Team Focus Makes an Investment in Youth

For Boys Who Lack a Father's Guidance, Camp Offers an Opportunity to Learn and Grow

[Washington Post, Tuesday, July 21, 2009]

By Yamiche Alcindor

Five years ago, a brain aneurysm took the life of Cottrell and Cordell Wise's father. Their mother, Kelly Wise, tried to fill the void, but Cottrell's grades fell and Cordell became increasingly attached to his mom.

A year later, Kelly Wise discovered Team Focus, a year-round program and four-day summer camp that changed her boys' lives. A national program that began in 2000 with one camp in Alabama, Team Focus connects more than 1,500 young men who lack father figures to male role models.

"Team Focus has done everything for me," Cottrell said during the Team Focus DC Camp, which kicked off Sunday. He has learned how to knot a tie, how to talk to girls and how to study, he said. "It taught me everything my father couldn't do, and it helped me be a better big brother."
This summer, camps held in 14 cities meshed sports with leadership training and connected young boys with volunteers who keep in touch throughout the year. The program is designed to allow the boys to develop relationships with several men in the hopes of creating a network of role models.

The D.C. camp, which began in 2005, will run through Wednesday. The District chapter serves more than 100 young men year-round.

"This is an investment on the future of this country," said Keith Howard, director of Team Focus DC. "If I can be that substitute dad, and walk with a young man and give him the authority and the affection that a young man craves, then I am making an investment."

The program was founded by ESPN college football analyst and University of Pittsburgh coach Mike Gottfried. He launched the camps with proceeds from the 2000 GMAC Bowl, a college football game held in Mobile, Ala. Gottfried, whose father died when he was 11, wanted to create a program that combined Christian values and sports for boys growing up like he did.

Team Focus and the individual camps are funded by several sources, including personal donations, government grants and corporate sponsorships.

At the District camp, boys spend half their day playing games such as basketball and softball. The other half of the day, speakers cover topics ranging from the emotional consequences of not having a father to lessons on manners, note-taking and personal grooming. A chaplain is also on site to lead Bible study and prayer.

At times, the camp feels like a boot camp. Highly energized staff members spelled out the rules Sunday to the more than 50 campers: Shirts must be tucked in. Heads should always be up and turned toward lecturers. Taking notes is a must. No oversleeping or staying up too late. And no cellphones or other electronic devices to connect with the world outside Team Focus. If a camper breaks the rules, he is asked to leave and is seldom readmitted the next year.

After her husband, Reginald, died, Kelly Wise, who lives in Charles County, said she was confused about how to nurture her boys. "Their father was instrumental in their lives. When he died, I didn't know what to do," she said.

For her, the camp has meant a chance for her boys to learn things she cannot teach them. This year marks 14-year-old Cottrell's fourth year with the camp and 12-year-old Cordell's second year. Howard, who has taken Wise's sons under his wing, calls several times a year to check on the boys.

Wise said the change in her sons is clear. Once a struggling student, Cottrell has landed on the honor roll. Cordell, who at first refused to be away from his mother, now looks forward to sharing time with others.

Adam Mason, 19, a camp volunteer and mentor, came to Team Focus DC as a 13-year-old looking for guidance. "I came out a lot better person then I came in," he said. "This is like a crash course on life." After his first year, he stopped defying his mother's rules and began reading his Bible frequently. Eventually, he made the decision to attend Liberty University, a private Christian school where he will begin his sophomore year in the fall. He credits his decision to attend the university and the success he has achieved as a student to his relationship with Howard.

Beyond the camps, staff members and volunteers take the thousands of Team Focus members across the country to sporting events, give them advice and make themselves available in much the same way a father would.

Kelly Wise hopes her sons will one day give back to the program that has given them so much.
"My vision is that as they get older, they will work in the camp and help other boys that are in their situation," she said.

Rettet unsere Söhne

Wie den Jungs die Zukunft verbaut wird und was wir dagegen tun können.

Mit 10-Punkte-Sofortprogramm
Erscheint: März 2009
188 Seiten
Klappenbroschur
€ 16,95 [D], € 17,50 [A], sFr 29,90
ISBN: 9783866122277

Unsere Jungen sind zum Problemfall geworden. Sie führen die Liste der Schulabbrecher, Arbeits-losen und sozial Auffälligen an. Das ist weder Zufall noch die Schuld männlicher Gene, sagt Arne Hoffmann. Sondern das schwerwiegende Versäumnis eines Systems, das seit Langem und wissentlich Mädchen auf Kosten der Jungen fördert. Ein provokantes, streitbares und dringend notwendiges Plädoyer für wahre Gleich-berechtigung.

»Jungs sind dumm« ist nicht nur eine beliebte T-Shirt-Aufschrift, sondern die Haltung, mit der unser Land einer gesamten Generation von Jungen gegenübertritt. Mit erschreckender Klarsicht führt Arne Hoffmann vor, wie die Pädagogik und Politik die offene Diskriminierung unserer Jungen zulassen. Dass nicht nur Mädchen, sondern auch Jungen die Zukunft unseres Landes sind, wird dabei vergessen. Ein in seiner Polemik ehrliches, nicht frauenfeindliches, sondern jungenfreundliches Buch über die Schattenseiten des Gleichberechtigungswahns, die auszusprechen in unserer Gesellschaft fast schon einem Tabu gleichkommt.

Boy Problems

Peg Tyre is a staff writer for Newsweek and the mother of two school-age boys. In 2006, she wrote a cover story for Newsweek with the headline “The Boy Crisis,” which profiled a group of boys—all struggling readers—at an elementary school in Colorado. She found that while most people were still focused on the challenges of girls, as she had been for many years, boys were falling far behind in literacy, classroom achievement, and college enrollment, among others areas. The story became a topic of heated debate, met with accolades from concerned mothers of sons and criticism from feminist academics.

Tyre has since expanded her look at the issue in a recently published book, The Trouble With Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators Must Do. The book, based on interviews with hundreds of boys and their families, as well as gender-gap experts, details the problems boys are facing in school and argues for a new, boy-focused “gender revolution.”

READ MORE...

Jungen fehlen die männlichen Vorbilder

[Rhein-Berg/Oberberg, Mittwoch, 25. Juni 2008]

VON STEPHANIE PEINE

Hilfe für Jungen hat keine Lobby. Ohne Unterstützung ist die Arbeit des Forums Jungenarbeit gefährdet. Es setzt sich aus Mitarbeitern von Beratungseinrichtungen, Kindergärten, Schulen und anderen sozialen Einrichtungen zusammen.

Bergisch Gladbach - Jungen haben immer seltener männliche Vorbilder in der Familie. Und was im häuslichen Umfeld fehlt, setzt sich auch im Kindergarten und der Grundschule fort. Jungen benötigten aber begreifbare Vorbilder wie Väter, Onkel, Erzieher und Lehrer, die mit ihnen gemeinsam hinter die Fassade idealisierter Männlichkeitsbilder schauten. „Umso wichtiger ist die geschlechtsspezifische Jungenarbeit“, so der Diplom Sozialarbeiter Roberto Dassum. Zu diesem Zweck gründete sich vor einigen Jahren das Forum Jungenarbeit. Es setzt sich aus Mitarbeitern von Beratungseinrichtungen, Kindergärten, Schulen und anderen sozialen Einrichtungen zusammen. Doch nach dem Wegfall von RegioNet sei dieses Gremium weitgehend auf sich selbst gestellt, habe keine Lobby. Wir leben vom freiwilligen Engagement der etwa zwölf Mitarbeiter, berichtet Dassum.

Ohne personelle und finanzielle Unterstützung sei die Arbeit nur noch eingeschränkt zu leisten, wandte er sich jüngst auch mit der Bitte um Unterstützung an die Fraktionen im Stadtrat. „Wir haben keine Lobby, bedauerte Dassum. Stattdessen sehen man sich häufig dem Verdacht ausgesetzt, Jungen zu „verweiblichen“. In Wahrheit gehe es um die Erweiterung des Selbstbewusstseins von Jungen, sich selbst mit Stärken und Schwächen kennen zu lernen.

Immer mehr Jungen fielen durch massive Probleme in Elternhaus und Schule auf. „Das zeigt sich ganz deutlich in den Jugendberatungsstellen“, sagte Dassum. „Die meisten Schulschwänzer und Schulabbrecher sind Jungen, sie fallen häufiger durch Gewalt auf und sind überproportional in den Förderschulen vertreten. All das sind deutliche Zeichen für die Wichtigkeit geschlechtsspezifischer Arbeit.

Die geschlechtsspezifische Jungenarbeit sei keine Methode oder Technik, sondern eine Auseinandersetzung mit Jungen - eine Lebenseinstellung wie der Feminismus. Sie dürfe auch nicht als eine Art Feuerwehr missverstanden werden, sondern müsse mehr sein als Gewaltprävention und Kriminalitätsvorbeugung. Geschlechtsbezogene Jungenarbeit habe eine emanzipatorischen Ansatz, möchte heranwachsenden Männern Selbstvertrauen vermitteln und dadurch Gewalt verhindern.

Bisher werde ihre Arbeit im wesentlichen nur von der Initiative der Ordensträgerinnen im Rheinisch-Bergischen Kreis (IdO) unterstützt. Der Zusammenschluss von Frauen, die mit dem Bundesverdienstorden ausgezeichnet wurden, finanziere Fortbildungsangebote für Lehrer, Erzieher und andere Multiplikatoren. So hofft man, Inhalte zu transportieren und für das Thema zu sensibilisieren. Leider, so Dassum, zeigten sich die Schulen bisher wenig interessiert.

jube@netcologne.de

"Wohlfühl-Kuschel-Pädagogik geht Jungs gewaltig auf die Nerven"

[Spiegel, 05. April 2008]


BÖSE BUBEN

Hinter den Mädchen bleiben Jungen schulisch deutlich zurück. Sind sie Bildungsversager mit Gewaltneigung? In Kindergärten wie Schulen dominiere ein verhuscht-weibliches Klima, sagt Kinderpsychologe Wolfgang Bergmann im Interview - und sieht Jungs trotzdem im Vorteil.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Herr Bergmann, warum stecken die Jungen in der Krise?

Wolfgang Bergmann: Das bestreite ich vehement.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Aber die schulischen Leistungen legen das doch nahe: Jungen haben schlechtere Noten und brechen häufiger die Schule ab als Mädchen.

Bergmann: Da sehen Sie mal, wie verengt unser Blickfeld ist. Man kann aber Lebenserfolg glücklicherweise nicht nur an Schulnoten messen. Sonst hätten Sie in der Tat Recht.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Dann ist also alles in Ordnung?

Bergmann: Überhaupt nicht. In Sachen Erziehung und Schule läuft es für die Jungen zurzeit wirklich schlecht. Hier hat sich eine Wohlfühl-Kuschel-Pädagogik eingeschlichen, die den kleinen Jungs gewaltig auf die Nerven geht.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Weil in Kindergärten und Grundschule fast nur Frauen arbeiten?

Bergmann: Das hat sicher damit zu tun. Es geht aber mehr um diese generelle Antigewalt-, Antikörperlichkeit-, Antimännlichkeitserziehung. Auch die männlichen Pädagogen haben ja dieses seltsame Umhüllungs- und Friedensideal soweit übernommen, dass es schnurz ist, ob ein Mann oder eine Frau verantwortlich ist. Wenn heute im Kindergarten beim Ballspielen eine Fensterscheibe zu Bruch geht, wird doch sofort der Morgenkreis einberufen. Jungen haben heute kaum noch die Fähigkeit, sich selbst in ihrer Körperlichkeit, in ihrer männlichen Durchsetzungsfähigkeit kennenzulernen. Sie werden mit Teilen ihrer Männlichkeit überhaupt nicht mehr bekannt.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Welche männlichen Eigenschaften oder Verhaltensweisen meinen Sie?

Bergmann: Es geht um die einfachsten Dinge: Wenn zwei Jungs im Kindergarten raufen, um die Hierarchie untereinander festzulegen, dann hat ein Pädagoge da nichts zu suchen. Jungs machen ihre Sozialisierungs-Erfahrungen anders. Übrigens: Wenn heute in Sachen Jugendgewalt bei Schlägereien noch hemmungslos zugetreten wird, wenn der andere schon am Boden liegt, hat das zum Teil auch damit zu tun, dass die Jungs gar nicht mehr wissen, was sie dem Gegenüber damit antun. Es fehlt ihnen an der eigenen körperlichen Erfahrung. Wenn ich hyperaktive Kinder oder jugendliche Computersüchtige habe, schicke ich sie reihenweise zu den Pfadfindern, weil dort noch das Erleben von Körperlichkeit möglich ist. Ich kann mich doch nur mit nach außen gewendeten Aktionen selbst als Körper erfahren. Erst dadurch entwickeln Jungs eine eigene Empfindsamkeit, die sie brauchen, um sich in den anderen hinein zu versetzen.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Sollen etwa Eltern, Erzieher, Lehrer aggressive Jungs einfach prügeln lassen?

Bergmann: So lange es ungefährlich ist, unbedingt. Das ist Erlernen von sozialen Verhaltensweisen. Jungs sind schon im zarten Alter von zwei bis vier Jahren völlig anders als Mädchen. Sie müssen ihre Erfahrungen mit dem Raum um sie herum auch mit männlicher Wucht machen können. Wenn das blockiert wird, wird die kognitive und soziale Entwicklung eines Jungen gehemmt. Gleichzeitig werden sie dann eingehüllt in diese weibliche harmonische Lebenswelt, die ihnen unendlich auf den Keks geht. Im Grunde ist es ein Wunder, dass es noch so viele seelisch gesunde Jungen gibt.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Wo sehen Sie Versäumnisse der Schulen?

Bergmann: Man müsste die Schulen und Kindergärten öffnen und Männer reinholen. Gar keine gelernten Pädagogen, die tun den Kindern meist ohnehin nicht so gut. Stattdessen Handwerker, Bildhauer, Männer mit Lebenserfahrung und einer starken Biografie, auch mit autoritären Zügen, an denen man sich orientieren kann. Jungs brauchen das. Sie lernen gegenständlicher, materialhafter. Schauen Sie doch nur, wie die am Hausmeister hängen, wenn das ein kinderlieber Mann ist. Die fahren voll auf diesen praktischen Typen ab.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Das erklärt noch nicht, warum Jungen schulisch schlechter abschneiden.

Bergmann: Jungs müssen heute in der Schule Dinge tun, die sie überhaupt nicht können: alles, was ganz gleichmäßig und regelmäßig verläuft. Sie können dagegen sehr schnell in Bildwelten interagieren und reagieren. Im Visuellen sind die Jungen hochgradig effektiv. Das spielt aber in der Schule keine Rolle. Es wird von links nach rechts gelesen und dann wieder von vorn. Alles verläuft gleichmäßig: Stillsitzen und Zuhören. Die Jungs werden in dieser Lust von Ordnung schier verrückt. Deshalb lehnen sie dieses System dann einfach unwillkürlich ab. Und wenden sich anderen Dingen zu.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Computerspielen zum Beispiel.

Bergmann: Gut, dass Sie das ansprechen. Das ist nämlich auch so eine Entwicklung, die völlig falsch verstanden wird. Schauen Sie sich doch mal die moderne Kultur an: Internet, globale Wirtschaft, Börsengeschehen, die ganze digital durchwirkte Gesellschaft - das ist eine reine Männerproduktion. Es gibt bei der Entwicklung des Internets und den digitalen Technologien keine bedeutenden weiblichen Anteile. Unsere Wirklichkeit besteht aus reinen Männerfantasien. Es ist nämlich gerade nicht so, dass die Gesellschaft die Männer an den Rand gedrängt hat, im Gegenteil: Was wir heute erleben, ist die Fortsetzung und Zementierung der Männerkultur mit digitalen Mitteln. Die Frauen sind nicht zufällig noch immer nicht in den Spitzenpositionen angekommen. Sie bewegen sich lediglich hervorragend in einem Bildungsideal, das gar nicht mehr zeitgemäß ist. Die Jungs sind da schon längst wieder weiter. Das wird die männliche Dominanz fortschreiben.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Und das wäre Ihre Warnung an alle Frauen, die glauben, endlich am Ziel zu sein?

Bergmann: So ist es. Das Lesen und Schreiben, das die Mädchen nachweislich besser können, ist zutiefst verschieden vom Lesen und Schreiben und Interagieren im Internet. Für die Bewältigung, das schnelle Reagieren und die Selektierung der heutigen Medien- und Bilderflut, von den Börsen bis in andere digitale Vorgänge, dies alles lernen die kleinen Mädchen nicht. Sie lernen, sich in der Schule anzupassen. Sie erlernen Fähigkeiten, die man in einer Gesellschaft modernen Zuschnitts nicht mehr unbedingt braucht.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Von solchen Entwicklungen um sich herum können kleine Jungen noch gar nichts wissen - wie können sie dann aus einem Erziehungssystem, wie Sie es beschreiben, ausscheren?

Bergmann: Das ist in der Tat faszinierend. Ich glaube, das ist kulturelles Menschheitserbe. Von den antiken Philosophen bis zur digitalen Revolution der Neuzeit, all diese fantastischen, Zeit und Raum überspringenden Welten, all das ist doch eine durchgängige Geschichte des männlichen Geistes. Und die Jungen von heute schließen sich sowohl biologisch wie mental daran an. Nur merkt das niemand. Das ist ein somatisch unbewusster Vorgang - eine lange Menschheitsgeschichte, die sich mit jeder Generation fortsetzt. Daran wird auch die propagandastärkste Emanzipation nichts ändern.

Das Interview führte Jochen Schönmann

Geschlechtertrennung im Unterricht hilft den Schülern

[Die Tagespost, 03.04.2008]

Marie-Theres Kastner MdL (CDU), Bundesvorsitzende der katholischen Elternschaft Deutschlands, über die Pädagogik des Lernens

„Mädchen lernen anders – Jungen auch“ hat die Katholische Elternschaft Deutschlands (KED) beobachtet und sich deshalb auf ihrem diesjährigen Jahreskongress in Augsburg auf die Suche nach der „Geschlechtergerechtigkeit als pädagogisches Leitkriterium“ begeben. Über die Ergebnisse der Tagung sprach Achim Hermes mit Marie-Theres Kastner MdL (CDU), Vorsitzenden der Katholischen Elternschaft Deutschlands und Mitglied des nordrhein-westfälischen Landtags.

Was ist heute noch vom koedukativen Unterricht zu halten?

Lange Zeit haben Pädagogen und Eltern das hohe Lied des koedukativen Unterrichts gesungen. Seit wenigen Jahren gibt es ernst zu nehmende Untersuchungen, die zumindest in ausgewählten Fächern die Trennung von Jungen und Mädchen empfehlen.

Was eigentlich ist das Problem?

Jungen lesen weniger, bleiben öfter sitzen, sie brechen öfter die Schule ab, sie landen häufiger auf Förderschulen und unter ihnen sind mehr, die keinen Hauptschulabschluss erreichen. Mädchen kommen häufiger zum Abitur als Jungen, sie erhalten mehr Ausbildungsstellen, ihre Arbeitslosenquote ist geringer. Kurz: Die Jungen sind die Bildungsverlierer unseres Schulsystems. Das ist die eine Seite des Problems. Die andere Seite ist, dass sich die besseren Abschlüsse der Mädchen nicht adäquat in ihren späteren beruflichen Positionen widerspiegeln. Daher begründet sich dann, warum es an den Universitäten bis heute klassische von Jungen und Männern dominierte Fächer gibt wie zum Beispiel Ingenieurwissenschaften, ebenso wie es klassische, von Mädchen und Frauen dominierte Fächer gibt wie zum Beispiel das Lehramtsstudium für Grundschulen. Dies hat auch etwas mit der Form des Unterrichts zu tun. Der ist oft noch wenig praxisbezogen, er ist eher theoretisch und wird offenbar als langweilig empfunden. Das betrifft insbesondere die Naturwissenschaften. Gleichzeitig nimmt der Unterricht zu wenig auf die spezifischen Lernbedingungen von Jungen und Mädchen Rücksicht. Wir haben auf der Tagung zum Beispiel einen Workshop mit zwei Lehrerinnen organisiert, sehr erfolgreiche Pädagoginnen, von denen die eine ein Mathematikbuch nur für Mädchen herausgegeben hat. Damit hat sie großen Erfolg. Und sie zeigt damit, dass Mädchen in Naturwissenschaften sehr erfolgreich sein können. Fazit: Es reicht nicht, wenn man allen das gleiche beibringt. Man nivelliert, anstatt die Begabungen individuell zu fördern. Das Ergebnis spiegelt sich dann in der vorwiegend traditionellen Wahl der Universitätsfächer oder Ausbildungsberufe wider.

Warum beschäftigt sich die Katholische Elternschaft Deutschlands mit einem solchen Thema?

Diese Problematik trifft alle Schulen gleichermaßen. Damit trifft sie auch alle Eltern gleichermaßen. Darüber haben die knapp 100 Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmer der Tagung sehr engagiert diskutiert. Schule hat unseres Erachtens dann Erfolg, wenn die Schülerinnen und Schüler als Geschöpf Gottes in ihrer Ganzheit akzeptiert und gefördert werden. Das ist unser spezifischer Ansatz als Katholische Elternschaft Deutschlands. Und diesen Ansatz wollen wir unter die Eltern und in die Schulen tragen.

Welche Schlussfolgerungen ziehen Sie daraus?

Zum einen müssen wir in einer echten Erziehungspartnerschaft mit unseren Schulen ins Gespräch kommen, damit sie sich überlegen, wie sie Jungen und Mädchen mehr gerecht werden, zum Beispiel indem sie phasenweise Unterricht nur für Mädchen und eben nur für Jungen einführen. Das ist kein antiquiertes Denken, sondern das ist die Schlussfolgerung aus unserer diesjährigen Tagung. Gleichzeitig müssen unsere Schulen dafür sorgen, dass die Kinder individuell gefördert werden. Die Schulen in unserem Land, die ja vielfach, so wie in Nordrhein-Westfalen oder in Bayern, als eigenverantwortliche Schulen oder selbstständige Schulen angelegt sind, müssen die individuelle Förderung ihrer Jungen und Mädchen viel stärker als den Markenkern oder als das Profil ihrer Schule erkennen und herausarbeiten. Dies wird übrigens in Zeiten sinkender Schülerzahlen auch immer wichtiger für die Schulen selber. Sie müssen erkennen, dass sie nur überleben können, wenn sie ein eigenes und unverwechselbares Profil haben. Und was kann es für ein schöneres Profil, für einen Ort der Bildung und Erziehung geben als die Erkenntnis: Wir geben unseren Schülerinnen und Schülern die bestmögliche Lernkompetenz, die best mögliche, ihren individuellen Begabungen entsprechende Bildung mit auf den Weg?

Wie wird das jetzt umgesetzt, was sind die nächsten Schritte?

Die Ergebnisse dieser Tagung müssen wir als katholische Eltern nun in unsere Heimatgemeinden tragen. Wir müssen sie in die Politik der Bundesländer und in die Politik der Kommunen als Schulträger tragen. Und wir müssen sie an die Schulen vor Ort und zu den Eltern tragen. Dabei werden wir viel Überzeugungsarbeit leisten müssen. Doch das tun wir als katholische Eltern in Deutschland unter dem Motto „Eltermitwirkung macht Schule“ schon seit mehr als 40 Jahren. In dieser Zeit haben wir vor allem eine Erfahrung gemacht: Starke Eltern haben starke Kinder. Deshalb haben wir immer den Mut und das Bekenntnis der Eltern zur christlichen (Werte-)Erziehung ihrer Kinder gefördert und gefordert. Das wird auch unsere prioritäre Verpflichtung in der Zukunft als katholische Eltern sein und bleiben.

Toy weapons 'help boys to learn'

[BBC News, 29 December 2007]

Boys in nursery schools should not be discouraged from playing with toy guns and other weapons, the government says.

In guidance for nurseries in England, the Department for Children, Schools and Families says staff should resist a "natural instinct" to stop such play.
It says role playing helps create the right conditions for boys' learning and could help them become more engaged in education in the future.

Teachers have condemned the advice, saying toy guns "symbolise aggression".
The guidance - entitled Confident, Capable and Creative: Supporting Boys' Achievements - says "practitioners" often find boys' chosen type of play "more difficult to understand and value than that of girls".

Boys regularly use "images and ideas gleaned from the media" as starting points in play, the advice says, which "may involve characters with special powers or weapons".

"Adults can find this type of play particularly challenging and have a natural instinct to stop it," the guidance continues.

"This is not necessary as long as practitioners help the boys to understand and respect the rights of other children and to take responsibility for the resources and environment."

Fostering these "forms of play" helps to "enhance every aspect of their learning and development", it adds.


Better results

Boys' underachievement in schools has been a source of concern for teachers and ministers.

Girls are more likely to get the benchmark five good GCSEs than boys and more girls do better at A-level.

But the National Union of Teachers (NUT) has criticised the government's advice on toy guns.

General secretary Steve Sinnott said the problem with toy weapons was that they "symbolise aggression".

"The trouble with weapons is that the toy gun is often accompanied by aggression.

"The reason why teachers often intervene when kids have toy guns is that the boy is usually being very aggressive."


Gender stereotyping

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers' union, said any nursery following the government's advice risked angering parents.

"Many parents take the decision that their children won't have toy weapons," she said.

"In addition to that, I think this is a clear example of gender stereotyping.
"I do not think schools should be encouraging boys to play with toy weapons."
But children's minister Beverley Hughes said the advice took a "common-sense approach" to the fact that many young children favoured boisterous, physical activity.

Many boys liked pretending to be superheroes or playing at "Star Wars characters with their lightsabres", she said.

"Although noisy for adults such imaginary games are good for their development as well as good fun."

But she added: "The guidance also impresses upon staff the need to teach children that they must respect one another and that harming another person in the real world is not acceptable."

Stay-at-home fathers may harm boys’ education

[The Times, November 23, 2007]

Rosemary Bennett

Fathers who give up their jobs to care for young sons could be damaging their education, research suggests.

Boys who have been looked after by their fathers for 15 hours a week or more are less prepared for school than those brought up by their mothers. They also struggle to keep up once they get there, it concluded.

The study, which drew on data from 6,000 families in Bristol, found that daughters were unaffected when mothers and fathers swapped traditional roles. The results were the same regardless of how wealthy the family was.

The findings come as the Government is encouraging fathers to take more time off work to help to care for their children. They are entitled to two weeks’ paternity leave, three months’ parental leave and can work part-time.

Elizabeth Washbrook, research associate at Bristol University and author of the report, said: “When in charge, fathers may be more inclined to see their task as fulfilled by monitoring the child and seeing to their physical needs, and so less inclined to devise creative activities that develop the child’s intellectual skills.”
She said that when it came to daughters, it was possible that fathers were making more of an effort or that daughters needed less external stimulation. The report discovered that the problems with paternal care only began when the child turned one.

But Adrienne Burgess, research manager for Fathers Direct, said that choice was a crucial factor. She said that problems occurred when fathers had to look after their children because they had lost their jobs and the mother might not be happy about the situation. “It does not appear this research has factored that in,” she said.

She said that there were other concerns about the lack of a support network for fathers, which often led to loneliness and isolation. Mothers tend to form strong local networks, socialise together with their children and swap tips about child rearing.

Parents' Role Vital in Education of Boys Through Educational Games

Wednesday, August 8th 2007

By Alistair Owens

A global issue. The following comment were made by Patrick Manning Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning says research has shown that parents have a vital role to play in reversing the ongoing trend of girls outperforming boys at school. He did not identify the research data to which he was referring, but Manning urged parents to pay particular attention to the education of their male children."Early intervention in the home is therefore most necessary. We must keep a careful eye on the boys as well," Manning said.

Manning was speaking less than two months after the results of the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) examination taken by primary school pupils showed female pupils again outperformed the boys.Manning said it was becoming a global phenomenon that girls were outperforming boys at school. "And whilst our education systems must diagnose and prescribe cures for this growing trend, for this growing malaise, parents have a vital role to play in arresting this trend, particularly since the research shows that the gap starts very early in the education process," he said.

Manning said earlier that while Government acknowledged its responsibility in ensuring education played a critical role in national development, it was a fact that the vast majority of successful students came from homes where parents took a keen interest in the education of their children.

The painstaking and highly effective role achieved by parents when their children were toddlers, teaching them for example to walk and talk incurred two major facets. Learning was at the pace of the individual child and the learning process involved constant practice.As the child goes to school this vital interaction is generally lost. Parents don't want to interfere, feel inadequate, or are glad to get some free time back! Although teachers introduce the subject effectively the vital practice function, where 75% of learning retention is obtained is the most difficult aspect to achieve at school. Class size, range of ability and the reluctance of children; too shy to ask questions, embarrassed that they do not understand or peer pressure means they can easily slip behind and lose interest. The diligent teacher with some free time in their hectic schedule can help to correct the gap in their understanding but this is often a bridge too far.

Modern teaching resources used in school are predominately in the form of educational games and ideal to practice the lesson at home, critically at the pace of the child. Parental interaction in maths games, word games, science games, all have an element of "learning in disguise" and not seen as conventional homework. These learning games follow the curriculum from ages 3 - 15 years have a substantial benefit to the child in improving their understanding - and also the parent who can once again becomes pro- active in the schooling process.

Alistair Owens www.keen2learn.co.uk

Author's Bio

Alistair Owens is passionate that modern fun based education increases interest and understanding, and by re-engaging parents in an interactive role at home using these educational games and educational toys can substantially support their child's progress at school. He has developed an Intel award winning web site http://www.keen2learn.co.uk that promotes an extensive range of classroom games and educational learning programmes for use in UK schools and with parents at home.

Leave those kids alone

The idea that adults should be playing with their kids is a modern invention -- and not necessarily a good one (The Boston Globe, July 15, 2007)

By Christopher Shea

WHAT COULD BE more natural than a mother down on the rec-room floor, playing with her 3-year-old amid puzzles, finger-puppets, and Thomas the Tank Engine trains? Look -- now she's conducting a conversation between a stuffed shark and Nemo, the Pixar clown fish! Giggles all around. Not to mention that the tot is learning the joys of stories and narrative, setting him on a triumphal path toward school.

A "natural" scene? Actually, parent-child play of this sort has been virtually unheard of throughout human history, according to the anthropologist David Lancy. And three-fourths of the world's current population would still find that mother's behavior kind of dotty.American-style parent-child play is a distinct feature of wealthy developed countries -- a recent byproduct of the pressure to get kids ready for the information-age economy,

Lancy argues in a recent article in American Anthropologist, the field's flagship journal in the United States."Adults think it is silly to play with children" in most cultures, says Lancy, who teaches at Utah State University. Play is a cultural universal, he concedes, "but adults aren't part of the picture." Yet middle-class and upper-middle-class Americans -- abetted, he says, by psychologists -- are increasingly proclaiming the parents-on-all-fours style the One True Way to raise a smart, well-adjusted child.There is now a concerted effort to spread adult-child play beyond its stronghold in the upper- and middle-classes of wealthy countries. To this end, many cities and states support programs of some sort. Massachusetts will give the Parent-Child Home Program, which has 33 sites in the state, $3 million this year (up from $2 million last year). Through the program, staff members visit the homes of low-income residents and offer tips not just on good books for toddlers but also on "play activities" for parents and kids. Likewise, the eminent Yale psychologist Jerome Singer has partnered with a media company to devise imaginative parent-child games (examples: "My Magic Story Car" and "Puppets: Counting") that librarians and social workers can teach to low-income parents.

Lancy is concerned that specialists behind the movement -- psychologists, social workers, preschool teachers -- are too aggressively promoting this intense, interventionist parenting style to low-income parents, and that they are are too quick to claim that adult-child play is crucial for human development. He doesn't quite rule out that some interventions may improve literacy -- though the data are murkier than the psychologists admit, he insists. But the programs, with their premise (as he sees it) that a whole class of people is simply parenting badly, leave their advocates "open to charges of racism or cultural imperialism."

One inspiration for the article, Lancy says, was that he kept coming across accounts of parents who felt guilty that they did not enjoy playing with their children. The psychologist Daniel Kahneman and the economist Alan Krueger, both at Princeton, have found that parents routinely claim that playing with their kids is among their favorite activities, but when you ask them to record their state of mind, hour by hour, they rate time spent with their children as being about as much fun as housework.

In his article, Lancy draws on decades of ethnographic work to show how rare parent-child play has been in the world. The Harvard anthropologist Robert LeVine, for example, observed in a 2004 paper that among the Gusii people of Kenya, "mothers rarely looked at or spoke to their infants and toddlers, even when they were holding and breast-feeding them." (So much for the universality of peek-a-boo.) On Ifaluk Island, in the South Pacific, tribespeople believe that babies are "essentially brainless" before age 2, so there is no point in talking to them.

The goal of the Yucatec Maya is to keep babies in a "kind of benign coma," through bathing and swaddling, so that parents can leave them and get work done. As recently as 1914, the US Department of Labor's Child Bureau advised parents not to play with babies, for fear of overstimulating their little nervous systems.

If interactions with babies are rare in much of the world, "mother-toddler play is virtually nonexistent," Lancy writes.

To be sure, there are exceptions. Some African foraging tribes display striking examples of parental playfulness. And the Inuit make toys for their toddlers and get goofy -- but they're cooped up for months at a time in igloos, bored witless. Lancy suggests that the American milieu -- caregivers stuck, without a community, in oversized homes -- is not entirely dissimilar.

Alison Gopnik, a developmental psychologist at Berkeley, agrees with parts of Lancy's argument: In much of the world, parents are unlikely to be the main caregivers, and Americans go overboard with structured parent-child play which has explicit academic goals. But she says that Lancy vastly understates the interactions between parents and children. In many cultures, mothers hold their babies much, much more than American mothers do, and holding and cuddling a child can be as stimulating and playful as peek-a-boo, she says.

"The fact that non-Western parents do not interact with their babies like Western parents doesn't mean they aren't interacting with them," Gopnik says.

And if African children learn from older siblings how to use a bow-and-arrow in a playful way, she asks, how different is that from American parents (or nannies) playfully teaching kids practices useful in American culture, such as verbal agility?

Tribal practices aside, the real source of contention is what sort of child-rearing advice low-income Americans should be receiving from social workers, psychologists, and other people interested in improving the academic readiness of poor kids. Yale's Singer, co-author (with his wife, Dorothy) of "The House of Make-Believe: Children's Play and the Developing Imagination" (1990), says his data show that children who played versions of "My Magic Story Car," in which a parent pretends to drive with the kids to various locations, having adventures along the way (with a subtle vocab lesson or two thrown in), do better on literacy tests than their peers.

"I'm not clear what's bothering this guy," he says, referring to Lancy. "We are not talking about the parents playing all day long with the children. We're just saying that children need to play, and particular kinds of play -- imaginative play that has a storytelling element to it -- are very useful" in our culture.

Still, the proselytizing on behalf of playful middle-class approaches vexes many anthropologists. A crystallizing moment for their concern came with the publication of a lengthy article in The New York Times Magazine last November by Paul Tough, an editor at the magazine, on efforts by some educators to erase cultural differences between low-income and middle-class students.

Tough leaned on the work of the University of Maryland sociologist Annette Lareau, who has described the dominant middle- and upper-middle-class parenting style as one of "concerted cultivation": scheduled time, interactive banter and play, and the encouragement of the child to challenge the parent's opinions. In contrast, she summarizes the low-income parents' approach as "the accomplishment of natural growth": less direct involvement with the kids, more unsupervised play, and more enforcement of rules.

More controversial than the sociological work was Tough's summary -- that poor parents fail to deliver "everyday intellectual and emotional stimuli" or to impart "character," "self-control, adaptability, patience, and openness."

Mica Pollock, an associate professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, says it's one thing to encourage low-income parents to read to their kids or tell them stories. But "it's a huge and dangerous overstatement to say that low-income parents don't stimulate their children." In fact, some research, she says, suggests that the approach used by some low-income parents teaches virtues such as patience and adaptability better than more freewheeling parenting styles.

And let's not idealize middle-class kids: "Some of those children are being raised to be spoiled, demanding, requiring constant adult attention, and inclined to argue with their parents," Pollock says.

This debate is unlikely to sway the convictions of the pro-play crowd. Stevanne Auerbach, the author of "Smart Play, Smart Toys: How to Raise a Child with a High PQ" -- play quotient -- says her goal is to "encourage parents to understand that they are their children's first big toy." But for the parents not energized by the prospect of all those hours in the playroom -- parents who would rather be doing something else -- Lancy's article offers the solace that comes from knowing you're not alone, globally or historically. Goodbye Thomas the Tank Engine, hello sports pages?

Conference puts spotlight on boys' education

1233 ABC Newcastle, July 4, 2007

University academics from across the world have gathered in Newcastle for a two-day conference aimed at improving educational outcomes for boys.

The Working with Boys, Building Fine Men conference starts today, and will discuss a range of initiatives, including mentoring programs.

Guest speaker John Andriunas says he will highlight the success of his program which tries to get fathers more involved in their sons' schooling.

"Mums have been the care givers throughout the history of our children and they look after the kids right from birth right through preschool and school," he said.

"We don't want to take anything away from the mothers, but we have found that the educational outcomes, social outcomes for children if their fathers are involved are a lot higher."

Boys Adrift

New book:

by Leonard Sax
Boys Adrift: the five factors driving the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving young men.

Boys Adrift will be published on August 13 2007

Childhood versus the Pussycat Dolls

Mercatornet, 29 March 2007


Written by Theron Bowers

A widely publicised report on the sexualisation of girls belabours the obvious and fails to make effective recommendations. Why?

First, Madonna, then Britney, today's queens of pop eroticism are the Pussycat Dolls. The former burlesque dance troupe turned singers are everywhere posing in lingerie and chirping, "Doncha". Last spring the toy company Hasbro even announced a plan for a Pussycat fashion doll. According to the New York Times, the toy line was "intended for children age 6-9" and aimed "to mimic the act’s playfully risqué style". Other sexy dolls have been hits -- the Spice Girls dolls generated 150 million. The Bratz dolls, mini-skirted valley girls, are popular and have a Saturday morning cartoon show. So the Hasbro deal didn’t raise any eyebrows. The business section of the Times reported on the story no differently than any other commercial deal. Readers were probably left wondering, what’s next, pole-dancing Barbie?

Fortunately, parents responded quickly to the prospect of their 6-year-old daughters mimicking the Pussycat Dolls. Less than a month later, Hasbro dropped its plans. Unfortunately, moms and dads had slowed the march against childhood for only a moment.

The American Psychological Association (APA) has also noticed these assaults on girlhood. Last month, it released a report from its Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. Like many professional organisations, the APA is a subsidiary of the progressive movement. A few years ago the organisation published a study which suggested that child sexual abuse wasn’t very harmful. Lately, the APA has taken up the battle against American Indian mascots, abstinence education and teaching intelligent design.

The APA claims that the task force was begun in response to "public concern". The concern is hardly new. More than 25 years ago, the starlet Brooke Shields became a 15-year-old teenage sex kitten in provocative Calvin Klein ads for jeans. In 1999, after the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, we were introduced to the Felini-esque world of child beauty pageants with six-year-old girls coquettishly batting their eyelashes and prancing around in swim suits.

The APA's report spins a tale of a monistical cultural web involving the media, families and peers which harass and sexualise young female victims. In a Stockholm Syndrome twist, the girls adopt the men’s sexual image of women. The story ends with women suffering from impaired cognitive functioning, body dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, physical health problems and exploitation.
The Task Force has an easy time proving the obvious. The media frequently presents women as sexual objects. Unfortunately, the title of the report states, "Girls." Most of the sexualised images are of women. The authors of the report state that girls model themselves after women, hence the images are relevant.

Their justification is acceptable. Girls grow up with bed-hopping shows like Friends and Sex and the City. Former Disney Wonderkid, now trampy boozer, Linsay Lohan has praised Sex and the City stating that the show ''changed everything for me, because those girls would just sleep with so many people!''
However, the Task Force has a tougher problem demonstrating harm. Most researchers work at universities where there is a shortage of 12-year-old girls. The majority of the studies involve college women. While the old lemons and lemonade approach may work for some problems, good research isn’t so flexible. The Task Force tries to finesse the lack of relevant subjects by reasoning that "what young women believe about themselves and how they feel at the present moment were shaped by how they were treated and what they were exposed to when they were girls." Excuse changing the metaphor, but this lemon is hard swallow. People’s beliefs and feelings are also changed by what they experienced one hour ago. Anyone who has been to college knows how easily some young people can change after a few weeks.

None the less, the Task Force arrives at some interesting conclusions about the consequences of sexualisation. The attention grabber in several stories has been the swim suit versus the sweater experiment. The authors described an experiment with college students. Students were asked to try on and evaluate either a sweater or a swim suit. While waiting in a dressing room, they were asked to complete a math test. The women who wore the sweater did significantly better on the math test than women in the swim suites. The report notes similar results among minority women.

The writer concludes that thinking about the body and comparing it to sexualised ideas disrupted "mental capacity" (although it appears that performance was disrupted rather than capacity). The Task Force gushes over this series of studies: "The implications are stunning and suggest that sexualisation may contribute to girls dropping out of higher level mathematics in high school."
As for mental illness, the Task Force argues that cultural beauty ideas lead to eating disorders. However, the studies cited noted that only when the beauty idea emphasises thinness is there an association with anorexia.

Looking at the culture through the microscopic lens of science, the Task Force distorts the evidence throughout the report. The microscope shows decreased cognitive performance. Yet, the big picture reveals that college attendance is higher than ever and women outnumber men. The microscope focuses on the influence of beauty on thinness but ignores the influence of class values and health on thinness. Remember Gloria "You can never be too rich or too thin" Vanderbilt?

The Task Force places most of the responsibility for solving the problem with the government, through schools, legislation and research money. When mentioned, parents are portrayed as either ignorant dupes or as promoters of a sexualised message. Mothers are criticised for "fat talk" and fathers appear lecherous. Despite the emphasis on modesty and virtues other than attractiveness in traditional Western faiths, religion is only briefly mentioned and more attention is paid to eastern meditative practices than traditional Christianity.

Some headlines have proclaimed that the report calls for a removal of sexualised images of girls. In fact, the Task Force's recommendations are quite tepid. Although a minuscule proportion of advertisements involve sexualised image of children, the Task Force only suggests that the government "reduce" the use of sexualised images of girls. The Task Force recommendations are silent about limiting the use of eroticised adult female images or pornography. The Task Force fails to heed their previous evidence that girls are sexualised by modelling themselves after the images of adult women. The Pussycat fashion dolls may have a new life after this report.

The APA Task Force calls for a safe surrender and no meaningful changes in our current climate of sexualisation, illustrated by their emphasis on comprehensive sex education. Sex education is a harm-reduction strategy which is not intended to combat or support resistance to sexualisation any more than needle exchange programs fosters overcoming addiction. Meanwhile, the APA has declared a jihad against abstinence-only programs. Unlike cucumber and condom programs, the abstinence-only approach may actually encourage girls and boys to respect themselves, their sexuality, marriage and children.

The APA Task Force knows the problem but not the solution. For the Task Force, strengthening families and returning to traditional values is not a consideration. The Pussycat Dolls can curl up by their milk and sleep well tonight. The APA is no threat to Doll Power.

Theron Bowers MD is a psychiatrist Deep in the Heart of Texas and may be contacted at tcbowers@sbcglobal.net.