<p>Boysx, your points about mean girl behavior are totally spot on.</p>
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<p>This behavior sounds mean, but there is a right of free association, and I donât think it merits suspension.</p>
<p>My S and D went to single sex high schools. The differences in the atmosphere were quite large. Each environment was completely supportive of their innate differences. If there had been a same sex middle school options weâd have opted for that in a heartbeat.</p>
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<p>The following applies not only to men, but people in general as well from what Iâve observed.</p>
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<li><p>Low paying relative to other professions requiring equivalent levels of education. Especially if they graduated in the top half of their undergrad classes and/or arenât idealistic about teaching K-12 students. ConsequentlyâŠcorrespondingly lower prestige.</p></li>
<li><p>Aggravations of dealing with disciplinary problems in class and school bureaucracyâŠespecially in public school systems like NYCâs. Iâve noticed this is less of a problem in Catholic/private schools where teachers/admins had more power to impose disciplinary measures for misbehavior in class or college-level teaching where classroom behavioral norms are such that college instructors can simply ask/order the misbehaving student to leave or be escorted out by security.</p></li>
<li><p>Aggravations of dealing with entitled parentsâŠespecially of the upper/upper-middle class professional variety who treated teachers as contemptuously as a poorly brought up entitled variety of that SES tends to treat retail/service workers because theyâre âtoo lowlyâ for them. Saw some of this firsthand from upper-east sider set parents while volunteering as a translator during parent-teacher nights in middle/high school which were held in large open gymnasiums. </p></li>
<li><p>The teaching profession over the last few decades tends to attract more âtouchy-feelyâ personality types which tend to be fewer among males because this personality type tends to be socialized out as it isnât considered âproperly masculineâ. Especially 25-30+ years ago and in neighborhoods like my old then working-class White/Hispanic dominated neighborhood. </p></li>
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<p>Educational admins/bureaucrats also seem to prefer touchy-feely types and dislike teachers who are âold school strictâ like some older middle/high school teachers Iâve had or some college friends who gave up teaching due to being frustrated by school policies which they felt gave students with seriousâŠsometimes violent behavioral issues too many free passes on discipline/punishment. </p>
<p>One extreme example is one clientâs granddaughterâs experience as a victim of a violent stalker in a midwest suburban school district. She had to put up with educational bureaucrats who insisted on appealing in court to bring her stalker back into the general school population even after he was convicted of violent felonies and two judges ruled he was too dangerous to be allowed back into the general school population. It was too absurd to be believed until I saw the court filings and some other documents.</p>
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<p>Recent Supreme Court rulings have implied some of those rights may be restricted even in public schools for K-12 students for the sake of facilitating a good educational environment. </p>
<p>Private schools have much more leeway in this regard as many Catholic schools I knew of expelled students for far less than âmean girlâ behavior or mass socially ostracizing of classmates.</p>
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<p>I taught middle school in an area primarily serving the children of blue collar workers. There was also a geographical pocket of affluence which was included in the schoolâs borders. I saw NO difference between parents. Whether affluent or living paycheck to paycheck, I saw an equal amount of âmy kid is perfect and no way did he/she do thatâ as well as disdain for the teaching profession in general. Obviously YMMV.</p>
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<p>In middle school, the lower-middle/working class parents tended to have much more respect and take teachers at their wordâŠsometimes to excess. Some of my classmates ended up being punished harshly by parents for offenses which the teachers singled them out for due to mistaken identity in large crowded classrooms or for other less innocent reasons. </p>
<p>In high school, the main difference was there was fewer entitled parents in general including from the higher SES. </p>
<p>One of the things I found I needed to do as a translator for Mandarin Chinese speaking parents is to try to soften the meaning of grades/mild teacher criticisms* as, on average, their inclination is to focus on and amplify the meanings of those criticisms far beyond what the teachers had intended to the detriment of their children/my classmates. </p>
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<li>I.e. Minor areas needed for improvement after a long list of compliments. Similar to how supervisors provide quarterly/bi-annual/annual employee assessments.</li>
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That was a very long time ago.</p>
<p>As a single mother who raised a son, this thread seems more than a bit sexist.</p>
<p>I admit that Iâm a bit unique, but Iâve always associated more with boys/men than women, have always participated in more male dominated activities, and have always worked in a very male dominated field. Back in the 70s I was playing Charlieâs Angels with my other female friends and we had our own pretend guns while I was 6 or 7 at most.</p>
<p>In this day and age there are a lot more female action star role models for young girls, I am sure it is not just boys that use pretend weapons.</p>
<p>I agree with the poster who said that the problem is with the zero tolerance policies. Iâm pretty certain the schools would suspend girls for fashioning pretend weapons as well, so donât think this really has anything to do with gender. There are A LOT of boys out there that prefer sports, or art, or music and wouldnât even think of playing with a weapon and a lot of girls that want to be the next Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games) or Merida (Brave) or insert most popular current strong female role model from media.</p>
<p>I advised successive principals that ours was a female dominated elementary school. My three sons were required to do girl stuff. I suggested that all the girls should be required to strap on a helmets and pay peewee football for at least one season. They still donât âget itâ.</p>
<p>Some girls have played and done well in our peewee football leauge; but they âget itâ when the boys get older and their muscles mass increases.</p>
<p>I agree that a lot of the zero tolerance is ridiculous. And boys are more likely to be the ones at a disadvantage under those policies.</p>
<p>However I strongly disagree that only girls are mean and that the majority of bullying is done by girls. I know many, many parents who found out after the fact ( because boys donât talk about it) that their sons were bullied by other boys. When S was in MS he showed me an " I hate ( boyâs name)" FB page that was absolutely vile. The page created by and mostly posted on by boys. Thankfully it was seen by other adults and taken down before I could report it ( I planned to). This was only one instance. I would like the schools to concentrate on bullying by both genders instead of worrying about things like paper guns.</p>
<p>Both my sons, as kids, had girls that would not leave them alone. They would insist on being near them, pushing the swing, helping with math, passing notesâŠit was ridiculous and very much unwanted. If you are amused by this, and unconvinced that girls get away with all sorts of stuff---- would it be okay for a fourth grade boy to corner a third grade girl? For a senior boy to follow a freshman girl around despite being told to stop it? Would a principal dismiss a fifth grade boyâs constant attempts to embrace an unwilling classmate as nothing?</p>
<p>Elementary schools (I work in one) value compliance, cooperation, listening skills and patience. Testing only exacerbates the problem by emphasizing the right answer, not the right problem solving strategy or questions. Studies show that physical exercise improves recall and processing, but schools increasingly have so much test prep to do that there"s little time for anything else.</p>
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<p>Bullying/violence is not limited to one gender. However, IMEâŠit tended to be much more physically violent with boys and verbally/psychologically violent with girls on average. </p>
<p>There were exceptions, though as demonstrated by a pair of girls in my 6 grade class who were suspended from my Catholic Elementary School for a week and had other punishments for viciously fighting in a public park outside school hours after school/weekend.</p>
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<p>What kinds of âgirl stuffâ were your sons required to do?</p>
<p>I agree that Zero Tolerance generally equals Zero Common Sense. I have read the nuttiest stories about how children were disciplined under Zero Tolerance policies. </p>
<p>I have boys and they carried weapons with them everyday of their childhood. They were always busy re-enacting some historical situation and lets face it - history is full of weapons. They would have hated being in a school with a no weapons policy. It would have made no sense to them.</p>
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<p>What is âgirl stuffâ? Why should girls have to play sports that donât exist at higher levels just for them? And why does âboy stuffâ revolve exclusively about sports? I donât understand this comment at all.</p>
<p>NJres and boysx3 are correct. Zero tolerance policies are ridiculous because they demand and even legislate perfect behavior. Whose behavior is perfect?</p>
<p>Zero tolerance doesnât mean âperfectâ behavior. It means SOME behaviors are completely off limits. Obviously if it mean perfect behavior, then every kid would be getting kicked out regularly. Which is far from what is happening.</p>
<p>I think thereâs a combination issue. One being the zero-tolerance = zero-sense, which has been mentioned and discussed earlier in this topic, and I donât have much to add to it. The other being the obnoxious, idiotic, fascist, and sometimes downright malicious, anti-firearm crusade being waged on the public. I hadnât known of anything where play light-sabers were deemed inappropriate by the school, but I had heard of stories where the âfinger gunsâ got kids suspended. I could understand banning real guns, I can even understand banning bb guns, paintball guns, squirt guns, and toy replicas. But finger guns, which arenât even real objects, where no one could ever mistake it as a dangerous weapon, thatâs beyond zero-tolerance, thatâs the anti-firearm campaignâs tyrant wave reaching over every child in the US. People complain about the Michigan Militia (who by the way, were not guilty in that whole conspiracy deal), but theyâre still far less extreme than some of these anti-firearms nuts.</p>
<p>I wish there was the same zero tolerance for hate speech against boys and men that there is for hate speech against girls and women. Men would be crucified for saying things about girls or women that some women, at CC and throughout our society, say about boys or men. Everyone tends to interpret their experiences in a way that puts themselves in the best possible light, but careful and sensitive people recognize this and modify their expressed opinions to reflect the importance of creating an atmosphere of respect and harmony.</p>
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<p>Conversely, I wish there was tolerance for all speech. Even âhateâ speech, which I often notice in the form of valid and truthful, but unpolitical correctly stated, claims.</p>