Mothers & Sons
By Sandra Devera & Angel Alderson

We're finding that being both teacher and mother to our sons presents different challenges than we faced with our daughters. Truth is, we've always been girls, and we understand how girls think. With sons, on the other hand, we grapple with gender difficulties when we have taught something we think is perfectly understandable and find our boys looking at us like we're from another planet.

For example, when given a writing assignment, most girls will write about characters, feelings, and use lots of dialogue. When given the same writing assignment, most boys tend towards action, violence, and interjections. When asked by our boys what we think of the story, our first impulse is to say, "Well, who are these guys and why are they fighting?" Our reaction is purely female but it ends up frustrating the males who are looking for our approval.

Institutional education has recently realized that it is biased to the way females learn: quiet, controlled environments that reward neatness. This type of environment stifles boys who usually need to move, make noise, touch and experiment. Many homeschoolers have pulled their sons out of a rigid educational structure only to frustrate themselves and their sons by using traditional teaching methods at home.

Homeschooling allows us the freedom to adapt teaching methods to suit our student's learning style. Our challenge as mother/teacher for our boys is to follow Ephesians 6:4 and "not exasperate" our boys just because they think differently than we do. This requires that we remember:

• boys need to break up quiet, sitting time with noisy, moving activity. You may find your school day goes much better if you periodically take your son for a bike ride, or kick a soccer ball around with him in the backyard.
• not to let our feminine expectation of what we think is admirable influence our words, body language or facial expression when judging our sons' endeavors. We may like painting flowers, they prefer to draw monsters. We might want a story with feelings and motives, they want a story where things bash and crash.
• that one of the strengths God has given males is the ability to intently focus on a project. Assigning too many tasks at once or allowing too many distractions will short-circuit a boy's ability to concentrate or complete his tasks well. As one of our boy's said, "You have no idea what goes on in the mind of and eight-year-old boy." You're competing with a lot and you may need to make sure you have your son's complete attention when giving directions. This may require eye-contact or a gentle touch rather than just shouting at them from another room.
• when planning curriculum, include topics, materials, and activities that appeal to our boys. It's not so much what we want to teach, as what they'll be willing to learn! Our favorite books are not always big hits with our sons. We've found ourselves receiving a whole new education from them on the wonders of superheros and knights in armor.

Fortunately, there are resources available for re-training female brains to the wonders of what goes on if a young boy's mind. First and foremost, check with their father or other male role model. Things we have found perplexing sometimes makes perfect sense to them. Next, check with other mothers as to what they have found beneficial in their sons' education. There are also books available that address this issue. Dr. James Dobson's Bringing Up Boys has some nuggets of wisdom and explains how we have come to a state in our culture where boyhood is so misunderstood. Thomas Newkirk's Misreading Masculinity: Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture is helpful in understanding what types of literature and writing boys care about. The greatest resource of all as to what gets a "B for Boy rating" would be the sons you are trying to teach.

For more resources to help you teach to a variety of learning styles,
see our website at http://hometown.aol.com/SandyAngelPro