Thursday, February 5, 2009

Action Plan

Kris Martin, Words – 971



The general topic that I’m investigating is: Learning through play. It is now recognised that this is the natural way children acquire and master the skills necessary to survive and thrive in the world. However, this is a very wide subject area and as such requires to be more focused.


Aim

The aim of my research will be to consider how the curriculum may be constructed if it was to cater specifically to the needs and interests of boys. I chose this aim because growing up I was in constant conflict with my school and its teachers. The subjects I did well in were those that I had an extra-curricular interest. If school did anything it made me like my favourite subjects less - damaging my interest in Art and Maths by taking the fun out of them and making them seem like hard work. As a result of my experience and knowledge acquired through units in this HNC course (DF54 34, DF55 34, DF52 34), I believe that the curriculum may be damaging to children's natural learning instinct and enthusiasm. This belief motivated me to read widely on the subject of learning, informing my decision to investigate this subject further. I decided to tailor it to focus on boys because I feel that many of the difficulties I had while at school was because the teaching (apart from P.E.) was gender-neutral, I want to investigate the validity of this claim.


Differences between the sexes.

The starting point of my investigation will be into the physiological and psychological differences between developing boys and girls. It is clear that there is behaviour which we consider typical of a particular sex; we have to begin by demonstrating what these differences are and what potential impact has on learning.

In the past 30 years the consensus has been that gender is socially constructed (DF56 34). In this time there has been a definite shift toward being gender-neutral (DF51 34). Boys for the first time were being encouraged to put down their trucks, go dress up in girly clothes and play in the house corner with a doll. If gender is indeed socially constructed, after 30 years of gender-neutral education we should find that the interests and behaviour of boys and girls show no notable differences (DF54 34). I shall consider the alternative theory that gender may be hard-wired in to our genetics. I will draw on several large scale studies investigating differences in the brain, hearing and vision that I have sourced in various books and university journals. These insights will be triangulated with my own observations in the classroom (DF4Y 34).

The needs and interests of boys.

Having now settled the differences between the sexes and establishing that my original aim is worthy of pursuing, I can now focus more on boys by investigating their needs and interests (DF50 34). I will at the latest insights describing the best conditions for learning and relate how pushing down the focus on literacy to younger children particular boys is 'inappropriate' and therefore conflicts with the ideal conditions for learning. I will use a study which demonstrates that the various regions of the brain develop in a different sequence in boys compared with girls to back up the claim that early teaching of literacy is inappropriate for boys (DF58 34). The study will also serve to show that there are other brain functions that develop at a different rate, time and sequence which will be important to consider when trying to come up with a specific curriculum for boys.

I will then look at how boys relate to each other (DF54 34) in an attempt to understand what interests them as a whole and how they behave and view the world in general when in the comfortable surroundings of their friends. My next point will be to consider the importance of status to boys, and how this manifests itself in a school environment, where any boy who publicly takes school and the teachers seriously is considered to be a 'geek'; which as far as boys are concerned, is a very low rank in terms of status.

The final part of this investigation will be to into the kind of literature that appeals to boys (DF58 34) and which type of literature risks turning them off reading. I will attempt explain with the help of a Harvard study why and then look at solutions to the problem of getting boys interested in reading.


The Curriculum

In my final investigation I will look at how the curriculum changed from being teacher driven to the current state driven model with the introduction of the National Curriculum (DF51 34). The reasons behind it and how this has impacted on boys.

I will consider how the 'Curriculum for Excellence' (DF51 34) has attempted to reconcile the negative impact the National Curriculum has had in terms of being too focused on measuring progress rather than progressing learning itself. With a greater emphasis on kinaesthetic learning it is certainly more appropriate, I will review whether the advances made have gone far enough to get boys enthusiastic about school.

I will look at the latest innovations in teaching (DF52 34) and highlight those that appear to be especially appropriate for boys in order to tie together what they should be taught, when it is appropriate to teach those particular subjects and the best methods of instruction to create a curriculum which at the right skill level for the young male population—a skill level that is challenging , but not frustrating.


Conclusion

I will conclude with my findings, my own thoughts on the matter, and attempt to outline what the most appropriate curriculum would be considering the research and latest innovations that I have uncovered in the course of this investigation.