Principal Lu Qisheng is the man behind Shanghai’s first boys-only high school classes that tackle what has been called China’s “boy crisis” of weak, socially inept, underachieving boys.

It’s still an experiment, a work in progress, but there are positive signs.

Lu, principal of the Shanghai No. 8 Senior High School in Huangpu District, last year opened two classes just for boys aged 16 to 18, 30 in each class. After eight months, the pilot was considered successful and this year there are four classes for around 120 boys.

The “boy crisis” refers to the phenomenon of young males often lagging behind girls in academics, as well as physical, mental and social maturity. Many boys are timid, introverted and feminized, with a higher incidence of psychological issues than girls.

“The growth of boys is a regular and dynamic process. To find out the right way to teach boys, we must understand boys first,” Lu said.

The all-male classes explore different teaching methods to help boys build confidence and develop their potential. They also have male role models in teachers.

“It would be meaningless to open a so-called first boys’ high school,” Lu said. “The important thing is to find out why boys don’t do as well as girls in school today and how to help them learn better.”

What Lu has found — and he has structured classes accordingly — is that unlike girls, boys need more physical activities, projects they can do with their hands, and engaging discussions. They have a daily morning run, as well as PE classes in which they do backbends and learn to run 100-meter hurdles.

Unlike students at coed school, they take computer lessons, learning how to assemble and repair computers so they can help family and friends. Unlike coed classes, they have more chemistry and physics lab classes where they can perform complicated experiments and learn from professors at East China Normal University.

To help them socialize, boys volunteer in the community. They also spend time at a military base where they get a taste of basic training, discipline and hardship.

Both boys and girls are under intense pressure in China’s highly competitive education system in which scores are everything. Parents’ expectations are also high.

Many parents send their boys to the classes in hopes their shy and introverted sons will become more outgoing and manly, Lu said.

Lu found that boys sleep in class far more than girls, who are used to sitting quietly, listening to teachers or reading. Boys easily get bored and restless, so he keeps them busy.

Lu, 51, taught mathematics at Shanghai Normal College after graduating from Shanghai Normal University in 1984. He became an administrator at Huangpu District Teachers’ College for vocational studies in 1997.

In 2003 he was appointed Party secretary of the Shanghai No. 8 Senior High School, formerly a girls’ high school. The next year, he became principal, and eventually succeeded in dramatically improving academic performance and college enrollment.

“It was a very difficult time for the school when I took over,” Lu said. The school had failed to qualify as an experimental and model high school, so many teachers left. Students didn’t perform well on college entrance exams, so it was difficult to attract good middle school students.

To improve scores, Lu strengthened student discipline and asked teachers to teach in a more effective and test-oriented way. He added extra-curricular academics.

Bored boys doze off and need stimulating activitiesThat approach worked and college enrollment in 2008 was double the number in 2004. But while Lu was away getting a master’s degree in education management in Singapore in 2009, the school slipped and college enrollment dropped back to 2004 levels.

“Not until I returned did I realize that my old measures were unsustainable to facilitate learning and improve the school’s quality,” Lu said.

In 2010, Lu divided courses in basics and innovative enrichment courses that would develop students’ potential.

Lu personally taught a first-year course titled Basic Elements for a Rational Economic Man, which simply explained basic principles of economics, using daily life examples.

The course was an opportunity for students and principal to get to know each other.

“A good principal is not an administrator who decides everything for students. I encourage all my staff to open courses, interact with students personally and hear their voices,” he said.

But the Shanghai No. 8 Senior High School, formerly a girls’ high school, was still an ordinary high school. To attract more good students, Lu decided to make it distinctive. He proposed cooperating with a university or an international school. He also proposed rebuilding it as a girls’ high school.

All his proposals were turned down. There already was a girls’ high school. One official said there was a glimmer of hope in setting up the first boys’ high school.

Lu wrote a proposal to the Huangpu District government; it was rejected “because they couldn’t see any social meaning in building a boy’s high school, other than setting a precedent,” Lu said.

Then Lu tapped into the heated national discussion online about the “boys crisis” and the education system.

He rewrote his plan to open two boys-only classes within his high school.

It was approved and expanded this year.

“I want to tell parents with a son not to put too many demands on them. Tolerate their weak points,” Lu said.

“The boys’ characteristic is so obvious when you have half of them dozing over books,” Lu said. “The phenomenon could be easily overlooked in coed classes.”

More variety, more group discussions, physical activities, computer and lab work, and a bit of military training were added to help boys concentrate, motivate them and toughen them up.

So far so good.

In last year’s class, 10 students won top prizes in the citywide science and technology competitions. Around 50 of the 60 boys are more physically fit, Lu says.

Leadership opportunities are especially important, helping boys to become more responsible, confident, considerate of others and better organized. Students can run for any position every three months. Many parents say emphasis on leadership has greatly helped their sons who are more willing to discuss school with them at dinner. Some say the boys seem “grow up overnight,” Lu said.

Lu is no longer interested in a boys’ high school but will continue with his special classes. He says mixed classes in the high school are a good control group that helps assess the best teaching methods for boys.

Lu’s own son studies physics at Tsinghua University. He understands parents’ expectations and urges them to be realistic.

“I suggest parents be realistic and never insist on the highest standards for their children,” he said.

He observed that as a child grows up parents’ expectations often go down. “Both parents and children suffer during a child’s growth, which is bad for both sides. My suggestion is never set the highest standards and demand children achieve them.”