this month in mensa..

[penkitten]

. But the problem is so entrenched in public education, that it would probably take more drastic steps like voucher so parents can send their kids to private schools of their choice.

if all people started getting vouchers, there would be no need for public schools. all kids would have to go to private schools that are mostly very religious, which is ok in ways, but biased against other religions and some forms of history and science.
education should be wonderful in all aspects, from what you learn, who you learn it from to what you eat. it should be filled with diversity and not biased to anything, and by golly, it should be FREE to all who want to learn.

 

[ketostix]

if all people started getting vouchers, there would be no need for public schools. all kids would have to go to private schools that are mostly very religious, which is ok in ways, but biased against other religions and some forms of history and science.
education should be wonderful in all aspects, from what you learn, who you learn it from to what you eat. it should be filled with diversity and not biased to anything, and by golly, it should be FREE to all who want to learn.

Well a voucher makes it "free" and probably cheaper and higher quality overall because it adds competition and breaks the monopoly the public schools have. These vouchers don't have to be for religious schools in the first place. What real diversity do most public schools have as it is? That's the problem in the first place. Schools are not diverse, they're intolerant of boys, conservative, to some degree intolerant of most religions (religions shouldn't be taught there anyway, but they teach intolerance of certain ones anyway). This idea of diversity is mostly crap because there is no real diversity in these schools, more like adversity and intolerance.

The curriculm should actually be tolerant and standardize and religious, political and gender neutral but it's definitely not.

 

[penkitten]

The curriculm should actually be tolerant and standardize and religious, political and gender neutral but it's definitely not.

i agre with you

 

[reset]

Males grow up ASHAMED of being Men.
So what do they do?
They look for approval from women.
And women want to know "WTF is wrong with this guy?"

This is part of being raised in the American School system and then reinforced in the workplace.

Yup, that's it in a nutshell. I know that I grew up thinking all men were dogs and cavemen and women were special and civilized and they were the ones that had value and that my job was to prove my worth to a woman so she wouldn't see me as just another guy who was interested in sex, so I overcompensated (pretended) by worshiping girls I hardly knew, hoping that if I kneeled at their feet long enough they would see I was different and special and caring and sensitive and that I was a man who didn't care about screwing them.

Oops!

I remember being called into the Manager's office once because I touched a girl's elbow.

LOL! Of course women have free reign to touch whoever they want in the workplace.

 

[Luveno]

My experience with teachers is that most people who graduate from teacher's college are just indecisive unmotivated imbeciles who do it because it guarantees them steady employment. They don't teach because they love to, or because they are proud of it. They do it because "its a job".

Unfortunately, its a job that has drastic repercussions on children. Bad teachers spread bad teachings!

Though the fact that girls tend to be favored in school by the teachers cannot be denied, I believe it is rooted far more deeply than having female teachers. As far as I know, teachers have always been primarily female.

The real problem is with the education system itself. It's not education anymore. It's babysitting - all teachers need to do is read from a book, command the children to listen and do menial tasks, and ensure that parents have a place to store their children during the work day. Children are trained to be low-level white collar cogs; necessary but ultimately replaceable by cheaper overseas labor. They are not trained to think.

 

[The Bat]

I was with a friend couple of nights ago who is student teaching right now and will have a full-time job as elementary teacher starting in August. She was grading her 3rd grade students' papers where the students had to make a list of 4-6 items about solid, liquid, and gas.

She came across a male student who was very bright for his age since he had managed to list around 10 items instead of the required 4-6. Her instant reaction was, "Ugh, he is such an overachiever/show-off. Plus, he's the gay one." Next, my friend came across a female student who had listed around 8 items and, here is the interesting part, her reaction was, "I LOVE her! She's so smart!!".

It gets better. There was a male student whose spelling was poor and was only able to list 2-3 items at which my friend responded, "He's an idiot. He can't even write in a straight line and he's already in 3rd grade." Then came a female student who was just as "dumb" but my friend's reaction to this student was, and yes you guessed it my friends, "Aww. I feel so bad for her. She tries so hard and is so nice."

At the time, I didn't pay much attention to my friend's reactions to her male/female students' capabilities and obvious sexist bias. Well, mostly because I was trying to play Century and couldn't focus on her at the time. However, this experience was a good illustration of what penkitten mentioned here in this thread. American education system is not so much flawed or broken rather it's unfairly skewed to favor one sex over another.

This is my main problem with all forms of feminism. I'm all for fair and equal treatment and justice for both sexes in all walks of life including workforce, academics, and crime. However, I'm not willing to throw down the gauntlet and let one sex dominate the other regardless of what the justification is. Feminist justification for female domination is, "We've been tortured and treated unfairly for too long. Someone (i.e. us men) will pay for it."

To me, this justification sounds as irrational and unethical as the justification used by blacks sometimes, "We've been enslaved for too long. Someone (i.e. whites) will pay for it." I'm trying to make a point here so let's not turn this into an affirmative action debate.

I'm not too good of a friend with the above mentioned female friend (she is my best friend's one-itis girlfriend) so I'm not going to waste my time to show her the errors of her way. Not out of laziness or lack of care, but mostly out of the fact that she is pretty much going to become the next "jophil's ex wife from 2006". Bad news for my best friend, I suppose.

 

[ketostix]

It gets better. There was a male student whose spelling was poor and was only able to list 2-3 items at which my friend responded, "He's an idiot. He can't even write in a straight line and he's already in 3rd grade." Then came a female student who was just as "dumb" but my friend's reaction to this student was, and yes you guessed it my friends, "Aww. I feel so bad for her. She tries so hard and is so nice."

At the time, I didn't pay much attention to my friend's reactions to her male/female students' capabilities and obvious sexist bias. Well, mostly because I was trying to play Century and couldn't focus on her at the time. However, this experience was a good illustration of what penkitten mentioned here in this thread. American education system is not so much flawed or broken rather it's unfairly skewed to favor one sex over another.

.

This is an excellent example of the problem and what I was refering to earlier. We either have to believe females are naturally sexist and hostile toward males, or that females are taught to be sexist and hateful. I believe it's a little bit of both, but mostly taught and women can and should be taught to not be like that. I believe these women teachers were taught to be this way beginning in elementary school. Then in middle and high school, this sexist bias manifest its self in shaming male sexuality. Then on to college and in the majors typical for teachers, it's reinforced by radical feminist professors. This cycle of brainwashing and indoctrination needs to be broken at the primary school level, especially at elementary school level to nip it in the bud so to speak.

 

[penkitten]

We either have to believe females are naturally sexist and hostile toward males, or that females are taught to be sexist and hateful.

when you read what i post on this forum, do you believe that i am sexist or hostile towards the males here?
no!
i was raised in a home with 3 brothers, and my mother had a softer heart for them than she did for me. it wasn't anything to be mean, she just always felt she needed to be harder on me to teach me the lessons that she needed to.

now i have a home with two sons and two daughters. they are not hateful towards each other.

 

[joekerr31]

when you read what i post on this forum, do you believe that i am sexist or hostile towards the males here?
no!
i was raised in a home with 3 brothers, and my mother had a softer heart for them than she did for me. it wasn't anything to be mean, she just always felt she needed to be harder on me to teach me the lessons that she needed to.

now i have a home with two sons and two daughters. they are not hateful towards each other.

pen, you aren't sexist at all. in fact, the fact that you hang out here and engage in conversations suggests that you are one of those females who doesn't take a side, but rather is more interested in discussion that leads to the truth - whatever that truth may be.

now, having said that, it is natural for women to want to discreminate against men, and men against women. the reason is that most people in life need someone to blame. 'my life isn't the way i want it because of x, y or z.'

for people in the kkk, its all because of the blacks. for people in the black panthers, its all because of the whites. for women its because of men. and for men its because of women.

short people have a bias against tall people, fat peopel against skinny people, poor people against rich people, blondes versus brunettes, etc.

this is human nature. and its ignorant, stupid and generally maladaptive to the evolution of our species and society.

which is why the best route for all of us to take is to abandon all of these prejudices that exist in our society and try to live OUR lives by our own rules. to approach everyone with an open mind, not assuming we know anything about them just because they are tall or short, drive a nice car or a clunker, etc.

unfortunately, 95% of society doesn't do this. women teachers are highly biased against male students, because there are a lot of 'man haters' out there - and while they may not look like man haters, deep down they have a lot of resentment towards males.

i mean, men are no better. im sure there are lots of male teachers who stare at their female students breasts instead of focusing on helping them develop academically. and while this may seem non-damaging, to the female student whose teacher seems more interested in her boobs than her brain, it sends a message to her (whats most important about you is the two bags of fat on your chest). its just as damaging to her psyche as the female teacher who judges the boys more harshly simply because they are male (teaching these kids that women will treat you unfairly in life, so you better see them as your advesary).

prejudice is a chicken and egg phenomena. we say 'be afraid of black people, they are aggressive.'. then people stay away from the black man. which then p*sses the black man off. and voila... self fulfilling prophecy "see, look how aggressive he is.' ummm no sh*t hes aggressive because people treat him like he has the plague.

in truth there is WAY more in common among any 2 human beings - white, black, male, female, etc. - than there are differences. but we exaggerate these differences and create self fulfilling prophecies that reinforce our prejudices. when if we never had the prejudice in the first place, the things we are prejudice against would never have materialized. if we hadn't laid the egg the chicken would never have appeared.

 

[Luthor Rex]

if all people started getting vouchers, there would be no need for public schools. all kids would have to go to private schools that are mostly very religious, which is ok in ways, but biased against other religions and some forms of history and science.
education should be wonderful in all aspects, from what you learn, who you learn it from to what you eat. it should be filled with diversity and not biased to anything, and by golly, it should be FREE to all who want to learn.

Free?

Their Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch babydoll, someone will be paying for it; so cut that socialist mumbo-jumbo crap. That being said, so long as you can read (which is a skill parents can pass on) America has public libraries and of course the Internet.

The majority of the most important things I've ever learned were not learned inside of a school house.

 

[penkitten]

I think they have to make things more competitive. Get the poorly performing kids to want to compete.

perhaps this really would motivate more children to learn, but what would motivate the teachers to actually teach children where they can learn?

 

[Interceptor]

It's so sad to hear how poeple often say "Children are our future" or "Children are our greatest resource" or the notion that Children must be protected because they are so defenseless.

Yet, our very own teachers and school systems are disempowering boys and young males into a future shackled by psychological trauma they learned in school and renforced there and everywhere in society.

It just makes me sick.

 

[penkitten]

Free?

Their Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch babydoll, someone will be paying for it; so cut that socialist mumbo-jumbo crap. .

all school fees should be paid by the state, who already collects taxes for this purpose. instead of building a brand new school with a brand new gym and a drama department, they should repair the schools that are already there, and provide the books, workbooks, and lunches.
all education should be free to all who want to learn.

 

[penkitten]

It's so sad to hear how poeple often say "Children are our future" or "Children are our greatest resource" or the notion that Children must be protected because they are so defenseless.

Yet, our very own teachers and school systems are disempowering boys and young males into a future shackled by psychological trauma they learned in school and renforced there and everywhere in society.

It just makes me sick.

and the "no child left behind act" is a joke.
they do not care about your children, they only care that the overall achievement test scores are good for the school, and if they feel your child will do poorly, they urge you to consider holding them back a year, so their score will not count.

 

[joekerr31]

I think they have to make things more competitive. Get the poorly performing kids to want to compete.

i couldn't disagree more with this. competition is whats actually driving kids out of the schools.

these kids are told how important their schooling is, how if they dont do well their life is going to be tantamount to eating a stinky vagina, etc.

these kids are under way to much pressure to perform instead of just learning for hte sake of learning. as a result the kids who don't perform well under pressure end up getting tossed aside in the long run.

when i was in school i dont remember worrying about my grades in grade 10. i dont remember thinking 'i have to do well or i wont get into university and my life will be ruined.'

heck, i went to school and was the class disturber half the time. i got good grades, went ot university, everything turned out ok.

what i think we need is better teachers. i am SO SICK AND TIRED of hearing people talk about how great teachers are and how they are under appreciated and under paid. GIVE ME A F*CKING BREAK!

half these teachers i went ot university with. they barely passed their classes, got their undergrad degree, then went off and got 1 year of teachers college and BAM they are teaching highschool.

at least 50% of the teachers out there SUCK at their job. they dont like their job, they don't like the kids, etc. - they are only teachers because they like having the summer off to pursue writing a best seller.

lets get REAL - about 1 in 20 teachers are truly great teachers. they literally change students lives. we need to take these teachers and put them in charge and get them to TEACH the other teachers how to be great teachers.

case in point, a few posts ago someone told a story of his friend teacher who was trashing her male students. im SICk to death about hearing how all teachers are great, because they aren't.

most of the people i know who are teachers would be MEDIOCRE in the business world at best. most of them are moderately smart, have little ambition, and are coasting through life. these are the people teaching our kids.

 

[joekerr31]

btw, the only reason we have this teachers are great, we love all our teachers, they are the best, they aren't the problem....

is because if we started saying teachers ARE part of the problem, then parents would actually have to get involved with their kids education.

parents prefer to just send their kids to school and assume they are getting a good education.

add to that the teachers union is a powerful lobby that effects elections.

but who knows, maybe i'm wrong, maybe the problem really is that we aren't equipping our kids with 2,000 dollar laptops so they can 'learn'.

i mean, give me a f*cking break. the only thing kids need to learn is a pencil, paper and a teacher - everything else is gravvy.

and i like this 'the classrooms are too big'. WTF, in university you'll have a 1,000 students in an auditorium learning from a lecture.

the problem is that the best and brightest of us generally don't become highschool teachers, so the kids are being taught by adults who are anything but great teachers.

 

[penkitten]

joekerr, you are right !
the only thing about it is, there are so many parents that are not equipped to teach their children because 1. they are not well educated themselves and 2. they have to go out and work to feed and house their children.
if it didn't cost so much to live, many parents would choose to stay home and home school their children to give them what they would call a great education.

 

[Luthor Rex]

all school fees should be paid by the state, who already collects taxes for this purpose. instead of building a brand new school with a brand new gym and a drama department, they should repair the schools that are already there, and provide the books, workbooks, and lunches.
all education should be free to all who want to learn.

Yeah that's nice, but it's still not FREE. We the people are paying for it our of our pockets through 'taxes'.

Aside from that, centralized bureaucracies wrecked public schools and social security and hell Easter Europe and Russia for that matter. The system itself is the failure. We need to abolish public schooling and let parents educate their kids however they see fit. The creative-destruction of the capitalist system has given us one of the best economies in the world, a similar system of competition can give us the best education. I know it won't happen though, because people are too afraid of freedom and the consequences that can come with it.

 

[Luthor Rex]

Let's see, what did I learn in high school... hmm... a whole lot of nothing.

High school is warehousing kids for 4 years where some of the best years of our lives for learning go untapped.

High school is Lord of the Flies with starter jackets and class rings.

 

[LovelyLady]

Some thoughts and observations after having taught in an inner city grade school for a year, much volunteer work in the classroom environment, and having raised a daughter and now a son:

At the grade school level:


A significant focus on neatness, so girls have a tendency to flourish as their fine motor skills develop earlier than boys.


In the last 10 to 15 years, most grade schools have switched to the children working in groups/at tables/desks turned facing eachother creating "pods". This is to teach co-operation and teambuilding. But it does not meet the need/teach/nurture the spirit of (traditional male) competition.


It is rare now to find the traditional "old school" format of desks in a row with the student working individually. This benefits girls more than boys as well, as at this age girls work in a group more effectively than boys do as they have stronger verbal skills.


Boys "fidget" LOL They just have TONS of energy and class after class they are told to "sit still" and it is impossible for them to. Teachers look at boys energy and fidgeting as a sign of intentional disrespect. Teachers are so deeply offended by this energy of boys (and some more active girls - but truly, mostly boys) that the drugging of our young male population is becoming a standard practice to subdue their natural inclination to be physically expressive and dynamic.


There used to be playtime before school to run around, a morning recess, time after eating lunch to run around and play, and afternoon recess, and gym class several times a week. Now, claiming school safety issues, children are no longer allowed to arrive early or stay late and play outside on school grounds.


At lunchtime the children have to be dismissed table by table - there is no finishing their lunch and running to go outside and play when they are done - the children have to WAIT - and if they are not finished at the first round of their tables being let out - they must sit and wait until the lunchroom teacher okays the table being dismissed a second time.


There is usually only one recess - my son's school recess was 10 minutes a day - and they tried to shorten it to 5!!! I led the parent's petition drive against it - and HE led the students driven petition drive against it! We won! But I still cannot believe we had to fight this inane fight!


Jr. High/Middle School


There is a continuance of valuing neatness over content and this continues to hurt boys' academic success.


Same lack of exercise/activity issues continue.


Social allowances and favoritism is strong in middle school: if a girl is assigned to a group and she says she does not want to work with a boy in that group - the girl gets to change groups because there is a focus of respecting her feelings and personal bounderies. BUT if a boy tells a teacher he does not want to work with/like a girl he is told he has to be quiet and learn to work with/get along with everyone. Where is the respect for the boy's feelings and boundaries?


Girls are allowed to make fun of boys, their clothes, their weight, the things they say, their grades, and do not get in trouble - but boys get in trouble if they say something to girls; even in self-defense.


There is definitely a sense that the boys not only are not defended by the teachers/administration - but also are not allowed to defend themselves.

This is physically as well verbally. Girls will get frustrated with a boy and punch his arm - and then say she was just "playing" or "didn't mean it". Boys are not permitted a real - or playful - punch; even with other boys for that matter - without getting in trouble.

High School


When most boys are just going through the motions of school .- content suddenly becomes important and valued over neatness (and fine motor skills are developed by then) The boys who have not lost sight of their passion for learning often excel. Girls, however, start to fall behind because they were taught to develop neatness over content.


Sports /physical energy and abilities now take on importance - when through grade school and Junior High they were simply tolerated in gym class. Boys activity/energy levels are satisfied which leads to greater ability to concentrate in class.


About the teachers of our children: More and more, we are finding that the newer (usually grade school) teachers are choosing this as a career because they themselves have children. The job hours coincide with their own children's schedules - Summer is off. It is not motivated by a passion for teaching - but serves as a second income/female college graduate become working Mother. It has also been my experience that many of these teachers just don't like boy children. They don't take delight in how goofy and clever boys are.


Additionally, many parents never grew out of their fear and awe of the teacher and principal! It is like they become children again and are afraid to deal with these people as their employees! We need to remember: they work for us!


Posible Solutions:

1. Parental/community involvement. Fight for your son.

We MUST be willing to be viewed as the crazy Mother- or Father- and FIGHT for our sons to be treated with respect and taught effectively.


2. Give the books on how boys develop/articles like the Mensa article to the principals, councelors, and teachers of your children. Some of the teachers really just don't KNOW the information. Run for the school board if you can. TELL your child the dynamic that is occurring so he has a context for the dynamc he is experiencing - and let him know you expect him to PERFORM WELL ANYWAY. It is not the challenge we would choose for them to have - but it is the reality of it - so we have to help them deal effectively with it.



Additionally, I would argue that the No Child Left Behind Act, and our educational sytems in general, are intentionally designed to dumb down the next generation. The intent is to create an obediant worker-bee populace - trained what to think rather than how to think/reason for themselves.

*****
Here is a funny thing that circulated awhile ago on the NCLBA:
No Child Left Behind

In response to the Federal "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB), it is proposed that students will have to pass a test to be promoted to the next grade level.

In the hope that this proposal will be uniformly adopted by all of the states as well as Texas, the new test will be called the Federal Arithmetic and Reading Test, or FART.

All students who cannot pass a FART in the second grade will be retested in Grades 3, 4 and 5 until they are capable of passing a FART score of 80%. If a student does not successfully FART by grade 5, that student shall be placed in a separate English program known as the Special Mastery Elective for Learning Language or SMELL.

If, with this increased SMELL program, the student cannot pass the required FART test, he or she can still graduate to middle school by taking another one semester course in the Comprehensive Reading and Arithmetic Preparation or CRAP.

If by the age of fourteen the student cannot FART, SMELL or CRAP, he or she can earn promotion in an intensive one week seminar known as the Preparatory Reading for Nationally Exempted Students or PRUNES.

It is in the opinion of the Department of Instruction for Public Schools (DIPS), that an intensive week of PRUNES will enable any student to FART, SMELL or CRAP.

This revised provision of the student component of the House Bill 101 should help "clear the air" as part of the "No School Left Standing" Act.