September 18, 2024

As a woman in education among many female teachers, it is important to consider that half of the children we teach are boys.  Even as infants there are significant differences between boys and girls.  God starts that early in utero when the testosterone wash goes over a boy’s central nervous system impacting the connection between hemispheres of the brain among other things. I recall well a mom who described her attempts to raise her son with a higher degree of gentleness and sensitivity. At a several months old he threw pretty much anything she gave him, and a little later every toy became a truck which rammed into anything he could find. She said, “I’ll continue to work, but it appears the game is over!” Leonard Sax, the author of Collapse of Parenting has also authored a book, Boys Adrift.  A couple segments I found very interesting from the book. In the section stressing the importance of getting outdoors he describes a scene from a Swiss school on a trip to the woods:

“…the teacher divided the children into pairs.  One child in each pair blindfolded the other.  Then the blindfolded child was led to a tree at least ten paces away, and was instructed to feel the tree with her hands, from the ground up; and also to smell it. (Some children even licked it.) Next the child was spun around and led away from the tree, at least ten paces in a different direction. Then the blindfold was removed and the child was asked: Which tree were you just feeling? The point was ”ohne Augen zu sehen,” the teacher told me:  to see without your eyes.……When I smiled, perhaps somewhat patronizingly, at the Swiss children feeling and sniffing their trees, the teacher frowned at me. She insisted on blindfolding me herself and leading me to a tree, and having me touch it and smell it without being able to see it. Then she led me ten paces away from the tree, turned me around, removed the blindfold, and asked me: “Where is your tree?” I looked, and immediately recognized “my” tree from the dozens of others. It was an unfamiliar, exhilarating experience.”   (p. 34)

I can’t wait to try that at Camp Kateri with our 7^th graders when we go!  The importance of multisensory experiences in real natural settings can hardly be overestimated in the development of the person. I see our children getting outside so much more than before the shift in our curriculum. How good it is for them! What an antidote for current trends among children who are indoors primarily involving fear of being dirty, and fear of insects, even ants. “Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, declared more than 200 years ago that “digging in the soil has a curative effect…” (p. 38) So boys, girls, men, women all of us! Let’s all get outside a little more. It will do us good!  Thank you, Lord for your wonders of nature, so plentiful and so close.  Help us be in awe of Your Goodness.

Sister Mary Michael, C.K.

8th grade volleyball team

1st grade class

Third Grade Classes

JH Football Game at Recess