written by Dan Sarian
As one of the few males at the Elementary Campus (I’m not complaining, just sayin’) I continually ask myself and my teachers how we can best shepherd the warrior hearts of our young men. God designed boys to be strong, initiators, builders, carry tools and swords and are built to generally protect and defend.When boys come in from recess with an injury and sometimes some blood (from playing football) you can almost see through their tears a sense of honor and pride that they earned the red badge of courage. They met the enemy on the field of battle, fought the good fight and walked away with physical evidence of having been in the fray. It’s a “guy thing.” Boys are fierce. They were made that way because they reflect the image of their Creator.
During Thanksgiving dinner at my sister’s house, my 16 year old nephew proudly displayed the paintball bruising on his arms, hands and chest from the battle he fought a few days before. He could hardly contain himself as he described in exact detail the moment he was “hit” and how his battle strategy failed to take into account the line of fire of the enemy.
“The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name.” ~ Exodus 15:3 (NIV)
Paul said to Timothy, “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline” II Timothy 1:7 (NASB). Power is always held in check by love and self-control and these three must remain companions. Power without love or self-control destroys indiscriminately. So we instruct our young men to be warriors, but to exercise their strength in ways that honor their Commander, Jesus Christ.
I met with one of our young men just today and he lit-up like the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center when he started talking about the game Minecraft. He talked about Builders, Blacksmiths, pigs, swords made out of diamonds, creatures that come out at night, etc.
“For those who don’t know what Minecraft is…Imagine online Lego with friends, but, you are the size of the little Lego people and you can build together, explore together, and fight off creepers and zombies, and have pigs and dogs, etc. Most of the players time is spent mining things to build, making things to eat, and building cool things, houses, mazes etc…this game is great for creativity, for fun, for team work, for challenges and collaboration…the things they can make are anything from houses, to castles, to huge statues, roads, anything that can be made of blocks basically with lots of ways to make their constructions unique…there is no blood shed, unless you count a pig being turned into a pork chop…you don’t see slaughter…there are no guns and no combat. Yes you can kill each other but it’s not blood thirsty, and friends don’t do that cause it takes a long time to build your health back up again. Most of the time people playing Minecraft are just building things and playing in them.” (Smith, 2011)
My blog isn’t a statement for or against the playing of Minecraft, but it IS a statement about what motivates boys. Every teacher looks for the “key” to unlock their student’s motivation to engage in the learning process and to apply what they learned. So what can Minecraft teach us about boys?
Boys build stuff. They also like to take things apart. They like to get their hands dirty. They like to standback and view their accomplishments with pride. Look at what I made! Look at what I did! Look at how I made a difference! Look at how I applied my strength to ward off the enemy and saved the village! Boys are Kingdom builders because they like to move! Listen to how an education researcher described the challenge of teaching literacy to boys:
“When it comes to fulfilling the kinds of assignments we call literacy, boys are often out of their chairs rather than in them.” (King and Gurian, 2006)
Other education researchers go on to describe the challenges teachers face in providing reading and writing instruction to the unique male soul:
Boys and girls enter elementary school with their own writing agendas. “Generally, girls in the primary grades write about subjects close to home: self, friends, home, family, teacher. Boys tend to write about activities in the community beyond the home: technology, sports, policemen, firemen, space, war (Fleming, 1994; Graves, 1984; Lindell, 1980). Boys’ stories are usually filled with action (Graves, 1984), and this is reflected in their verb choices, with boys using more active verbs than girls (Lindell, 1980). The action that boys write about is often violent and dangerous while girls tend to depict gentle activities (Fleming, 1994; Newman, 1993; Ollila, Bullen, & Collis, 1989)” (Fleming, 1995). So with this in mind teachers continually develop the skills to help direct boys to topics and good literature that match their interests and reading levels. So we can learn a lot about how to educate boys by listening to what they love to talk about, what motivates them and leveraging it.
In the virtual world our boys are building and defending entire civilizations. What are we setting them free to build and defend in the real world?
Citations
- Smith, L. (2011, May 28). Should kids play minecraft? Retrieved from http://digitalbreezes.com/2011/05/28/should-kids-be-playing-minecraft/
- Fleming, S. (1995). Who’s stories are validated? Language Arts, (72.8)
- King, K., & Gurian, M. (2006). With boys in mind / teaching to the mind of boys. Educational Leadership, 64(1), 56 – 61.
