Psychologists to discuss ways boys, girls learn

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

By Richard Anderson

Girls take criticism hard and when writing tend to be more prolific. Boys tend to take more risks and behave more recklessly. Such differences may be related to the way children are socialized, or perhaps there’s some neurological explanation, but there are most certainly implications for the ways boys and girls learn.

That, in a nutshell, is what Dr. Michael Thompson and Dr. JoAnn Deak will talk about Friday and Saturday when they visit Jackson Hole for “Gender Differences and How the Research Informs Our Work,” a two-day conference at the Teton Science Schools for teachers.

Thompson and Deak also will speak at a free public presentation, “Boys will be Boys and Girls will be Girls,” held at 7 p.m. on Friday in the Center for the Arts Theater.
“For 30 years, we have had a kind of prohibition on thinking about the differences between boys and girls because equity feminists feared it,” said Thompson, a Ph.D., psychologist, family therapist and consultant to schools whose books include “Finding the Heart of the Child” and “Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys.” Thompson said the assumption was that such discussion of differences would be used against girls. “But now, as girls are beginning to out-perform boys [academically], their fears appear to be not so well founded.”

In fact, as American students fall behind many other countries in certain areas of education – including the sciences – understanding the many different ways different children learn may be crucial in making progress.

Thompson’s approach to the subject tends to be from a psycho-social perspective, while Deak (who was in Africa and unable to be reached for this story) looks at differences in brain structure. Deak is also a Ph.D., psychologist and consultant. Her titles include “Girls will be Girls: Raising Confident and Courageous Daughters” and “How Girls Thrive: An Essential Guide for Educators and Parents.”

“We’re discovering many brain differences,” said Thompson, who has made many joint appearances with Deak. “We don’t know all the implications, but we know they exist.”
He added that his perspective should not be construed as a backlash to 30 years of “equity feminism,” pointing out that he wrote his dissertation on anorexia as a cultural illness and that one of his children is a girl. “But you can’t be in mental health without seeing that gender plays out in different ways, and you have to deal with them as they come to you.”

Deak and Thompson’s visit has been arranged by the Teton County School District and the Teton Science Schools’ Teacher Learning Center, which hosts teachers from the region and from across the United States to study. In particular, teachers come to learn TSS’s brand of “place-based” education, in which students go out into their environment or community to learn, thereby picking up the skills they need to learn about any place where they might find themselves.

“I think we [the Teton Science Schools] have our own version” of place-based education, said Bonnie Jones, director of the Teacher Learning Center. “We’ve paid a lot of attention to it and made an effort to incorporate it into our schools … it’s the basis of everything we do.”

For many years, the Science School focused on the natural world and natural sciences, but in 2001 it opened its K-12 Journeys School, which offers a full curriculum. When it opened, “we realized we were going to have to expand the notion of place-based education,” Jones said, and that meant looking at how children learn most effectively. Hence the interest in gender differentiation, she said.

The weekend conference has attracted many Teton County teachers as well as teachers from Lander, Dubois and Idaho. To learn more, contact the Teacher Learnning Center at 733-1327 ext. 1108.
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