A friend made an insightful observation recently, about the need for a curriculum for elementary and secondary students, especially boys, in "building and sustaining relationships."
The observation accompanied another from the same source, that another blank spot in the curriculum in most students' learning is personal financial management.
The friend also noted that these missing pieces in the school curriculum show up in damages to many lives in later years, and most of those damages could be prevented, if the school system were to make it their priority to address these two missing learning curves.
For our purposes, let's focus for a few moments on the "building and sustaining relationships" issue, for boys.
Young boys, even newborns, need to have much more holding, hugging, eye contact and physical nurture than most mothers are currently giving them. (See Michael Gurian's The Wonder of Boys for more.) It is a fact that mothers make more frequent and longer eye contact with their daughters than they do with their new sons. It is also a fact that most mothers do not consider their approach to have any negative impact on their sons and, unfortunately, they are wrong.
When baby boys hurt, they will cry, and their crying is not a sign of danger, as some parents consider it to be. "Don't cry," "Be a big boy," or even, "Be a man!"...these are words uttered by both mothers and fathers, far too soon, in a little boy's life. Why should he not cry, if he hurts? It is only natural. And we adults have to get over our fear that our little "guy" is going to be a wimp, or like a little girl, or worst of all, perhaps gay.
So holding and breast-feeding as long as the little boy needs and wants to be fed in this manner are both good places to start, in any relationship-building initiative. They both set a tone, with parents, that will change the trajectory of the parents' attitudes for the next two decades, not to mention the little boy's attitudes and expectations to "relating".
Next, let's make eye contact with our new sons...and lots of it. Let's make faces at and with, and in response to his faces, and his sounds. Let's imitate his new sounds, as a way of reinforcing his new discoveries every day. It is fun, and it will also pay significant dividends in language deveopment. And these processes of visual contact, and auditory stimulation are essential for a little boy to grow up knowing both himself and his immediate environment. And he needs these stimuli as much, if not more than, his little sister.
In the post-nursey stage of the little boy's life, he will begin interacting with other children, of both genders, in a play situation, in a day care or day nursery. His care-givers will, if one can predict, be imitators of the attitudes and approaches of the mothers, urging him to restrict his crying, and his "wimp" or victim attitudes to physical or emotional hurt. And this stage could do we some debunking of the "macho male myth" that strides through our dining rooms, our family rooms, our playgrounds, and even our church schools, and especially our hockey teams, at the earliest of age. They will default the boys in their care with too little eye contact, with too little encouragement of language development, especially if that language development comes in a forte voice, that disturbs the pastoral atmosphere of most daycares and day nurseries.
Encouraging care givers to provide activities with some 'safe' risk-taking, some 'safe' yet competitive play, some opportunity to negotiate when and with whom to use the toys, games and spaces available, and lots of feedback time, with real active listening at the earliest stages, even if the language development is less than desireable...these are all routes to enhanced interaction between the boys and their care givers, and among the boys themselves.
Exchanging views, feelings, observations....these are all valuable opportunities, and skills that boys will need for the rest of their lives, even if their fathers exhibit a deficit in these areas. One way to encourage this kind of inter-activity would be to recruit male care givers for day care centres and for day nurseries. In fact, if I were a parent of a young boy, I would search for a centre that guaranteed male professionals would be present on a daily basis, as a constant in the setting. I would also expect male role models to supervise various "field trips" outside the centre, so that boys are given opportunities to both recommend new trips and then are expected to take those trips under male supervision as early as possible.
In the school setting itself, there is a tragic dearth of male teachers in the elementary panel, at least in Canada, in most provinces, and also in the administration offices of elementary schools. Consequenlty, male role models are simply not available, as mentors for male interactions. It is long past time for each school board in the country to undertake an effective recruitment program to attract male teachers to the elementary schools.
And, for in class activities, males conversant with their own emotions and their own values and their own would be required to provide dialogue setting about stories that engage boys in reading, in subject areas that generate emotional and intellectual responses that enhance the male student's engagement with both the instructors and the stories themselves.
With respect to learning goals, each boy would be required to prepare a time line for his family's history, from his earliest memories, to the present, starting probably in grade five or six. A time line would offer opportunities to mark out positive events and time to tell the story of those moments, to at least one classmate, and perhaps to the whole group...Is this activitiy better conducted in an all male group? Probably, but this is one question needing some practical research, to establish both the appropriate class culture and the time allotments for such an activity.
Paralleling memories of good times, yet beginning with sad events, and not traumatic ones, boys could be encouraged to share some of these memories with a classmate. In dialogue, each boy learns to listen more fully, even if the conversations themselves occur in an informal setting like a scavenger hunt where the boys are paired, and the items being searched trigger memories and stories.
Throughout, the skill of asking appropriate questions, not as interviewer, but simply as empathic friend, is modelled, demonstrated, taped, reviewed, and then practiced, so that each person learns the skill of "telling his own story" and the skill of "listening actively to the story of his buddy."
It is the sharing of our personal stories that helps everyone, male and female students alike, to grow some connections to others. And all opportunities to do this, not only in history and literature classes, but also in a class (perhaps under the curricular label of Health and Social Activities).
Each student could be given a task such as inviting a classmate (male) to lunch or dinner, and then accompany the guest to the event, learning about such civilities as the difference between being a guest and a host, and the attitudes and behaviours that cluster around each role. This kind of assignment has really no limits, since it might involve a local sports event, a local charity event, a local walk in a park or a local game of something as simple as playing catch....with adequate preparation in rehearsal, role-playing, expectations of both self and other, interviews with others about how similar invitations have transpired both positively and negatively (preferably in a humourous vein)...and then "the event" and a reporting back to the group about the successes and the changes that might seem appropriate for the next time.
In grades five, six and seven, these skills of listening, questioning, inviting, hosting, guesting, and the attendant preparation (different for each with common elements and common goals, including the feedback from both parties) could be conducted at least once each semester, with the length and the preparations and the expectations increasing in complexity and depth each time. No female peer yet!
And then, in grade seven, this could be a time to introduce the opposite gender.....to be continued.
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