Brain Insights

Boys’ and girls’ brains are wired differently when they are young. Boys have much more capacity to perceive and use movement, and girls develop better oral-language skills. Boys enter school on average six months behind girls in language and can fall behind in reading and writing if their learning style is not assessed. Boys get increasing jolts of testosterone around age six and seven when they set a goal and achieve it. Testosterone levels drop when they fail. Repeated lack of success in school causes boys to resist or “zone out” because they don’t want to feel lousy all the time. Helping boys learn benefits both boys and girls because boys who learn better become good contributing members of the classroom, and girls get more attention because much less of the teacher’s time is spent paying attention to boys’ discipline issues. The six secrets in the book Helping Boys Learn are easy to implement in the classroom, and a teacher edition of the book is available. Edmond Dixon’s resources and training sessions will be offered to schools as well as other organizations such as the YMCA and Scouts groups this fall in partnership with Classroom Connections, a charity dedicated to improving education in Canada.

For parents They have much more power to influence their son’s success than they think.

Understanding the six secrets and fostering them at home can make a boy a passionate learner at school.

A fun quiz available at Helpingboyslearn.com can tell parents which of the secrets would be most effective for their boys.