NAEYC Radio presents...
Why educators are losing boys, how to get them back

(Washington, DC) – This month’s NAEYC Radio segment features Larry J. Griffin, a national education training consultant-assessment specialist with the Kaplan Early Learning Company, who discusses how misunderstanding the way boys learn can lead to underachievement and education disparities currently found between girls and boys.

Rae Pica and Mark R. Ginsberg interviewed Mr. Griffin in this month’s segment of NAEYC Radio, a program brought to you by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the BAM Radio Network.

In this segment, Mr. Griffin says statistics raise some questions about how our education system is reaching out to boys.  Many of these statistics, such as boys making up 80 percent of all high school drop-outs, can be traced back to early childhood education, where Mr. Griffin says boys are being forced to give up their natural inclination toward physical activity for more mundane reading and writing tasks. He stresses play for both boys and girls.

“We have to continue to get back to the basics of providing intentional play-based experiences for children in early childhood environments,” says Mr. Griffin on NAEYC Rado. “…What I see is the push for school readiness. Teachers have to feel very comfortable in reclaiming that play-based territory for themselves ...and I think all of this needs to be communicated back to parents to help them understand.”

Mr. Griffin consults with programs that are striving to create effective learning environments, specifically those with a desire to reverse that trend toward male under-achievement and lack of motivation.

Mr. Griffin will also be presenting a featured sessions, called “Lost boys and their failure to launch: Why the number of boys who are unmotivated and underachieving is growing,” Nov. 21 at the NAEYC Annual Conference & Expo in Washington, D.C.