FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - FEBRUARY 22, 2000
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AUTHOR TO DISCUSS HOW SCHOOLS AND CULTURE ARE UNFRIENDLY TO BOYS

SAN DIEGO, CA -- Michael Thompson, Ph.D., co-author with Dan Kindlon Of Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys (Ballantine Books, 1999) will chat online at the Teachers.Net web site on February 23, 2000. The chat session is open to all without pre-registration at http://teachers.net/conference for one hour beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET.

Raising Cain examines the troubled inner world of boys in contemporary society, exploring how our culture socializes and miseducates boys to disregard their emotional lives. The authors explore the struggle of young boys in early education as they try to meet the developmental and academic expectations of a curriculum that emphasizes cognitive skills which normally develop more slowly in boys than in girls. They assert that grade schools often seem rigged against the higher activity level and lower level of impulse control that is normal for boys.

Also examined is the trend toward medicating boys for attention deficits (ADD and ADHD), and the tendency for our culture to distort the most impressive qualities of boys--physical energy, boldness, curiosity, and action orientation--into a punishing, dangerous definition of masculinity.

Thompson is a preeminent child psychologist who lectures widely on topics pertaining to the development of boys and also conducts problem-solving workshops with parents, teachers, and students around the country. A highly sought after consultant to schools, Thompson is currently the staff psychologist of an all-boys independent school in the Boston area. The coauthor with Edward Hallowell, M.D., of Finding the Heart of the Child, Dr. Thompson has worked for more than fifteen years as a child and family therapist.

Thompson joins a line-up of experts from the field of education who have appeared online with Teachers.Net including Dr. Howard Gardner, known world wide for his Multiple Intelligences theory. Teachers.Net hosts live guests and peer-moderated discussions on topics of interest to its international audience of educators on most week nights. All transcripts are archived at http://teachers.net/archive.

For more information about this session and other Teachers.Net events contact Kathleen Carpenter, Director of Professional Development by email at kathleen @ teachers.net.