Conference puts boys under the microscope

Wednesday 30 March 2005

Over 750 people will meet to hear the latest research on boys in schools at the University of Newcastle's 4th Biennial Working with Boys Building Fine Men Conference this weekend. Educators and researchers from across Australia, New Zealand and from as far afield as The Netherlands will gather at the Melbourne Convention Centre from Sunday 3 April - Tuesday 5 April 2005.

Speakers include:

• Professor Don Edgar, Writer and Social Policy Consultant, will speak on The Transition from Boyhood to Manhood: Fun and trouble along the way.
• Dr Ken Rowe, Chair of the Federal Government's National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy, will look at key reasons for the differences in boys and girls literacy achievement from pre-school to the upper years of secondary schooling and the strategies that 'work' to actively engage boys' literacy learning and their achievement process.
• Chris Sarra, Principal of Cherbourg State School, will discuss how he has involved Indigenous men in the education of the students and turned around a school that was in chaos with poor literacy and numeracy levels and extremely poor behaviour and school attendance.
• Dr Martine F Delfos, from The Netherlands, will discuss Being a Boy: What the research says about behaviour and learning. Do boys learn differently than girls? She will contend that boys and girls do have significantly different behaviours linked to their brain development.
• Celia Lashie, New Zealand, will discuss The Good Man Project: Growing boys into good men a project commissioned to facilitate discussion within and between 25 boys' schools in New Zealand about what makes a good man in the 21st century.
• Richard Fletcher, University of Newcastle, will address the importance of fathers to the well-being and academic success of boys.
• Deborah Hartman, University of Newcastle, will outline the important links between boys' identity, their relationships with others and their learning.
• Joseph Driessen, Education Answers New Zealand, will present Seven Ways to Improve Boys' Education in Your School. The workshop gives teachers a range of practical and proven strategies to improve boys' educational achievement and participation.
• Lauk Woltring, Working with Boys The Netherlands, will present Boys' Traffic and Risk-tasking. He will illustrate how young people learn by risk-taking, but their ability to learn is pressurised when emotions and thrills take over. In stress, the learning is reduced for boys even more than for girls.
• Freerk Ykema, Gadaku Institute The Netherlands, will provide an Introduction to the Rock and Water Program. The Rock & Water course offers teachers a new way to interact with boys and girls in relationship to their physical and social development.

A full program is available at http://www.pco.com.au/boys2005/

For media interviews on the conference contact Deborah Hartman on (02) 4921 6749.

Speakers will be available during the conference for media interviews.