Boys and girls are different; I am going to state it up front. I know some people would disagree with me but there are many reasons why we can very emphatically say that boys and girls are not the same. They do not learn the same way, they do not think the same way and they do not interact socially or emotionally the same way. 

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Now, if you are familiar with the movie “Kindergarten Cop,” you will understand where that little speech bubble comes from, but the reality is boys and girls learn differently and they develop differently. We have to know what those differences are and understand those differences if we are going to effectively teach them to their specific strengths and weaknesses. Michael Gruen, who is a researcher in the field of boys education, identifies as many as 100 significant differences in the way girls and boys learn. What he says is, these differences are not just cultural or structural, they are actually biological, neurological and sociological, so we are not just talking about the environments that boys are raised in.

The old question of nurture versus nature, talks about the way boys are hardwired to develop, think and interact, so we need to delve a little bit into that.

Let’s look at some of the ways that boys are different. We are not going to go through all the differences but we will certainly dig a bit beneath the surface.

The Brain

Let’s start with the brain and how boys’ brains develop. When I first learned this about boys, it really made the light bulb come on for me. When I started to understand the differences in the way boys’ and girls’ brains develop, I started to realize why so many of them behave the way they behave. One of the key things that we have to note is that when a baby is formed in utero, the template that all babies’ brains start with is actually the template that becomes the girl’s brain.

The girl’s brain has a very high level of interconnectivity between hemispheres and the hemispheres talk to each other very readily and very rapidly but at about 26 weeks something very profound happens with boys. At 26 weeks the hormones that determine male biology sever up to 25% of that interconnectivity between right and left hemispheres of the male brain, so essentially the male brain rewires itself to function  in utero with less interconnectivity. Before boys are born, their brains are rewired to process information differently to girls. Their intraconnectivity within each hemisphere actually increases and their interconnectivity decreases. Boys become very good at sitting on one side of their brain; either their creative side or their logical side of the brain and they find it quite difficult to switch between the two sides of their brain. 

You have to use both sides of your brain to learn effectively and that’s called context switching but boys tend to find this quite difficult to do unless they are taught how to do it and we take the time to actually coach them through it. So when we understand this, we start to think about the way that boys learn in the classroom quite differently. What you will find is that boys tend to process information stimulus in silos. They tend to do one thing at a time. They do not tend to do multiple things all at once.

You have probably heard the adage that women multitask better than men. But nobody actually multitasks. Our brains work sequentially but women can switch between the left and right sides of their brain very rapidly and so it gives the impression that they can keep multiple tasks running at once; whereas boys, because it takes time for them to switch between left and right brain, tend to process things in a very linear fashion. They do not like to be given too many pieces of information at once and they tend not to take in too many pieces at once.

Ladies, if you have ever spoken to your husband or your significant other while he is watching the footy, you might have said something like “Can you take the garbage out?” and he has grunted at you and nodded his head but then two hours later the garbage is still sitting in the bin! This is  because when he is doing something, he is 100% focused on that thing. Although he heard you speaking, he did not process that information in a way that would make him remember, so what has to happen with boys a lot of the time is, when you give them instructions or  information you have to ensure that they are not doing another task at the same time or not processing other information at that time.

Boy’s will tend to only hear one set of instructions or information. They tend to be very task oriented or focused on one task at a time. So if you have ever asked a boy to stop and they say hang on a second I am not finished and they keep on working beyond the point where you want them to stop, that’s because they need time to start, stop and switch between tasks. So giving them wind up time or giving them a five minute warning is really helpful for boys because it will help them to prepare themselves to finish that task and start a new task.

Girls tend to process information across both hemispheres evenly and very rapidly. They tend to be able to factor in multiple flows of information at once. This poses a distinct advantage for girls because of the type of learning we do in the classroom. It is very interactive learning which requires one to switch between the rational logical thinking parts of the brain, and the creative and intuitive sides of the brain. That is the context switching I mentioned earlier. If someone does not do that well, he can get left behind or can miss aspects of the full picture and so you have to take time to explain this to boys and help them to understand their brains and help them to understand that this part of the task requires them to think creatively or this part of the task requires them to think logically. We need to help them understand the difference between the two.

I hope that was really helpful, if you have enjoyed this and you would like to go deeper, check out some of our online courses, Behavior Management Essentials or Understanding and Educating Boys which are both available on our website. 

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