Traditions

March 15-17, 2012
-Home-

Round Table Conversation and Sharing (//Sacred Heart Traditions for Boys…for Girls…for Both//)
1. Based on Margaret Ferrara’s remarks last evening and your personal survey results, what did you learn about yourself?

2. Reflecting upon your learning environment (LE), social praise (SS) and your teaching strategies (TS) talk about what energizes you about teaching boys/girls/both.

3. Reflecting upon your learning environment (LE), social praise (SS) and your teaching strategies (TS) talk about what challenges you have experienced teaching boys/girls/both.

Click Edit in the top right corner. Place your cursor under the Notes section and add your group's discussion. Please identify the writing with each question as a section. Remember to click "Save" often.

__**NOTES:**__

Survey realization...not all fit into the gender characteristics So use individual and personal characteristics to learn, adapt, teach to all

Provide all students (girls/boys) the opportunities to solve problems

Try to move beyond what the generalization. When with girls you recognize the range of girls -- working with boys, see the same range One size does NOT fit all....develop the counterpart in each of us

Learn from all the engagements with all students

Looking at the human-ness rather than mostly at what girls DO, vs what boys DO

Emotional energy level drives girls' schools -- taking on the rescue role -- create a safe environment to explore and survive through failure/risk

//Group members// //MO: Marcia// //LA: Rachel and Bo// //IL: Lisa and Nick// //NJ: Cathy and María// //CA: Mike, Corey, and Ray//
 * ALL BOYS TEACHERS AND CONTEXTS**

**I. Surprise Findings**

 * Ray**—happy with the realization that he is inclined to teaching girls at a boys’ school. This offers balance to the school’s work (animus/anima).
 * Rachel**—established boy schools tend to be structured. In current school—which is just starting—there is more fluidity, openness to new structures.
 * Bo**—typically taught girls, but survey informed him that he was inclined to teach boys; but SS tends towards girls; offers balance to the work.
 * Lisa**—tend to be biased towards boys, but surprisingly found her teaching strategies and SS towards the girls. A bit surprised and disappointed. SS tends towards girls—what does this mean?
 * Mike**—surprised that TS and LE tend toward boys but at the same time surprised to see SS towards girls; reflective of Sacred Heart charism? Value of embodied teaching; valuing body and touch as a correlative to learning—especially important to boys who have been taught to avoid body and affection.
 * Cathy**—SS tends towards girls (but works well with boys).
 * Nick**—agrees with Ray that a necessary balance in one’s strengths in working with Boys and Girls offers balance to both communities. (Ray: teacher has to be both mother/father in the classroom).
 * Maria**—stereotyping genders ought to be avoided and tend to be nuanced in single-sex environment (boys). Boys surprisingly break gender expectations. Single-sex environment tend to open up spaces to expand gender roles/imaginations.
 * Ray**—other boys’ schools tend to approach discipline/character formation in a very strict way; at SHHS, there is a conscious effort to challenge masculine stereotypes—challenging homophobia, for example, and other forms of derogatory remarks. This reflects the charism of the Sacred Heart (from a teacher’s perspective).
 * Corey**—(student’s perspective)—shared with friends at SHHS and Georgetown: all boys’ environment tend to have expansive notions of gender and social roles; value for body and touch; different sense of being men (reference to “young men of courage and integrity”). Most alumni have a different sense of gender because it is talked about explicitly in the classroom.
 * Marcia**—alum of an all-girls’ school; loves the boys’ energy—this tended to influence approach to social praise strategies. Struggle with trying to approach boys’ education as itself a distinct pedagogy—not a corollary to Sacred Heart education.

**II. Enjoy about Teaching Boys**

 * Ray**—There is something to be said about being explicit about what SH education is about—to educate women. Boys need to hear this explicitly and see their place not as a corollary to the charism, but flows directly from the heart of the charism itself. Example: explicit references Sophie, Philippine and Janet, even Mater.
 * Maria**—what percentage of students are non-Catholic.
 * 1) **Ray**—more than half are Catholic and tend to be more nominal. This influences the ambience of our prayer, chapel, liturgies—framing spaces of inclusion and difference.
 * 2) **Cathy**—also very diverse in our school. Boys may draw prayer from other traditions, but all strongly believe in the Sacred Heart. All work towards the 5 Goals and Criteria, all members of the community.
 * 3) **Lisa**—importance of inculcating the Goals and Criteria among students, parents and community as a whole.


 * Bo**—challenge to educate students and parents about the Goals and Criteria.
 * Nick**—our students are “Hardy Gentlemen” who embody and embrace the Goals and Criteria. Boys tend to take it seriously.
 * Cathy**—teaching boys is easy to the extent that they are straightforward and transparent.
 * Ray**—transparency encourages effective approaches to teachings; boys also do not hold grudges and can also be forgiving (echo by Cathy).
 * Nick**—such growth among 1st graders between October and May; boys tend to bounce right back between good and bad days.
 * Mike**—(echoing Gordy)—single-sex teaching opens up nuances of the animus/anima at place in the learning, too. In a sense, the girl/boy energy is actually very present—if not magnified—in single-sex schools.

**III. Challenges in Teaching Boys**

 * Rachel**—middle school boys tend to hold grudges. (Cathy—perhaps hormonal changes?)
 * Cathy**—boys tend to fear the “unknown.” This could be a challenge when trying to shift/transition flow of class. Teacher has to //model// this more intentionally to alleviate anxiety among the boys.
 * Nick**—previously studied //improv// work/game; very useful in work among 1st grade students. This offers space to shift/re-direct work on the spot.
 * Lisa**—sometimes longs for the implicit “order” of an all-girls’ classroom. Boys tend to do better in smaller classes.
 * Mike**—sometimes single-sex contexts also perpetuates stereotypes, especially in informal settings; what is learned/apprehended intellectually does not necessary translate in more informal engagements.
 * Rachel**—hope to have the boys exposed to women authors; apprehensive about introducing such novels in all-boys’ contexts?
 * Corey**—perhaps naming the “feminine pedagogy” and charism onto the table would be helpful in teaching women’s issues/novels in all-boys’ contexts.