Educating Boys: Helping Kiwi Boys to Succeed at School
Michael Irwin
Harper Collins - $36.99

Review by guest reviewer Robyn Southam.

This is a wonderful, highly readable addition to our knowledge of boys in schools - by Michael Irwin, a respected New Zealand Educator for over 35 years.
Michael explores what NZ boys are good at - what they have issues with and where they underachieve. He maintains that it is the education environment for boys that needs fixing, rather than boys themselves.
He thinks we short change our kiwi boys with classrooms that are overburdened with semantics and language, and leave too many of our boys to struggle alone.
Irwin talks of the need to keep boys engaged in our classrooms, to challenge and stimulate through all 5 senses and to expect the best of them.
He says "Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and help them to become what they are capable of being".

The book is full of ideas and strategies to ensure boys succeed, Michael is urging everyone involved with boys in our schools to look closely and carefully at all areas of their learning and make changes.
Highly recommended.

Robyn Southam is a former teacher who works in educational publishing, is involved with the widely-admired Duffy Books In Homes Programme, and is a recognised authority on boys and their reading successes and failures.