Reaching Boys: An International Study of Effective Teaching Practices

Despite a continuing stream of concern on the part of researchers, demographers, and cultural pundits about a crisis in boys' social development and schooling, surprisingly little attention has been paid to what is perhaps the richest pool of data: current, observable teaching practices that clearly work with boys. In schools of all types in all regions of the globe, many boys are thriving. Boys of limited, ordinary, and exceptional tested aptitude; boys of every economic strata; boys of all races and faiths--some of them--are appreciatively engaged and taught well every day. This article reports the results of a survey of teachers and students at boys' schools around the world which suggest that successful teaching practices with boys take advantage of the facts that boys are relational learners, that they elicit the kinds of teaching that they need, and that they respond to transitivity in lessons, that is, that some element of the lesson arouses and holds their interest.