Ali Carr-Chellman: Gaming to re-engage boys in learning

Rating: ****

This Ted talk is about the ways the elementary schools turn off boys from learning.

Ali talks about how the ways that our elementary schools compact the learning for the early grades and how if children cannot reach a required level they are diagnosed as "developmentally delayed". This explains the 100 girls theory, that for every girl diagnosed with a learning disability there are around 2x more boys diagnosed with the same "disability". The zero tolerance also stops boys from developing, because what they interpret from there teachers as, sit still, pay attention, or do your work, is that there teachers are asking them to be "girls". Another contributing factor is the male to female teacher ratio, with 93% of teachers in elementary schools being female. This makes boys think that because the girls seem to be the majority in schools, that this is not a place for them. Also the attitude towards video games form teachers and parents is negative (mostly from the female side) making them feel even worse about there "mental capability", even though they tend to learn the most from video games because it is atoned to what boys like. So Ali proposes that we make a bigger budget for educational games to make them immersing for boys, the other proposition is to have more male teachers.

This is a really good Ted talk about the ways that elementary schools turn off boys from learning, I recommended this to everyone.