Educating Boys

(Paperback)

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According to the media and some concerned parents, boys are having greater trouble than ever with schooling. This book takes the refreshing counter position that boys are generally fine, and not inherently toxic creatures that need 'fixing'. What does need fixing, however, are some of the parenting and teaching practices and environments boys are placed in for schooling and social development. In the vein of Celia Lashlie's Good Man Project, which became the basis for her international bestseller, He'll Be OK, in-depth research has been undertaken with schoolboys of various ages to canvass their views on current schooling, what worries them and how schools could enhance their education opportunities. The ground-breaking result offers parents and teachers practical advice on the best way to educate boys; combining and analysing their own stories, opinions and ideas. Taking a clearheaded look at the education of boys from birth to tertiary education, Michael's opinions are supported by extensive research into how boys want to, and should be, educated. The book challenges some of the ways boys are being taught and gives practical ideas for programmes to meet boys' educational and social needs, and how changing current practices and improving environments is the key for many boys who will otherwise fail to reach their full potential.

Author Bio

After teaching at the Catholic University of Lublin and the University of Lodz, both in Poland, at the University of Tokyo and at Smith College in the United States, Michael Irwin moved to the University of Kent, in Canterbury, where he became Professor of English, specialising in eighteenth and nineteenth-century literature. His published eighteenth-century work includes a full-length study of Fielding and essays that take in Defoe, Richardson, Sterne, Smollett, Johnson and Pope.