With special guest:
-
Janet Allison
… in conversation with Bill Kable
After listening to this show many men will be wishing that they could have had Janet Allison as their teacher in years gone by. Janet speaks to us from Portland Oregon in the USA where she has founded the organisation Boys Alive! to benefit teachers and children in the education process. Janet’s warm style is engaging and inspiring.
It may even sound a little funny to hear a boy say “I hate school” but behind that assertion are some worrying realities in the USA as mirrored in Australia. These include that boys far outweigh girls in every negative statistic as for example more boys than girls are expelled from preschool! More boys than girls have behaviour issues in elementary school; more boys drop out of high school than girls and on it goes.
Janet describes this statement from boys as a Red Flag and says that the current situation has reached crisis proportions. While Janet is herself the mother of two girls she sees this as a problem for everyone in the community. And Janet is well placed as an experienced educator and Family Coach to suggest activities that all parents and teachers can adopt.
In our program today Janet Allison tells us the three keys that parents need to be on the lookout for when their boys say they hate school. We also hear practical suggestions for the classroom that turn on their heads many of the accepted truths about teaching boys. For example the age-old prohibitions on fidgeting and doodling should be overturned. Boys need activity not sitting passively while they are being fed information aurally.
We also hear about the video game craze that can suck up all the attention span and free time of our boys.
The good news is that Janet Allison has teamed up with Jennifer Fink from BuildingBoys.net who has previously been on Dads on the Air to produce a webinar for parents who do not know what to say or do when their son says “I hate school”. The webinar is live and free so you can further access the pooled wisdom of Janet and Jennifer by going to their sites.
By enabling boys to succeed in their education we are not going to disadvantage ambitious girls. We need everyone to be able to do their best and the practical solutions offered by Janet Allison offer us a way forward against the current trends. This program deals with a world-wide problem and lets us know how to deal with it in a fun way.
Janet Allison
Janet Allison is an author, educator, and Family Coach. She is the founder of Boys Alive! helping parents and teachers understand how boys learn, relate, play, and communicate - so differently than girls. She speaks widely and offers courses and other resources on-line.
She is the author of Boys Alive! Bring Out Their Best! available on Amazon.com
Song selections by our guest: Nature Boy by Nat King Cole & Real Men by Joe Jackson
Note: This program is an encore presentation of the one aired on 5 Jan 2017.