<p>Girls and women have a very strong vested interest in men doing well and in their having good role models. They need these men as much as the men need them, as fathers and as future partners. </p>
<p>I’ve seen the results of this in the boys and men my daughters have been involved with. Boys who grow up with involved fathers, in my experience, are much better partners. </p>
<p>I assume this would make them better students, too, though I don’t know.</p>
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<p>Actually, I have a good idea considering my former roommate went to one of the top 3 Ed schools in the nation to get his teaching degree/certification and many college friends went into teaching public schools…including in NYC after attending similar type Masters/certification programs. </p>
<p>More importantly, considering most NYC public school teachers have several class sessions of 40+ students…that’s a tall order to assess even if most of their time isn’t taken up with a handful of violently disruptive students who create a chaotic and even dangerous environment for other students and the teacher/staff concerned. </p>
<p>Most a teacher could reasonably be expected to do is alert the parent and school admins that the student needs to be tested. Most teachers aren’t trained to the level or have the time considering the demands placed by normal students, bureaucratic BS, students with disciplinary issues, and parents of such discipline problem students who adamantly defend the atrocious behavior and threaten lawsuits if their special darling doesn’t get his/her way. </p>
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<p>You’re only citing those who survived the first 5-8 years of BS and insecurity and made it to retirement. Most who start out tend to burn out before the point where they can get tenure because of all that BS.</p>
<p>Also, there are doctors and lawyers who get paid peanuts and/or sometimes free as you very well know considering you work in the legal industry and there’s a glut of lawyers in the wake of the post-2008 economy.</p>
<p>Having a former roommate know something doesn’t impart any wisdom to you, just so that is clear. Same with cousins, classmates from the last millennium or your neighbor’s aunt’s podiatrist’s daughter in law.</p>
<p>zoosermom comment #183 for the win!</p>
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<p>I cited my roommate because he showed me what he was studying and asked for my input on a variety of classroom situations/assessments based on my experiences as a student in a NYC public schools in middle/HS regularly over a period of 2 years. </p>
<p>And what makes you an authority beyond being a parent and if I recall correctly…an educational activist from a NYC borough with a geographical/political culture that’s far closer to some American suburbs(i.e. areas with no sidewalks) than the rest of NYC?</p>
<p>salander,</p>
<p>I am a huge supporter of paying teachers more…as soon as they agree to be subject to some sort of evaluation system that allows bad teachers to be fired.</p>
<p>I take it you are a teacher? If so, do you observe any differences in the way the boys and girls in your classes perform and learn? Maybe you are right, that my expectation that teachers would have knowledge in this area is misplaced.</p>
<p>As a divorced mom, I just want to point out that there are 2 sides to most stories about custody disputes. If you asked my also divorced brother what ruined his relationship with his kids, he recited a very plausible story that it was his ex-wife which most people who knew him believed. Ask his kids and they’ll tell you why they wanted nothing to do with him–and it has zilch to do with their mom. When I got divorced, he started in on my offspring with “Don’t let your mom keep you from your dad” tirades which lead to my offspring also rejecting him. (My offspring saw dad regularly.)</p>
<p>When dads rights organizations concentrate their efforts on making sure that non-custodial dads don’t have to pay for college–the New Jersey law is Exhibit A–they can’t expect the rest of us to feel sorry for them. </p>
<p>Most of my close friends are other divorced moms. I’m the only one whose ex paid for half of college. Even in our case, he tried to weasel out of his commitment. (Paying for half of college was in our divorce agreement.) </p>
<p>A conservative estimate would be that three quarters of the men I know who fought for custody did so to try to force their wives into settling for less child support. Oh, they didn’t say this, but it was the reality. It certainly was in my own case. </p>
<p>The worst case I know involved a boy in my D’s elementary school class. Less than a year after mom finally won custody, she died in a car crash. The dad who had screamed about losing custody of his son refused to take him in. Dad was now remarried and his new wife wasn’t willing to take on a 6 year old boy. The child was devastated. He ended up with an aunt and uncle who treated him like a male version of Cinderella. He was THE worst behaved kid in the class and we all knew why. Eventually, his mother’s youngest sister, who was only 14 when mom/sis died, got married at 18 and asked for custody. It was granted. He moved to Florida. He turned out fine–I know this because he found his old elementary school friends on face book and reconnected. He hates his dad. Wonder why?</p>
<p>No man is “forced” to agree that his ex can move elsewhere with his kids. He can just say “no.” And he SHOULD just say no. Or he should offer a reasonable settlement–okay, you can move but since it’s now not feasible for me to see the kids every other weekend, I get them the entire summer. </p>
<p>IME–which I admit is just my experience–the dads who scream the loudest about their ex-wives ruining their relationships with their kids are the same dads who didn’t pay child support and balk at paying for college. </p>
<p>The ex of a friend moved abroad to avoid paying child support. Mom was still willing to let the kids see him if he paid airfare to and from his country for her and the kids to visit him. He refused to pay for her. She said she wasn’t putting 2 kids under age 10 on an international flight that required switching planes by themselves. He had to pay for a trip for her as well–no other expenses, just the cost of the airfare. He refused.</p>
<p>At her son’s wedding he gave a “toast” in which he said how sad it was for him that he had never had the chance to be around when his son was growing up. Believe me, nobody who knows the truth feels the least bit sorry for him.</p>
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<p>Assuming that question’s addressed to me…no. My tolerance for bureaucratic BS, political shenanigans from local politicians and educational activists, and parents who feel their child(ren) could do no wrong is too low for that</p>
<p>Closest thing I’ve done was to tutor HS/college students on academic subjects, clients/friends/acquaintances on basic computer skills, and a stint as a substitute Western Civ lecturer at a local community college for two sessions of 50-70 students each. </p>
<p>Granted, teaching college level students who are young adults…especially serious adult learners is much easier to handle than dealing with 40+ K-12 students…especially considering I’m not mandated to keep a disruptive student due to DOE/state educational regulations. </p>
<p>If there was an overly disruptive student…I was permitted to order him/her to leave…and to call security if needed. Fortunately, I never had to put that to the test.</p>
<p>No cobrat, my post was directed at salander. Hence the salutation, “salander,”</p>
<p>Cobrat, you misremembered. Your stated recollection is completely incorrect. And I do not claim to be an expert, simply personally experienced over two decades, three children and about six different schools. Also the mother of a teacher whom I asked today. Teachers assess students. It is part of their jobs and most are, in my opinion, the best people to know what is normal, what is cause for concern and how to proceed.</p>
<p>My old boss and dear friend had a hideous divorce a few years ago with school aged kids. Both parents are decent people but mom wanted to be the gatekeeper. Dad kept all interaction in writing with her but exercised all of his rights. He was entitled to school records so he made sure to get them. The first few parent teacher conferences involved two separate meetings because she wouldn’t share her appointment time. Teachers weren’t thrilled and it was clear that dad was always going to be there. Eventually she stopped trying to exclude him because she learned the effort was futile. Kids are in college now, dad pays 100 percent because he can, but his house is the kids’ home. It was a happy ending because dad got informed and refused to give up. He didnt wait for mom to facilitate for him as when they were married and the kids, who were able to communicate with him, learned that dad was always there. They were mortified when he became PTA president because they couldn’t get away with anything. Dads do have rights, which is not to say there aren’t cases of legal abuse, but any father who exercises his rights consistently, conducts himself respectfully and communicates with his kids can’t be shut out.</p>
<p>Bay: </p>
<p>I am a professor at the college and graduate school level as I mentioned earlier in the thread. I have done research on education policy around the world, and read a lot about it because of my work.</p>
<p>The reason I like zoosermom’s comment is the idea that anecdotical evidence doesn’t make one an expert in a topic. It wasn’t personal against you, it just became very frustrating to read a thread where people are responding to an article citing a large-N study about why at the high school and college level men drop out at a higher rate than women with anecdotical evidence about a different topic (elementary school teaching methods). </p>
<p>As I said before in this thread, the higher dropout rate for men is not an American phenomenon, it’s observed on all the other middle and high income countries. Each of these have different teaching methods, some have more standardized tests, others none; some have more time for physical ed, others almost none, and so on. </p>
<p>If the root of this issue was teaching methods in elementary schools, we would see different outcomes regarding the male education gap in different countries. We do not.</p>
<p>It frustrates me because, as I said earlier in the thread, the higher drop out rate for men worries me a lot, and it has for a while, because it means that in the future those men are going to struggle to make ends meet. The current labor market makes it much harder than it was 20-50 years ago to have a middle class lifestyle without a college degree. The study cited in the article found that men were more likely to be “over confident” about their financial future, or were planning to make a living being an athlete, or what not, so they were not as interested in finishing HS and/or some college (including an associates degree).</p>
<p>I became very interested in this thread because I have seen many college students who come to my office to tell me they are going to drop out because their grandpa, or their uncle, or whatever lived very well with a blue collar job, so they feel they “deserve” to be able to do that too. </p>
<p>Others are planning to drop out to become the next Steve Jobs (how many Steve Jobs can there actually be?). I care about them, the job market is brutal these days. How can we help boys and men have high self esteem and want to be the next Michael Jordan or Steve jobs when they are growing up, but still have a career back-up plan that’s a little more realistic. I think male models who value education matter, I think being honest with them about the need for an education in today’s world is too. I really want to figure out what we can do as a society about it, and do it.</p>
<p>Furthermore, I do support teacher merit evaluation related to pay (I don’t know why you seem to argue i don’t). I never talked about it because I don’t think people of either sex are dropping out of high school and college because of it (I have seen no research with that finding). The educational gap between men and women exist in places with merit based pay and places without it. I linked an OECD report earlier in this thread in case you are wondering where I got that information. As I said before, I have done some research before on education policies and outcomes. </p>
<p>My liking zoosermom’s comment comes from my agreement with her that anecdotical evidence doesn’t make one an expert, and we cannot generalize to a population conclusions stemming from anecdotical evidence about a handful of individuals who are likely not even a representative sample. It was not because of you or anyone in particular. I am so sorry if I offended you or anyone else, I just got a lite passionate earlier, and not necessarily an expert either. Sorry.</p>
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<p>That isn’t any better than my having a close roommate who attended an ED school for his Masters/certification…especially considering it’s likely we’ve had far more frequent day-to-day discussions about his ed-school experiences and teaching stints by virtue of close proximity and shared interests on this issue. </p>
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<p>For academic class work, tests, and to alert admins/parents about possible developmental, learning, or disciplinary issues, yes. </p>
<p>However, they shouldn’t be expected to solve those issues as they don’t have a smidgen of the training child development specialists, psychologists, and the like have. That’s why those experts/fields exist. Moreover, much of this also falls more into the domain of parental responsibility as the parent(s) are ultimately responsible for their own kids. </p>
<p>Classroom teachers are responsible for the classroom environment and academic learning for 40+ students multiplied by several classes per day. Who is likely to have deeper knowledge of a given student and not likely to be spread thin by having responsibilities for dozens or even hundreds of other students each day?</p>
<p>Thanks for the thoughtful and inciteful explanation, salander. </p>
<p>Likewise, my comment about asking teachers for the answer wasn’t intended to lay more expectations or work on that profession. It just seems like the most logical place to look for answers. </p>
<p>Also adding, most American professional athletes went to college, so I don’t understand the presumption that boys wanting to be sports stars means they don’t have college in their plans.</p>
<p>Oops I meant “insightful”. Freudian slip? Lol</p>
<p>It’s not a presumption. The study found that some males were not interested in education because they were planning to be athletes. I agree with you that most successful athletes went to college. it’s just faulty logic from some boys.</p>
<p>Cobrat, I asked a teacher today. Today. I think your notions of teacher training, education and methods is as outdated as your perceptions of other things, which are based in very old, often secondhand information. Teachers assess students. Who do you think often starts the diagnostic process for learning disabilities, the tooth fairy?</p>
<p>Or they know that successful athletes go to college, the boys just think they are so special that their athletic ability will get them in and will keep them in college regardless of whether they actually can or do do the work.</p>
<p>My S is one of those boys who wanted to be a pro athlete and hated school. He did know about college sports being the prerequisite to pro sports, so his goal was to get into a college where he can play his sport and he did it. It was not until he turned 18 that he suddenly decided he wanted to become a lawyer or go into finance.</p>
<p>My take on him and the system is that there is not enough connection being made in school between studying required subjects and work in the real world. My Ds wrote poetry in English class without needing an explanation from me as to why they had to do it. My son asked, and never seemed satisfied with the answers I came up with.</p>
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<p>FYI, said former roommate is still teaching and is about to get tenure after teaching for around 6 years. Also, his experience is similar to that of several friends going through Teachers College and other MA/Teaching certification programs. </p>
<p>You’re also assuming the theories and content will be learned and embraced wholeheartedly by the aspiring teachers. Most of them…especially those who end up teaching in the most deprived or violent ridden areas found they had to discard most/all of that as a product of the Ed school ivory tower if they were to be effective or at the very least…not steamrolled by students with behavioral issues and parents who feel those children could do no wrong. </p>
<p>That is…assuming they didn’t already realize this from having grown up in such areas and feel the need to humor their Ed school Profs for the sake of the certification. </p>
<p>Not to mention you seem to be ignoring the question of how a given teacher responsible for 40 students multiplied by several class sessions each day would be able to make detailed diagnostics for each of those students…even assuming he/she has perfect ideal students(Ha!).</p>