Gender Education in 7 Steps

Gender Education in 7 Steps:
Reigniting the Academic Pilot Lights of Boys and Girls

How to motivate and teach the challenging, diverse, at-risk student is a universal academic problem that demands to be addressed as we move further into the 21st Century. Why can’t these students meet high academic and performance standards? Is it because education has failed to stay current with new research-based ideas and embrace trends that are gaining support? Or is it the day-to-day minutiae that engulfs many of our at-risk teachers and robs us of our energy and self-confidence to take educational risks and try new and innovative proposals?

What can be done to change the culture of a school and its adjoining community? How can a cadre of proactive educational and lay leaders be developed? We have no control over who enters our classroom each day or over the educational deficits they bring or the socioeconomic labels they are associated with. We can, however, determine the quality of education that emanates from each classroom and each school site. We need deliberate and careful planning, insight on what tomorrow’s student needs to know, and the determination to make education work!

"Gender Education in 7 Steps" outlines the issues that are unavoidable and the steps today’s leaders should put into place as quickly as possible. It also describes the steps taken to successfully implement gender-based education in an under-performing, at-risk school in which 80% of the children were African American or Latino. These students are now performing at significantly higher levels because of reduced distractions and raised expectations.

The retraining of teachers with cutting-edge strategies and methods, along with an emphasis on connecting to their human spirit, is examined herein in detail. This book also gives you a list of leadership ideas to consider in the absence of practical, sensible 21st Century multicultural experiences. I hope it will serve as a valuable reference for educators, parents and concerned citizens who have been thrown into the challenging setting of public education with little more than a mandate to become successful right away.

"Gender Education in 7 Steps" contains both practitioner-oriented and research-based information, so it can also serve as a professional reference book for administrators and teachers. You can begin immediately to systematically plan, and strategically move, your school organization forward at a rapid pace. Why reinvent the wheel when there are tried and proven ways of addressing today’s critical educational issues at hand?

There is no doubt that there is a tremendous emotional void that needs to be filled if we are to capture the souls and unlock the imaginations of our youth. Obtaining a quality education remains the key to success in life for most people. To offer anything less is inexcusable!

While there are a number of challenges facing public education today, none is more daunting than the prospect of leading, or turning around, an academically-beleaguered school with few resources. Before you enthusiastically, but blindly, accept the leadership reins of a seemingly impossible assignment, read this book!

Review of Gender Education in 7 Steps:

The Marietta Daily Journal, June 3, 2007: Doc Holliday book offers changes to failing schools
Changes are needed in the nation's failing public schools and Dr. Henry Earl "Doc" Holliday, who broke the color barrier as Cobb's first black high school principal when he was named chief of Wheeler High School in 1992, has penned a book to provide some options. Presently a professor at Kennesaw State University's Bagwell College of Education, where he teaches aspiring school principals, Holliday, 58, of Marietta, said the idea for his book, "Gender Education in Seven Steps: Reigniting the Academic Pilot Lights of Boys and Girls," came to him a few years back when he was watching a "60 Minutes" segment about how boys were academically underperforming nationwide. "I said it sounds a little bit like my school. We've got boys who are just not producing anymore, academically. The sad story is boys across America are dropping out in record numbers. It's scary because there are no jobs for them," said Holliday, who at the time was principal of Campbell Middle School in Smyrna. Holliday reviewed the grade point averages at his school and noticed girls averaged a 2.9 while boys were at 2.5. "That's a half-grade lower on average. That's a big difference statistically," Holliday said.

Read rest of this article and others on Doc's Bio/Media Coverage page.