The Demandments of Teaching Boys

I decided to come up with a list of commandments that teachers should adhere to when working with boys. You may read this and think that it will works for girls and chalk it up as best practices. That is true to a some degree. Girls can only benefit from movement and teachers who consider developmental milestones when planning instruction However, these are things boys must scholastically. Executive functioning is one of them. Because of how boys’ brains develop they do not have (on average) the same capacity to plan, organize, and control their behaviors with dexterity that girls boast.

Over the next several months, I will expand on each demandment. Expanding will make things clearer to educators, parents and lay people who work with both boys and girls, and may not readily see the differences.

I hope through feedback and comments from educators, parents and the students that I work with daily to modify this list as needed. The Demandments are NOT clean and by no means fixed. They are quite fluid, though I did think long and hard about the Demandments that needed to be incorporated, which is why there are more than 10.

Without further ado:

1. In the early grades, thou shall express the importance of reading, as it is the passport to scholastic achievement and global citizenship.
2. Thou shall consider executive functioning when planning and differentiating.
3. Thou shall have movement and tap into multiple modalities even in middle and high school.
4. Thou shall have energy and enthusiasm, humor and not take yourself too seriously.
5. Thou shall consider brain breaks and energizers regardless of how well you adhere to commandment 2.
6. Thou shall not criminalize boy energy as misbehavior, remembering that adhering to demandments 2 and 4.
7. Thou shall use competition to create opportunities for teamwork, camaraderie and improved effort.
8. Thou shall use boys’ interest to hook them to segue into new  dimensions of learning.
9. Thou shall build and make things and craft lessons/activities relevant to the world boys live in.
10. Thou shall not pigeonhole boys nor stereotype them.
11. Thou shall have high expectations; behaviorally, spiritually and academically.
12. Thou shall create relationships with thoust boys because following all of the above commandments will not necessarily guarantee success with all boys at all times because if they did then boys would not be boys.

PS The girls in your classes will only appreciate your classroom environment more.