In conjunction with the University of Missouri, Kansas City, Gurian created an institute in 1999 in his name that, for two years, trained teachers and administrators from six schools in the greater Kansas City area to focus on gender. Some of these school districts are singing the praises of the teacher education.

"We are trying to accommodate the brain now," says Debbie Murphy, principal of Edison Elementary in St. Joseph, Missouri, whose school underwent training with the Gurian Institute. She says the Institute has had an enormous impact, both on her school and on the way she deals with students personally. After learning that boys, being more active, need to be doing something all the time, Murphy says she has changed how she approaches discipline,

"When I have guys come down for some emotionally charged discipline conference, I no longer have a conversation with them without having them do something else. For instance, we'll take a walk together and talk. Or I'll put out paper and crayons for them."

"Boys hate to make eye contact when they're being disciplined," says Deborah Mulligan, a primary school teacher in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, and a frequent guest on the local Australian Broadcasting Company radio morning talk show. "Yet what's the first thing female teachers say?: 'Look at me when I'm talking to you! Stop fidgeting and listen!'"

Mulligan says that one of the many differences she sees is in the way children listen. When she reads to her students or plays an audio tape, she says, "girls will sit passively and listen." Boys, on the other hand, "like to draw while they're listening."