Classrooms Are For Girls

With our sixth child due in less than a month, Margaret and I have been to the doctor's office a lot. Because I've done this a few times now, I am no longer uncomfortable sitting in the waiting room or walking down the hallway to the examining room. It's usually the same ol' rigmarole so I know exactly what to expect, especially in the lobby. I know that the magazine selection is typically going to be geared toward women so I go prepared. Now, I do admit that they will often have a few token (outdated) issues of Field and Stream and Sports Illustrated; but since I don't read that stuff either, I bring with me a book or something to read while we wait. During a visit a few weeks ago Margaret shared an article with me that she found in this month's issue of Parents magazine called Help Your Son Succeed in School. I would never have found this article on my own because I never read Parents magazine. It's called Parents but this magazine is obviously geared toward women or mothers. Anyway...

The description of the article was this:

Today's classrooms are geared toward girls, and it's easy for boys to get discouraged at an early age.

The fact that classrooms are geared toward girls was one of the first things I learned when we started looking into homeschooling our children. Just because they are physically active, many boys are falsely diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This wasn't a big deal when I was a kid. If it had been, I'm sure they would have used me as the poster child for ADHD. In fact, my brothers were pumped full of Ritalin when they were young because my parents were bamboozled by the 'experts' and they believed this lie. They thought there was something wrong with them because instead of paying attention to the teacher, their minds would wander and they would think about playing outside. They were just being boys, that's all.

Because of the topic of this article, I was surprised that it was even in Parents magazine. I did notice that it didn't speak against public schooling so I wondered if the author knew anything about homeschooling; so I did a bit of research. I found out that the author, Jennifer L. W. Fink, is actually a registered nurse and a single mother of four boys that she homeschools. Check out her blog: bloggingboutboys.blogspot.com It's obvious now that she intentionally wrote this article for public, private, and charter schooling parents of boys. Good for her. I only wish that in her suggested 'blueprint for boys' she would have added as a final option - homeschool your boys.

If you have young boys, whether you plan on homeschooling them or not, read this article and then begin your own research on how to raise them God's way. You can start with the Proverbs.

I also recommend the book Future Men by Douglas Wilson:

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