm. It is
important to let the boy determine when he is calm. In this situation the boy may act or look
non-responsive. The boy may need time to
process the intervention by the teacher.
He may need time to “check in” with his feelings and regulate his
response to the situation. The process may only take a few seconds but
sometimes in the fast pace of the early childhood classroom boys are not given
the few extra seconds they need.
The
teacher helps to support the boy by identifying and acknowledging feelings,
which helps the child feel accepted and regain composure (even when the behavior is not accepted). Taking deep breaths is another calming
technique. According to Pollack (2001),
sometimes a boy may need a timed silence because his timing for expressing hurt
feelings may not be consistent with the teacher’s timing. A timed silence (alternate term, a “cooling
down time”) provides the boy time so that he can deal with the upsetting event
until he is ready to talk with an adult about it.
Separation
should not be an automatic teacher response.
When used carefully, separation to calm down for mediation is the one
time that leaving a situation is not a punishment (Gartrell, 2002). The adult stays close to child to help the
child regain composure if needed.
•Diagnose the conflict as best you can. Honestly determine if
you know what happened or if you need further information. (Sometimes even children with reputations do
things by accident.) Decide what level
of firmness you need to use—and how to show warmth with firmness. It is
important to remember that boys do not respond well to coercion; therefore it
is important that the adult is authoritative rather than authoritarian in their
response to the conflict (Pollack, 1998;
Kindlon & Thompson, 1999; Newberger, 1999). The teacher will need to decide: Is this a
situation that calls for conflict management, a guidance talk or maybe the
quick command of a choice with follow-up?
Teachers often must make these decisions very quickly. Remember that the professional teacher learns
while teaching, both in the moment and in later reflection.
•Talk
in a private manner. The teacher may want to remove the boy to a private space in
the classroom or whisper in his ear what she would like him to do to change his
behavior. There are two reasons for interacting with boys privately. The first
is to protect the child from critical self-feelings as a result of being shamed
(Pollack, 1998). The second is because
boys are likely to respond negatively to adults when they are criticized in
front of their peers (Kindlon & Thompson, 1999). Embarrassment “to make a
point” usually makes a negative point, one that may stay with a child for years
(Gartrell, 2003).
•Stay away from threats. Threats set up power
struggles that negatively affect both the teacher-child relationship and the
likelihood of successful (win-win) resolution of the conflict situation. Instead, if the situation warrants, command
choices that the child must make. In
commanding choices, the adult poses the more desirable alternative as
positively as possible, but accepts the “out choice” if the boy makes it
(Gartrell, 2003). To illustrate, the
adult does not say, “Martin, either you share the playdough, as I have
requested, or I will move you to another area.”
Rather, the adult puts to the child this choice, “Martin, you choose,
I’d like you to share the play dough, or if you need to find an activity in
another area. Which will it be?”
Remember
that if the boy is upset about the choice or if the boy thinks that the choice
is unfair, he may choose not to share the playdough and leave the area. The teacher needs to be ready to accept the
decision that the boy makes, and follow-up later with a guidance talk.
•Follow through. It is
important for teachers to follow through when responding to a boy’s mistaken
behavior. Boys seem to be sensitive to whether or not adults do what they say
they will do. When adults do not follow
through, they may lose the boy’s respect. Boys may feel as if they do not have
to listen because the adult appears powerless to implement their
statements. In following through, model
teaching and learning from the conflict.
As an example, don’t shout across the room for Mitchell to behave and
then go on to something else. Walk over,
establish your presence, diagnose, interact, and persist. Stay with it. Correct
by direction.
•Use conflict mediation. When conflicts
occur, including with boys, teachers frequently react with punishments like
time-out. As other chapters explain,
punishments do not teach children the skills then need to solve future
conflicts. An important guidance alternatives teachers can employ
instead is conflict mediation. Conflict mediation refers to a teacher’s
intervening in a conflict in order to lead a focused discussion to resolve the
problem. Mediation technically is the
use of a third party to resolve a conflict between two individuals. Mediation is typically used when a small
number of children experience a conflict.
The
reason for using conflict mediation is when children are helped to resolve
their disputes, they feel they are fully accepted members of the group. (No one is an outcast for being either a
bully or a victim.) They learn
democratic life skills, including how to resolve disputes using words, and the
classroom becomes a more peaceable place.
The
adult decides whether high-level mediation is needed, in which the teacher is
an active coach, or low-level mediation is called for, in which the adult is an
“on-hand facilitator.” They teacher’s goal is to move the children to a skill
level where the can negotiate a solution to the conflict them-selves. Formally
or informally, five steps of problem solving are followed:
1. Cool down all parties (including yourself)
2. Reach agreement about what the problem is
3.
Brainstorm possible solutions
4.
Try the most agreeable solution
5. Monitor and follow-up.
Chapter
Six of The Power of Guidance features conflict mediation, and it is the
guidance intervention of choice with both boys and girls when a small number of
children are involved.
•Have
guidance talks. A difference between
guidance talks and conflict mediation
is that guidance talks usually are used by a teacher with a single child,
either in place of or after mediation.
Guidance talks informally follow the five steps of conflict mediation,
mentioned above. After emotions have
cooled, the teacher:
• talks with the child about his mistaken
behavior
•finds out the boy’s perception of the
reason for the mistaken behavior and his
reason for responding as he did.
•Establishes mutual understanding of what
happened and how the parties felt
•Re-defines guidelines for acceptable
behavior.
•Teaches what the child can do differently
next time.
When
you think you and the boy have worked the matter through, ask him how he can
help the other child feel better (different than forcing an apology). Thank the child for helping to solve the
problem, and point out his growing ability to do so. See Chapter Six for a further discussion of
guidance talks.
•Talk with boys about their emotions. It is important for adults to talk with boys
about their emotions (Pollack, 1998; Kindlon & Thompson, 1999; and Polce-Lynch,
2002). Find out how the boy was feeling
when you interacted about the mistaken behavior. Sometimes when boys appear to be angry, they
really have feelings of pain or fear. They may show anger instead because they
perceive that the expression of anger is more socially acceptable. It is
important for boys to develop a large repertoire of labels for the emotions
they are feeling (Newberger, 1999).
Clearly, teaching and learning about emotions and their expression goes
beyond conflict interventions by teachers.
The curriculum needs to have emotional intelligence—as a component of
learning democratic life skills—as an ever-present educational priority: “It is
alright to cry.” Many resources are
available for teaching and learning about feelings and should be used by
teacher-professionals for girls as well as boys.
•Teach boys to manage their impulses. Many boys are
impulsive; therefore, sometimes when faced with a difficult situation or a
conflict, a boy might react by acting out.
A helpful approach is to create a strategy with the child, so he knows
what he can do instead of hurting others.
With warm coaching, one child might say loudly, “I am angry”! (The teacher is then over there
quickly.) Another child might leave the
conflict and report his feelings to the teacher or go to a “peace island” (an
area of the room set up for when a child--or adult--needs a break. Adults are always watching for island
visitors who can use some guidance.)
Self-removal is not a cure-all, but can help in teaching indi-vidual
children to manage impulses by balancing emotions and thought.
•Manage your own strong emotions. Even early childhood teachers become
angry—and this is often a source of guilt as our image is that we are
“ever-nurturing.” We do not have to love every child or like it when we see
hurting behavior. But we do need to focus our emotions on helping children who
have hurt, and been hurt, to learn the skills of getting along. Teachers should model appropriate ways to
deal with anger. It is important that children see that adults can become
angry, but it is also important that children see adults modeling
self-regulation behaviors.
•Nurture boys. Boys want
and need emotional connection (Pollack, 1998; Kindlon & Thompson, 1999;
Newberger, 1999). Boys need to be
cuddled, held, and responded to with kind words. They need unconditional positive regard from
their teachers. When they fall or when a friend uses unkind words or actions,
boys need the teacher to respond in a warm, caring and nurturing manner. Even when a boy is defiant or has hurt
another child, we need to let that child know he is still a fully accepted and
valued member of our class. He just
needs to work to on a few things, and it is our job to help.
Change can be a scary and challenging process for
teachers. Yet, teachers who make it a
priority can change the nature of their teaching and their interpersonal
relations with boys. Juanita’s story
illustrates how teachers can look at themselves and their educational program,
and work with fellow staff and colleagues, in order to improve the educational
program for young boys. These teachers
find that by modifying their educational programs and intervention strategies,
they can improve levels of mutual trust, cooperation and engagement. Moreover, in classrooms where teachers make
these changes, girls as well as boys respond to the active programming and
positive leadership. With encouragement
and education, parents, as well, stand to increase their appreciation of the
program and involvement in their children’s education.
Men Teachers
and The Guidance of Boys
Juanita might well
have lamented that “having a man around the room” would give her boys the
modeling needed to learn alternatives to their mistaken behavior. In fact, recently one of the authors visited
a kindergarten classroom in which both the teacher and student teacher were
men. The classroom was comfortable, the
activity level busy but on task, and there seemed to be a sense of pride in
both the girls and boys in the room that “these were their guys.” For men comfortable with the nurturing and
guidance required of the early childhood teacher—and the fortitude to buck the
stereotypes—the rewards in the children’s responses can be great.
But, being a
man in a classroom is clearly not enough.
Unless men teachers, as well as women, implement developmentally
responsive programs and use guidance in their interpersonal communications,
they too will experience problems with the behavior of boys (and girls). In November of 2002, Men in Childcare and
Elementary Education Project published an article in Young Children that
gave helpful and informed treatment to the matter of men in early childhood
education. The issue provided a first
look at an important study, conducted by Bryan Nelson, entitled The Importance of Men Teachers and Why There
Are So Few (2002). Three findings
from that study are particularly startling:
•Only 4,000 of the total 103,525 membership of NAEYC are men,
and only half of this number teach in
early childhood classrooms.
•Of the men approximately 360 members are men of color.
•Only 4.95 percent of prekindergarten teachers and 16.2
percent of elementary school teachers are men.
Until
society changes so that men feel comfortable in the field (and both men and
women are adequately paid), women teachers will be mainly on their own in
responding to the needs of young boys, and girls. The approach to teaching boys given in this
chapter should help—and should benefit early childhood teachers whatever the
gender. Still, picture an education
system in which virtually all of the teachers of girls, young and old, happened
to be men. Some of these teachers might
be attuned to the particular developmental and cultural needs of girls at
school, but many, due to experience and their own educations, would not
be. Think about it.
In contrast both to the hypothetical situation and the real
one, from the summary of Nelson’s study, we end this chapter with a soon to be
famous quote:
Imagine walking into an education program in the future and
every room you enter there are equal numbers of men and women, teaching,
reading or playing with the children.
And those teachers, educated and well-paid, are as diverse in
characteristics as the children we see in each classroom. With time, resources and persistence, the
story can come true (Nelson, 2002, p.39).
The
reciprocity between men and women in such classrooms would allow teachers of
each gender to learn from, and augment the strengths of, the other. Teachers as well as children would stand to
grow, learn, and flourish--in ways possible now only in a tiny percentage of
classrooms. When teaching teams are
comprised of both men and women, teachers may well have to work less arduously
to bring about the gains in empathy, self-esteem, and social responsiveness
that all early childhood teachers would like to see. But even now, with dedication and effort,
teachers of either gender can experience success in using guidance with boys.
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