<p>Well I have a D and S and each have had teachers I could do without.
My D had a male teacher who made no bones about the fact that he thought girls were low on the totem pole and ought to quit the class (an AP class) because they weren’t smart enough to make the grade. I didn’t believe this at all until H went to talk to him and was so dumbfounded that we just pulled her from the class immediately.
My son had a female English teacher whom he said simply didn’t like boys (and DS doesn’t complain about just anything). We should know by now right? Didn’t believe him much either until later conferences with her. All I could think was WOW! If you don’t like 50% of the population you need to skip teaching as a career!
Fortunately both my kids had their fair share of male and female teachers and I do think it makes a difference. The interaction and expectations can be very different between genders.</p>
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<p>This sounds about right. There are a few crazies out there who prefer one sex to the other, but most aren’t like that.</p>
<p>A couple in the town where I teach had something like five boys. The mother told me once (I taught 3 of her sons) that someone came to her and said something like “with 5 boys, your house must be like a wild place”. She immediately told this person “NO, I raised 5 gentlemen!” And all 5 of those boys were in fact great kids,and in fact, gentlemen.</p>
<p>Madad, similar situation: a 2nd grade teacher my son had was the mother of three boys and I commented, “you probably have a lot of rough-housing at your house” and her refreshing response was, “oh no, my husband would never allow that”. Their boys are active and bright but not out of control. The same teacher has a classroom of kids each year that always get along well with each other. She allows a certain amount of movement in the class and doesn’t enforce strict ‘sit at your desk’ policies. I am a paraprofessional (instructional aide) at the school, so I observe this.</p>
<p>I agree with one of the first posts, boys will make weapons out of anything, including a piece of bread; I’ve seen it! I have a grown son. The first time I met a certain childhood friend of his, the boy talked nonstop about guns, so I gave him tinker toys to play with and of course he made guns. Why did I not see that happening? lol</p>
<p>My son has always been bright, quiet, non-aggressive. But he met his very best friend in 4th grade when the other boy was drawing swords on a paper, and the two started collaborating on drawing ones together. Neither boy was ever a discipline problem. They also used to love to play with large sticks with other boys and act like they were battling each other but there was never any injuries or anything. It was all in fun. Of course it was done in their off time from school. </p>
<p>My bright son recognized there were no men teachers in his earlier grades and was glad when he had some starting in junior high.</p>
<p>A life-changing book for me; I read this when my son was young: “Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson”. I saw every male in my life, father, brother, husband, son, in a totally new and insightful light and it changed my world for the better. One thing the authors mention is an all-boys school where jump ropes are outside the door of the classroom, and boys are permitted to jump rope when they need to let off steam. </p>
<p>It’s not a light-reading book but one that truly make you think. I recommend it to anyone to read.</p>
<p>All of these is because teachers cannot teach, they cannot provide services that they have been hires to provide…it is much easier to focus on stupid things, yes, blame 7 y olds for “bad situation” at schools. Schools simply lost the purpose, they forget that they are to educate and NOT to brainwash. Brainwashing should be left for parents to do. But educating require much higher skills than brainwashing, so let’s focus on what is easier and while doing so, let’s make sure that there are less of them to take care of within school walls. Sad!!!</p>
<p>Zoosermom - love your posts on this topic. I think you’re right on.</p>
<p>It’s hard for me to lump all schools across the U.S. into one lot and claim they’re all doing the same thing. I work as a para in an elementary school in a small town. Getting voted onto the homecoming court is seen by many here as a much more prestigious achievement than being val or sal of the class. The homecoming parade in town rivals the Christmas parades in many larger towns!</p>
<p>Sports is usually the best place for boys to shine here. All the brainiacs are sort of dismissed unless they are drop dead gorgeous girls who go on to marry a boy from a wealthy family or unless they’re a boy with athletic ability or go on to join the service.</p>
<p>I mean, that’s life in a small town. I witness it year after year. The facebook pictures that get the most likes are of the small town gorgeous girl in a wedding gown next to the money catch groom-with-connections, not the gal in a high school cap and gown who got the full ride scholarship to a great college.</p>
<p>point well taken, but one must ask: why is it that little girls aren’t (generally) shaping pop-tarts into guns and throwing pretend hand-grenades at the bad guys. And, were any of the school shootings done by young girls?</p>
<p>^The idea that genders are created equal is soooo incorrect. In fact, many who are familiar with body workings and hormons make up even question how in a world we reproduce when male and female are so different. Some girls would make guns also, but not many. But showing cleavage in HS, they will. So, the question to the quesion in post #109 - Why boys are not up to showing their cleavage in HS…oops, forgot that they do not have it, my mistake!!! But what they might have that girls are missing, at least not in the same amounts? Maybe…some hormon, isn’t it testosterone? Isn’t it the one that is making them stronger, more aggressive, and their is a reason for it. They should be a stronger (physically) gender that suppose to protect themselves and all others, isn’t how it has worked historically? Well, that is if this is NOT suppressed in childhood to the point that they are whiny loosers.<br>
Girls has paid thier dues, they did not mind too much, they stood up to themselves. I hope that boys will do the same. I would take my child out of school that has suspended his friend who points “finger” gun, I would not keep my little guy in the school that is brainwashing him instead of providinn education.
The whole country is just full of this type of crap any more, sick!
BTW, the country in Europe that has the lowest crime rate has the most number of armed citizens. Why is that so? Simple, the criminal will posses gun, legal or illegal. And they will attack others and they will most likely brek into house that with not armed owner. The knowledge that most home owners possess guns will result in less number of breaking in.<br>
Again, nothing, no law will prevent a criminal to own a gun, no gun control will be able to do it. All gun control will do is to disarm law obiding citizens and increase number of crimes.</p>
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<p>Or all schools in one single county. Or all boys and girls in one school…</p>
<p>I am following this discussion but not really getting it. My son didn’t have discipline issues in school, he did enjoy trucks and trains as a kid and at some later point, video games involving guns but he wasn’t ever one to make a gun out of a pop tart or draw them or even play with toy ones (well here I perhaps had some influence, I didn’t buy him toy guns unless they were meant to soak everyone with water on a hot summer day…but his sister got those too). </p>
<p>Now I know that because this has been my experience that doesn’t mean anyone else has it. I’ve seen firsthand SOME boys in preschool and kindergarten, where I volunteered a lot of time, who won’t sit for circle time or won’t do whatever activity is happening from 10-10:20 or whatever. And they get time outs and stuff. And those boys, some grow out of that and some don’t. </p>
<p>Given that our schools DO have recess and time for physical activity (our school allows dodgeball, that un-PC game), what exactly should be different? Should kids NOT spend time learning to write their names or learn numbers or whatever else is going on? Should the teaching methods be different for those boys? who don’t handle sitting or concentrating well? </p>
<p>It’s probably worth mentioning that I’ve also seen girls in that age group that don’t sit still and get a lot of negative teacher attention too. I’d agree that it is somewhat more common with boys but IMO not by a lot. When I was a student teacher in East Harlem in the 80’s (did a year before switching out of Ed major), the biggest class disruptor in my 5th grade class I remember was a girl.</p>
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<p>Let’s say “equivalent” rather than “equal.” </p>
<p>Though I strongly agree with your sentiment. I think the whole anti-firearm lobby is out of control in all aspects of life in the US. The problem is that it’s considered “against the rules” to play with finger guns or eat your pop tart into the shape of an ‘L’ rather than the punishments are too harsh for doing so. Punishment should exist for these “crimes.”</p>
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My son doesn’t have behavior issues, either. He is in many ways not a traditional, manly-boy. Gentle, soft-spoken, artistic. But it is our experience that when there is onlly one acceptable way to be, then anything outside of that way becomes a problem. Classrooms that are welcoming to different ways of learning, different aesthetic sensibilities (this is huge for my son) and different personalities are much better for everyone. Girls who aren’t stereotypical girly-girls can often feel just as unwelcome, and more so, in classrooms where the teacher favors that type of student. My point is that if there were more male teachers, there would be more of a range of teaching styles and more welcome to different learning styles. I’ve posted about this before, but in my son’s middle school, every single science teacher was female and around the same age. When they graded projects, their preferences were exactly the same. They couldn’t even get a single man on the committee to provide some perspective. Diversity actually is a good thing. Would we ever want a college admissions committee to be all of anything? A tenure committee? My personal opinion (which no one has to share, by the way) is that it would be very beneficial to many kids, both male and female, if there were more male teachers.</p>
<p>The fact that boys are doing so much less well than girls should concern everyone. The fact that some people aren’t concerned is, to me, evidence of bias.</p>
<p>Cromette, thank you!</p>
<p>I was talking with a friend yesterday about her son’s experience in kindergarten with the first male kindergarten teacher we had. It was terrible. “Male” isn’t a magic bullet.</p>
<p>I’ve had good and bad teachers who were male and female.</p>
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<p>Surely the answer to this doesn’t lie simply with not suspending boys who make guns out of paper and food? </p>
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<p>I think I agree with this but I don’t really know what it means in practice or how it would benefit boys in particular.</p>
<p>Let me give you a couple concrete examples from daily life in my elementary school. Imagine a group of children either at desks, or seated on the floor, with the teacher doing instruction. The following behaviors will be corrected (Please stop_<strong><em>, No thank you</em></strong><em>, I need your attention </em>___, ) and lacking response, those students will be sent to sit elsewhere, taken aside, or otherwise moved along into another level of correcting. Their behavior is “outside the acceptable bonds” described so well by zoosermom. So, those “problem” behaviors typically include:</p>
<p>tapping a pencil, playing with your shoes, playing with your hands, poking your neighbor, picking mulch off the carpet, prying dirt out of your shoes, pulling your arms out of your sleeves (what is WITH this?!), scraping lunch off your pants, folding yourself up in a ball…</p>
<p>Other behaviors go on, too, in this setting. These behaviors are just as common, but in my experience teachers correct them at a rate far, far, below the previous list. So the “tolerable” behaviors include:</p>
<p>taking your barettes out, taking ponytail holders out, admiring your nails, whispering to your neighbor, re-arranging the beads on your arm (please Moms, help us here!), combing the hair of the person in front of you, playing with your shoes, flipping your hair back and forth, laughing loudly at everything, squealing at every comment, raising your hand even though you were JUST told not too, masking storytelling as a question, interrupting, and tattling.</p>
<p>The kids in the first group may be learning just as well as those in the second. The kids in the second group’s behaviors are just as disruptive, but perceived to be okay and I think it’s because that second group is mostly girls, and we find those social-connecting behaviors more tolerable. We find those aggressive and active behaviors of the first group (boys, mostly) untolerable. A wider and more equitable range of “acceptable” would allow for more comfort in the first group, and more self-discipline/correction in the second. Many, many studies have shown that many boys are actually self-correcting through the repetitive motion (shoes, hands, pencil) as their brain tries to concentrate. Without the motor senses engaged, the brain gets preoccupied by the lack of tactile input and distracted; once something fidgets the brain goes “okay, now I can listen”. This is why many boys do really well simply standing at a desk instead of sitting down. But schools decided, arbitrarily, that sitting is “better”.</p>
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Who, exactly, said that?</p>
<p>The original post.</p>
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<p>That doesn’t say that “the answer lies simply with not suspending boys who make guns out of food and paper.”</p>
<p>No it doesn’t, obviously. It does name that as the reason boys should “ask if they are really welcome” in school.</p>
<p>I do find greenbutton’s post responsive and useful. If it is generally true that girls doing hair is not punished like boys flipping pencils then I agree that yes, there is an issue that is clear and IMO easy to correct.</p>