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Shortly after my son started his first year of elementary school, I asked him to name his favorite subject. "Basketball," he answered without skipping a beat. "Everything else is boring."
Declarations like this -- "I like recess and P.E. best!"-- from young boys about their school experience sometimes raise concern for parents, but they shouldn't necessarily, says Michael Gurian, MA, co-founder of the educational research and training Gurian Institute and author of The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons From Falling Behind in School and Life. Instead, these words should be understood as the clue that it is. "What they are saying is, 'If you want me to learn well, you have to understand how my brain and body work when I learn,'" Gurian says.
Studies show that boys do learn differently than girls. Brain scans tell part of the story: In general, more areas of girls' brains, including the cerebral cortex (responsible for memory, attention, thought, and language), are dedicated to verbal functions. The hippocampus -- a region of the brain critical to verbal memory storage -- develops earlier for girls and is larger in women than in men. "That has a profound effect on vocabulary and writing," Gurian explains.?
A greater part of the cerebral cortex of boys' brains, on the other hand, is dedicated to spatial and mechanical functioning. For that reason, boys tend to learn better with movement and pictures, rather than just words, Gurian says.
"If teachers let boys draw a picture or story board before sitting down to write, they'll be better able to access color and other details about what they are writing; they can access more information," he says.
There are biochemical differences, too. Boys have less serotonin and oxytocin -- hormones that play a role in promoting a sense of calm -- than girls. That's why it's more likely that young boys will fidget and act impulsively. "Teachers think the boy who can't sit still and is wriggling in his chair and [making noise] is being defiant," says Leonard Sax, MD, PhD, author of Why Gender Matters and Boys Adrift. "But he isn't. He can't be quiet.”
"There are no differences in what girls and boys can learn," Sax says. "But there are big differences in the way to teach them."
Sax and Gurian say parents can work with teachers and schools to best support their boys' learning needs.
Move it. Children should be allowed and encouraged to move around while they do their work. Leg tapping, standing, and doodling while kids read, write, or take a test -- activities often seen as distractions -- can help many boys learn.
Wait a year. Kindergarten today is much more academic than 40 years ago. "We're asking 5-year-olds to do what 6-year-olds used to do," Sax says. Although opinions vary, some boys with a fall birthday may benefit from delaying school an extra year. Consult your boy's teachers before deciding.
Get outside. Confirm that your son's school offers playtime in the yard (many new schools are being built with no playgrounds) and that even on bad-weather days he'll have free time outside. Research shows that kids learn better after recess.