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Lost Boys Education: The Role of NGOs and Donors in Providing Quality Education



In interviews with hundreds of Alaskan teenagers, psychologist Judith Kleinfeld, EdD, noticed a big difference in how boys and girls viewed their futures. Most of the girls planned to attend college and had specific career goals. Most of the boys said they weren't planning on college and seemed perplexed about possible careers.


"So many of them just seemed lost," says Kleinfeld, a gender researcher and professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. She noticed a particularly worrisome trend among teenage boys who had sisters.




Lost Boys  Education




Kleinfeld is working to get boys back in the game through the Boys Project, a national coalition of researchers, educators, journalists, education policy experts, health-care professionals and parents she formed in 2006 to help boys reach their potential. Its work is funded by its members and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.


Kleinfeld, the mother of three grown children (two boys, one girl), says her group is focusing national attention on this achievement gap and its causes, which they attribute to multiple factors, such as a dearth of positive role models for boys and schools poorly adapted to boys' energy and interests. "Schools have become very girl-friendly," she says. "But it's not a see-saw. We can design schooling where both boys and girls do well."


Research shows that boys tend to lag a year and a half behind girls in reading and writing. Kleinfeld's group believes that difference has much to do with teachers failing to hook boys on reading and writing early on. Female teachers--still the majority--tend to assign books they loved as children, such as "Little House on the Prairie," rather than the adventure novels boys favor, she adds. Teachers also favor girls because, as research has shown, they tend to follow school rules better than boys do.


Most schools also don't emphasize enough the active play that research shows is key to boys' development in particular, says Kleinfeld. In fact, many discourage it, frequently punishing boys for what was once considered "rough and tumble" play, which research shows has a key role in the development of boys' motor and social interaction skills, she says. The result? Many boys develop negative attitudes toward school, she says.


In addition, boys are more likely to be prescribed Ritalin for attention-deficit disorders despite unknowns of how it effects their brains, says Kleinfeld. And, she points out, popular culture helps undermine boys with images of lazy, dumb men (think Homer Simpson).


Mentoring programs are one way to combat these negative stereotypes and boost school performance, The Boys Project is finding. One such program, called Band of Brothers, is the brainchild of Boys Project board member Jonathan Shepard, assistant principal of Sycamore Elementary School in Fort Worth, Texas. He recruits men from the community to serve as mentors for boys who are withdrawn or are having emotional or academic troubles.


Volunteer mentors--who undergo thorough background checks before they're selected--have lunch with their mentees to hash out such topics as school frustrations, academic goals and problems the boys might be having. The mentors focus on confidence building and behavior modeling by swapping stories and talking about honesty, humility and leadership.


Shepard encourages these volunteers to meet with the boys in the school's gym and science lab for bonding activities--two favorites are constructing "marshmallow launchers" and group dodgeball--because the boys open up when they are happily active.


Since he launched the program four years ago, 100 boys have participated and are faring better for it: Participants' grades have gone up, school absences are down, and the boys are noticeably more engaged in school.


Beyond mentoring programs, parents can help steer their boys down the right path by simply reading with them every night and spending time with them--dads especially, Kleinfeld says. The Boys Project is working to drive this point home with parents and partnering with schools to help teachers better engage boys. A next step may include working more closely with universities' schools of education, so that teachers are better trained to help boys from the start.


"With boys not going to college as frequently or earning as much, these girls are going to have a hard time finding a partner that has comparable goals or interests," says Kleinfeld. "This has occurred for a long time in the African-American community, and now it's spreading to other groups."


We study the effect of post-compulsory education on crime by exploiting a regression discontinuity design generated by admission cut-offs to upper secondary schools in Finland. We combine data on school applications with data on criminal convictions and follow individuals for 10 years. Our results show that successful applicants are less likely to commit crimes during the first five years after admission. Crime is reduced both during and outside the school year, indicating that the channel through which schooling affects crime cannot be explained by incapacitation alone. We find no effect on crime committed after 6 years from admission.


We often have recruiters contacting us to ask when the next class is graduating and if we have any alumni available for work. With our world-class reputation for producing highly-sought out artists, studios will often hire several Lost Boys at once right out of graduation. Our goal is to help you find a job after your time here. Your choice of education with us is just another step closer for you to achieve your dream as a visual effects artist.


Unlike most educational methods that are only learning by listening, project-based learning provides a greater understanding and better retention of complex concepts. As an added benefit, the flexibility of this style of learning allows students coming from different levels of experience to always stay challenged. Students learn real-world problem-solving skills by continuously pushing themselves in new ways. Each project reveals a new craft-relevant challenge to overcome under the guidance of an experienced mentor. At the core of our curriculum, we incorporate project based learning, simulate production patterns, create valuable portfolio content, and adapt to the individual training goals of each student.


New3dge is born out of a passion for games and films, but also an understanding of the industry needs. Since our opening in 2010, we have mastered digital art education and taught proven techniques to many of our alumni who are now working in the video game and film industry across the world.


In 1983, civil war broke out between the northern Arabic-speaking government of Sudan and southern tribes seeking autonomy. Since then, nearly two million people have died, and five million have been displaced. Among these are at least 20,000 children, mostly boys, between 7 and 17 years of age who were separated from their families. This extraordinary exodus has its origins in traditional forms of migration. After initiation into manhood, young adolescent boys in southern Sudan have generally been quite mobile. Organized into small groups of their peers, they would leave home for a period to look after cattle. Some would head for the towns or cities to go to school or to seek their fortune before eventually returning home. In addition, at times of stress, families all over Africa have sent their children elsewhere to find safety, food, work, and schooling.


After years in refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia, Gai landed in the United States, reunited with his family and got an education. In 2011, he returned home to the newly independent country of South Sudan.


For now, he's been taking trips in and out of his war-torn country, working with a nonprofit called Project Education South Sudan. The group builds schools throughout the country and helps break down barriers for girls. In the area of South Sudan where Daniel has been working, 3,000 boys and girls have been out of class for a year now.


What moved him, Gai says, is the young girl's passion for education despite the lack of opportunity for girls to go to school. Only about a third of them attend primary school. "Education for girls in South Sudan is not that much," he says. "Girls are considered to be married only and start a family."


So far, Awan's family has supported her in completing her education before she marries, Gai tells NPR. Her three brothers told her that they wanted to see her in school and promised to never push her into marriage.


In 1987,before either of them reached 10 years old, Ater and Deng were suddenly separated from their parentsand forced to flee South Sudan, which was in the throes of a brutal civil war. Withlittle warning, and little food or clothing, the boys traveled hundreds of miles on foot toEthiopia, where a refugee campawaited them.


As early as their days in Ethiopia, Deng, too, had come to see the possibilities of an education, and where it could lead him. Fearing that his parents and his family were dead, learning was all he had left, and represented the only way to reach any kind of future.


Even in the worst conditions, the refugees would first make shelters, find food, and then set up a school, asking any adults in their groups to teach them what they knew. In Kenya, the United Nations set up a middle school and high school, providing teachers and some education materials. However, the refugees were responsible for their own pencils, paper and notebooks, which were often difficult to come by.


With only 3,600 places for more than 10,000 lost boys, the three-year selection process was grueling, and education played a large part in whether they would go or stay. They were required to write their stories and later talk about their experiences with U.S. officials. Ater and Deng were interviewed over and over to make sure their stories were consistent while they were vetted for entry into the U.S.


When they get together on campus or inAtlanta, where several of the former lost boys meet on occasion, they reminisceabout their journey, and the impossible grace and providence that led them outof their suffering, and into a world of opportunity. 2ff7e9595c


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