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I'll tell you where we got this notion: someone decided that we shouldn't yell at fourth grade girls, and by default, treatment of the boys was degraded. All this happened at about the same time that 'we' decided that competition among children was, likewise, not a good thing, and yet boys thrive on it.
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Yep, it's true. I'm a generally non-confrontational person, but I have known the "rush" that comes from finally getting into an all-out shouting match with someone I've run out of patience with. Admittedly, I do experience the nausea as well - but it doesn't come until afterwards, when I realize I may have gotten carried away and lost a friend or ally. I then rapidly apologize. Is this feminine or masculine? I'm not sure.
Anyway, I do think it's important to point out the positive aspect of being more inclined to confrontation. It's easy - especially in today's cultural climate - to diagnose this as sheer belligerence and a love of beating other people up (in so many words). A lot of feminist-minded people will read this article and decide that it merely confirms their view that males are not very highly evolved creatures (because cooperation is seen as highly evolved, and competition is seen as primitive and beastly, and ultimately dispassionate and unloving).
But deeper consideration shows that this is a highly evolved trait in that it shows not just an urge to confront, but also a willingness to be confronted in return, and a willingness to be beaten, or to stand corrected (and to learn from being corrected). And that is the mark of a mature, secure and ultimately humble individual.
Maybe the person who staunchly avoids confrontation does so not because they are so peace-loving, but because he or she is simply not willing to sustain the humiliation of being corrected - and knows that the best way to avoid being corrected is to never state one's views loudly enough to invite an argument in the first place. It's a sign not of humility, but of just the opposite trait.
Anyway, I think this shows a particular virtue of men and masculine-minded people - that in showing a greater inclination to fight, they are also showing a greater willingness to be fought in return. So long as the fighting is fair, of course.
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by Anonymous User on Wednesday March 05, @11:50PM EST (#3)
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Hawth, well said.
Even Scott Adams, who does the "Dilbert" comic strip says that men are better than women at dealing with humiliation.
God knows, we HAVE to be.
Thundercloud.
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This is because we do not base our self-esteem on a hive-like social structure, and are less vulnerable to emotional attacks (and things that merely seem like emotional attacks, like getting corrected).
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I think they mean primarily grade-school girls, K-6. I recall seventh grade and up and I can tell you their behavior got progressively nastier as the years went on, but in elementary school they were tame.
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Boys often respond well in a more formal, almost militaristic climate, where teachers call students by their last names; girls typically do not do well in that kind of setting, and would actually do better in a setting where both they and their teacher are allies, talking to each other on a first-name basis, rather than adversaries.
Even in an article which is supposed to be positive towards boys, the same creaky stereotyping and insinuation is present throughout. So, we should shout at the boys, but not at the girls; gee, that's going to make the classroom so much more 'boy positive'. Somebody get me a big stick so I can beat some sense into these people or, failing that, just beat them for my own satisfaction.
How telling it is that the article admits that girls do better when they and their teachers are 'allies' not 'adversaries' (like the boys). Isn't that the feminist classroom in a nutshell? The teacher and girls united, and the boys as the 'enemy'. I still remember how boys were directly blamed for girls' educational failings; how they were accused of hogging the teacher's attention and shouting the girls down. Sheesh!
Boys probably like getting some serious attention and actually engaging with the teacher, rather than being ignored by a teacher whose got her mind full of Marxist-feminist claptrap and Carol Gilligan's bullshit. Being called by your last name establishes a more serious, adult context than being called by your first name; your teacher is your teacher, not a friend or a parent substitute. And the word is not 'formal' or 'militaristic', it's disciplined. Boys are often a lot smarter than they're given credit for, and they tend to get bored sooner than girls because things aren't moving fast enough for them. Boys aren't just girls with dicks, and they don't deserve to be treated like that.
One last thing. If it's really the case that males and females have these two very different responses to confrontation, how are we going to create the right kind of learning environment for boys when so many teachers are women?
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I'm of the opinion that the fact that men are so outnumbered by women in education, especially at the elementary levels, is not the women's fault. (Oh, we can blame it on the demands by women on men's income, but that's a peripheral issue to my point.) We are all exercising career choices. For example, were I to go to college for a degree in physics, my first career choice would not be teaching because of MY income expectations. Teaching doesn't really pay well, so I'd be far more inclined to head toward engineering.
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You're absolutely right Frank... teaching is a difficult and poorly rewarded profession. I have a background that would allow me to offer much to kids in math, science and technology (Project Engineer) yet I couldn't afford a 70% cut in salary to do it.
I've long thought that industry should become more involved in education, even going so far as allowing some of their "star" employees to skip out a day a week to teach kids (the star employees of tomorrow). The problem is that I doubt the educational system would allow such userpers into their hallowed halls.
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I dunno where you live, Dave, but in New Jersey, it wouldn't be so much the "educational institutions" but the teachers union, the same teachers union that opposes charter schools and school vouchers. But THAT's a different subject.
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I guess I too was thinking of the teachers unions when I wrote that. They've been fairly militant regarding their "turf".
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I actually don't the the system is guilt-free, just that prohibiting bona fide industrial professionals frome entering the classroom is ONE thing they may NOT be guilty of (As I said, I think the teachers unions do a pretty good job of that.) What I DO think the institutions are guilty of is all too easily buying into "the approved curriculum." One of the things I've heard about the notion of moving from engineering into education (as I, too, have contemplated) is that if you think you are going to go in there and change anything, forget it. You teach exactly what they tell you to teach, from the books they select and provide, you use their grading system, and you use these tools to deliver it. Innovation is thickly stifled, and you have too many students to spend time on any few. Also, the discipline problems are heavily exacerbated by the lawyers hired by the parents of the students so that you cannot even get a disruptive student out of your classroom. You have some latitude within your classroom, but not much.
I've considered charter schools and community colleges, but my experience is nil, and right now, there are enough of us techogeeks looking for jobs that competition is stiff.
I thought about starting a summer school that approached education froma slightly different perspective, but I have little money to put into it, so the idea is on the back burner for now.
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I just want to follow up with another comment. While my kids were in elementary school, I organized several science and technology programs that were held on Saturdays in the school where my kids went. I recall that support from the teaching staff was lukewarm. I never really checked-out why that was. But some teachers, and the folks in the community were very supportive, and in every case, it turned out to be a nice day for all involved.
Were I to do it over again, I would discard the science and technology program, and engage in a program that brought boys closer to language arts somehow. I'm sure I get a lot more resistance on that, and a lot less support.
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I've long thought that industry should become more involved in education, even going so far as allowing some of their "star" employees to skip out a day a week to teach kids (the star employees of tomorrow). The problem is that I doubt the educational system would allow such userpers into their hallowed halls.
Given the dropout rate for boys and the inutility of what they are being taught in public schools, perhaps it would be more useful for industry to return to apprenticeship programs to get their employees of tommorrow. Or fund private schools that require competitive exam to enter and stay in, but which are funded by the industry in question.
It seems to me that the current public education system is primarily useful for producing compliant female citizens and angry male non-citizens.
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I've long thought that industry should become more involved in education, even going so far as
allowing some of their "star" employees to skip out a day a week to teach kids (the star employees
of tomorrow). The problem is that I doubt the educational system would allow such userpers into
their hallowed halls.
In Australia you cannot teach in a public school
unless you have a 3 year degree in bullshit
feminist education theory. One of the consequences
of this is that the standard of teaching languages
in this country is very low, as they are taught
by people who cannot speak the language in
question (while tertiary educated native speakers
who want to teach aren't allowed in the door).
cheers,
Tim
Those who like this sort of thing
will find this the sort of thing they like.
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" I'm of the opinion that the fact that men are so outnumbered by women in education, especially at the elementary levels, is not the women's fault."
Nobody said it was, nor does it have anything to do with the article you replied to. Standing up for men, or boys in this case, does not equate with blaming women.
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I tend to agree with their assessment Uberganger, although I understand your sentiment. I believe the solution isn't that boys get yelled at and girls get babied though. I believe that boys should be educated seperately from girls, and that men should be encouraged to become teachers and role models for these young men.
My wife and I were discussing this several days ago, both our boys have had trouble with passive teachers. They challenge authority and if that authority doesn't rise to the challenge... it looses it's credibility (they're not violent or even impolite... but they simply don't respect people who can't put their foot down on anything). They constantly challenge authority in small ways, and expect that authority to set borders, these days teachers don't seem to be doing this with boys as efficiently as they used to. Part of the problem IMO is that teachers have no "teeth". When I was in grade school you listened to the Nuns or you got an ear tweaked... or heaven forbid you got sent to the principal for a paddling. Nuns were strong, imposing women who had NO problem dealing with even the most hyperactive boys.
I think the problems we see with medicating boys and "Attention defecit" results primarily from teachers who don't have to tools to direct the boundless energy that boys seem to have. Educational formats have become less and less about challenge, competition, and learning achievement, and more and more about "we're all so wonderful just like we are" and "isn't self esteem great". A good indicator of this is the number of Social Workers that schools employ.
I'm not saying we should all send our boys to boot camp, but IMO boys thrive in a more authoritarian and competitive atmosphere. Girls want concensus, boys want leadership. One is not better than the other, but they are different.
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"Somebody get me a big stick so I can beat some sense into these people or, failing that, just beat them for my own satisfaction."
CAREFUL, you might give them ideas on how "corporal punishment works on boys but not girls."
As I always say when it comes to education: "Don't get me started;" the field of education is a hotbed for tin-god manipulators seeking a captive audience on which to foist their grandeuristic experiments-- and children are their favorite target, being both captive and impressionable, while adults would walk out in a heartbeat. The notion of turning all-boy classrooms into boot camps sounds like the desperation of someone so unsure in their teaching abilities that they feel the need to lecture students at gunpoint.
And since when is a "fight or flight" response conducive to learning anything except battle fatigue? This "ends justifies the means" crap is simply a self-granted license to commit male-gender abuse; like circumcision, it's accepted since it's against males.
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Total B.S. This kind of pseudo-science gives license to be verbally abusive to boys but to treat girls with kid gloves. I was a 4th grade boy once and I never liked being yelled at-- especially when it was completely unwarranted.
More junk pop psych aimed at making boys targets of women (ie, the teachers). This is NOT progress.
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The thesis behind this article strikes me as a bunch of crap -- another excuse to degrade boys. And note that this dubious idea comes from one Dr. Sax, founder of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education (NASSPE).
When I was in grade school, I and pretty much all the other boys were not only frequently yelled at, we were frequently, brutally beaten by the nun-teachers. (Note that I never saw a priest hit anyone, and I never saw a nun hit a girl. All the violence was by women against little boys.) There was absolutely nothing good about it, and it occurred frequently not only in my school but across the country.
We'll have to keep an eye on this. Single sex education could prove to be a salvation for boys, but it won't be if it's just another cover for misandry and anti-male brutality.
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I located an article on the NASSPE website about brain differences between boys and girls. There are some interesting data on this page but his conclusions are junk. He says that because a 17-year-old boy's brain "looks" like a 11-year-old girl's, and because men don't have the same degree of myelinization as women until their late 20s, that the female brain is somehow more developed. This is the same junk science that tells us that girls are years ahead of boys developmentally. Certainly they are apt to start puberty a year or two earlier, but are they really six years ahead?
I don't think so. We all got the same english, math, science, social studies, etc. assignments. I didn't see all the girls going "wow this sure is easy" and all the boys going "ook eeg ugh this hard." In fact my english comprehension skills blasted every girl in my class out of the water, every year running. And the boys usually did better than the seven-years-more-advanced girls at math.
In fact, let's look at a very interesting picture that will put the whole myelin theory to rest, and cast doubt on the use of brain anatomy to determine the level of development: Different brain activity, male and female, while listening to a passage from a novel.
Notice that in the male brain, voice processing is centered entirely in one area, whereas in the female brain, it is handled mostly by the same area (and at noticeably lower intensity) with a little bit of the processing handled on the opposite side. Take note of this difference - it's important.
I looked up Myelin and discovered that it allows quicker communication between neurons. More of it allows higher data transfer rates and males don't catch up to females until about 29 years of age.
Now look at the picture again. Do you see what I'm getting at? The male brain does not suffer from lower myelinization during speech processing because it does not have to shuttle information back and forth across the two lobes - everything is handled in one place, and at a higher level of neural activity I might add. Look at it like this - the male is processing speech with a single 100MHz CPU. The female is processing speech with a 70MHz CPU in one place and a 30MHz CPU in another. In order for the female's two CPUs to interact as best as possible, a higher degree of myelinization is required as this allows the neurons to transmit impulses more quickly across the brain. Females have a thicker bundle of nerves connecting the two hemispheres and now I can see why!
Then you have the statement that the female brain at 11 "looks like" the male brain at 17. Looks like it in what way? Seems rather counterintuitive as in the article it says that the average male brain is 8% larger than the average female brain. And it seems even more like an apples-to-oranges comparison since the article also states that males have more white matter and females have more grey matter. Obviously male and female brains are specialized for different kinds of tasks...
...like navigation. Choose which gender goes with which set of directions:
- "Turn right on Oak Grove and right again on Berkshire. Drive for 3 miles, turning left at Parkway. Continue 2 miles to the freeway."
- "Turn right on my street and then turn right at the gas station. Drive for a while until you get to the supermarket and then turn left. The freeway is just straight after that."
The first statement is more likely to come from a male and the second is more likely to come from a female. Males use primarily the hippocampus for this task, whereas females use primarily the cerebrum. It would appear that male brains are specialized for inertial navigation (the sensing of acceleration and the mapping against waypoints, like an airplane) in a way that female brains aren't. Males therefore use built-in circuitry in the "white matter" area of the brain. Females lack this circuitry, but they have to navigate anyway so they develop the ability by creating new circuits in their grey matter. They use waypoints like we do, but instead of using inertial guidance they scan for landmarks instead. Why don't they have the same inertial navigation circuits we have? I would guess it's because they didn't need it in our evolutionary history. Who spent all day hunting and navigating through the wilds, and had to be able to find their way back home? The men. Women would not have benefitted from navigational wetware so none ever became prominent in their half of the gene pool.
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I located an article on the NASSPE website about brain differences between boys and girls. There are some interesting data on this page but his conclusions are junk.
The NASSPE may be an extremely dangerous organization. Feminists and their dupes have refined their ability to pretend to solve a problem by further vilifying and oppressing males. Let's keep an eye on this group and stop it dead in its tracks, if it proves to be yet another tool of feminism.
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I would urge you to keep an open mind on this. There is some significant experience that shows that competition is a useful tool when educating boys. With competition comes leadership, redirection, and conflict. As long as these things are used in moderation, then are worthwhile tools in the male classroom. I've read several articles and a couple of books (or passages therefrom) that all agree on this. I can't cite all of my sources right now, but Michale Gurian ("Boys and Girls Learn Differently") is one.
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I would urge you to keep an open mind on this. There is some significant experience that shows that competition is a useful tool when educating boys.
Competition is great. An adult yelling at a child is not competition. I've tutored boys and young men, always with great success, and I've never had to yell at them.
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I don't think that "yelling at them" initially should be the case - except as a disciplinary measure when the boy in question has gone too far. This is an area where I think the article misleads people into thinking we should literally recreate a military environment for boys in school.
In my experience, the most successful disciplinarian teachers I've had were teachers who simply established from Day One that they were tough and they weren't going to take any crap. They didn't establish this by yelling or abusing anyone. They simply conveyed an attitude in their demeanor and their choice of words that was distinctly different from the passive, congenial attitude typical of most teachers. Incidentally, one of the best examples of this I saw was a woman - so it doesn't necessarily have to be a man to accomplish this. (And realistically, rather than waiting for an influx of male teachers, we may have better luck training female teachers to be more tough in this manner; my observance has been that most boys and men will respond almost equally well to a woman so long as she has the right attitude.)
Another key attribute I've found in teachers that got less crap from students was that they seemed "normal", likable and accessible. Maybe they didn't seem especially tough - but they definitely showed a cognizance and a grip on reality that I've found has been the primary handicap of teachers that I saw get a lot of abuse from misbehaving kids. These were teachers who either seemed really stilted in their demeanor, like they were just going through the motions and not really "into it" themselves, or a little bit on the eccentric side, like they were out of touch with reality and wouldn't have the sense to know it if you were dissing them to their face. I saw a lot of this type of teacher going through grade school and high school - and the "bad" boys just eviscerated them.
Incidentally, my observation also was that the girls generally didn't respect the teachers any more than the boys did. The difference was that they did not show it. On the contrary - they smiled and carried on congenially with them. Then they made fun of or complained about them behind their backs.
Ultimately, I think what it all boils down to is that ALL children are in a huge hurry to be treated like adults - but girls and boys have different methods of obtaining that respect. Girls' m.o. is to simply avoid being treated like children (i.e. "getting yelled at") by acting very congenial and mature, so that an adult will relax their authoritarianism and treat them like they treat other adults. Boys' m.o. is to yell at an adult: "Hey! I'm not just some little kid here! I've got a brain! I've got ideas! I've got something special to offer the world!" by the conviction that this will impress the adult and gain their respect.
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Good post, Hawth. My experiences with teachers have been very similar to yours.
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Thomas, thanks for the good word (and Thundercloud, for my first post). I haven't said anything in quite a while, so I'm a little sheepish. But I plan to make up for lost time.
In regards to your experiences being similar - it already goes without saying around here that the first step toward ending this whole mess is for men to compare notes and realize we each weren't the only ones on the planet who observed what we observed, and thought what we thought. Often times, just having one guy come up to you and say, "Yeah! I've always thought so, too!" is practically as good and as motivating as if a million had done so. It's a shame, then, that just having a single guy come up to you and say that is such an elusive gratification.
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I haven't said anything in quite a while, so I'm a little sheepish. But I plan to make up for lost time.
It's good to have you back, Hawth. I've always enjoyed reading your posts.
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Good post Hawth, and good to see you.
I worry that this article is offering the impression that it's okay to yell at boys and not girls. I think that is missing the point completely. Boys thrive on challenge not on disrespect. It gets a bit fuzzy because yelling at someone can indeed be a challenge and can also be done in a respectful manner. However, yelling is more often done out of disrespect and in an attempt to shame which has a negative impact on both boys and girls.
The best teachers I can remember were the ones that were able to say "You think you are good? Okay. Try this." And then challenge you to publically display your results allowing you to either shine or sputter.
Fight or flight is a reality for boys. Let's not forget though that those who choose "flight" are not going to get much from the challenge. I think we also need to remember that there are some boys who don't like challenge so much and there are some girls who will thrive with it. Teachers need to be able to know the nature of their students and this is a very difficult task when you have 35 in a room and 45 minutes to get things done.
Stand Your Ground Forum
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This kind of pseudo-science gives license to be verbally abusive to boys but to treat girls with kid gloves.
I couldn't agree more. My very first experience with sexual inequality was, as it happens, in the 4th grade with a (male) teacher who acted in exactly this way. The boys in the class got yelled at and the girls were treated with respect. Frankly, that has colored my perception of gender relations for my whole life; it taught me that all the whining females did about always being put down by the male-run system was so much BS (thankfully most teachers didn't act that way towards boys, but I never saw any teacher treat girls with such abuse).
I think this author may be on to something with the idea that boys need a more structured atmosphere. In fact I wouldn't even shrink from the word "militaristic." When I was in school, I remember imagining that the classes were military campaigns, and the tests were battles; that really helped me focus myself. In fact, that fantasy even crossed my mind sometimes in college. I know that makes me sound immature, but heck, I graduated with honors! Whatever works, I guess. Also, there will always be some people who respond best to a swift kick in the butt; the boy cited in the article, who was constantly late with his homework, seems to be a case in point. But to propose verbal abuse as a primary pedagogical tool strikes me as insane. I have had experience with a verbally abusive teacher, and all he ever induced in me was a feeling of hopelessness.
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by Anonymous User on Friday March 07, @03:31PM EST (#31)
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Actually, I had a couple of teachers do that technique... It worked to make me suicidal, depressed, and bullied, but it did squat to my grades.
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