Pridwin Newsletters
1 February 2012
From the Headmaster's desk...
This week we continue to look at the needs of the boy child. Boys and girls are made differently. Boys vary more than girls in virtually every aspect of their growth and development. In size, fine motor skills, social development, behaviour, and school performance, the variability among boys will be greater than that among girls. The time it takes for boys to acquire self-control, to learn to handle frustration, and to adapt to the demands of a school classroom, varies more than with girls. While in the womb, the male and female brains develop differently. The right brain dominates in males and left brain in females. The enriched right brain of the male contributes to enhanced spatial ability, the enriched left brain of the female to enhanced language-related skills. Brain chemistry seems to stimulate aggressive and impulsive behaviour in males, and inhibit it in females. Here is a summary of the brain differences that make boys boys and girls girls – each gender so different from the other in many important ways.
· Emotional processing area larger in males.
§ Boys tend to be more aggressive than girls.
· Nerve bundles in central nervous system develop earlier in females.
§ Girls talk in sentences earlier than boys.
· Brain sequences that control movement engage faster in males.
§ Boys respond faster to attention demands.
· Speech processing areas more active in females.
§ Girls have better verbal skills.
· Connections between brain parts stronger in females.
§ Girls have better language and fine motor skills, and are more intuitive.
· Connection between spinal cord and brain more direct in males.
§ Boys respond faster to physical crises.
· Brain part controlling high intellectual functions and memory and interpretation of sensory input thicker on right side in males and on left side in females.
§ Boys are better at depth perception, direction, and three dimensionality.
· Brain part controlling consciousness, voluntary actions, and thinking used in greater part by females.
§ Girls are better at multitasking.
· Estrogen, the female sex hormone that causes the female cycle and shapes female brain present in much greater volume in females, but also present in males.
§ Girls tend to be less aggressive, competitive, self-assertive, and self-reliant. Defence mechanisms, projection, self deception, and denial better developed in females.
· Memory storage area much larger in females.
§ Girls have large memory storage capacity.
Reference: “How to Say It to Boys” by Richard Heyman
Earlier this year I mentioned our concern that some of our boys at the upper end of the school are overloaded with too many activities. We want to ease some of this load and find suitable times for our boys to get some time out during the course of a busy week. We will announce these times at strategic times in a term. This term we are creating some flexibility on a number of Friday afternoons. On the Friday afternoons listed below the senior boys may go home straight after lunch provided they are not participating in any compulsory sports events like a gala or a compulsory music practice. Staff will be on duty to supervise any boys who need to stay until the normal closing time.
Friday 3 February (gala boys not excused)
Friday 10 February
Friday 17 February (gala boys not excused)
Friday 2 March
Friday 9 March
Friday 16 March
Friday 23 March
Friday 30 March