Boys in Primary Grade Classrooms

Part of the SCHOOL IS NOT REAL LIFE Series

A client couple asked me to observe their nearly five-year-old son in his small private school K-1 classroom (that’s kindergarten through 1st grade). Their little boy was already tested and found to be exceptionally gifted, so the small private school was willing to accept him into their program before he was five years old. But he hated school and wasn’t making the progress that anyone had envisioned. They told me that the teacher, a young woman in her first year of teaching, was interested in whatever recommendations I might make to “engage” this child in learning at school.

First, I watched and noticed the eight little girls in the classroom vie for top spot by finishing all they were asked to do quickly and perfectly. The girls set to work immediately when the teacher told them what they were to do. I watched the four little boys slide around in their seats — or fall off completely — or get up and walk around, ask to go to the bathroom, rip holes in the paper with pencil and scissors, put their heads on their desks, and otherwise not even begin to do what they were asked to do. The boy I was asked to watch behaved in all the “wrong” ways just as his parents had been told, but absolutely the same way as the other boys in the class.