Boys suffer in a culture without challenges

[Virgil]

I could swear there was a thread/discussion on the problems of teaching boys. When i came across this article this morning I immediately thought of this forum.


Boys suffer in a culture without challenges
Becoming a man in our society is becoming increasingly difficult because of a lack of healthy competition.
ROB NEAL

December 27, 2009

YARMOUTH — Boys need challenging and intense competition to become men.

Two 10-year-old boys show up for their first soccer tryouts. Both feel nervous but excited. The parent of one says, "give it your best shot and have fun." The other parent says, "you don't have to do this if you don't want to. It can feel scary."

Which of these statements is best for the boys?

An increasing number of boys are doing poorly in school and failing to mature in a positive way. More men are losing self-confidence and their passion for competing and achieving.

While the top-performing 10 percent to 20 percent of boys and men are doing just fine, the growing number of underachieving males forces schools, businesses, the military and others to lower their standards and expectations. What happened?

Political correctness and new age wishful thinking have all contributed to the effort in our schools, families, and communities to take away intense competition from boys. Even in sports, only a small number of top athletes ever get to experience challenging competition.

Some believe that competition turns boys into bad, mean or violent people. The opposite is true. The proving ground of competition done well creates confident boys and competent men!

Tens of thousands of years of human development cannot be swept aside to fit the "anti-competition" PC agenda. It's a mushy, idealistic approach to child development and education that seems disconnected from reality. Today boys learn more about fairness and fun than how to compete successfully.

Yes, fairness and fun are important lessons in life, but can be taught very well during intense competition. Plus nearly every aspect of life involves some degree of competition with other people, communities, teams, governments, or businesses and will never go away.

All of the politically correct worries about fairness, over-the-top fears about scuffing up knees or hurting someone's feelings frustrate boys and do them a disservice by lowering standards of achieving. We're taking away the proving grounds for learning how to be strong men. Our global business competitors and terrorist enemies are licking their chops.

Growing up I had many opportunities to compete in the classroom, playing sports or music, and having adventures with my friends and family. I learned from my successes and my failures.

Once, at age 11, I was about to bat for my Little League team in the last inning with two outs. The adrenalin came rushing in, my mind focused and I felt nervous but ready. The game ended suddenly, however, because the batter before me stuck out.

I was stunned seeing my chance to be the hero lost. I wanted to smack something to release my frustration. That's how many boys and men feel today even if they don't know why.

Luckily, I had a coach who kept providing opportunities to prove myself under pressure. When boys and men don't get these competitive chances, we tend to take our disappointment, anger and shame out on others. As a result, far too many of us become bullies, abusers, gangbangers, criminals, corrupt politicians or greedy corporate clones. Others become slackers, underachievers, indecisive, increasingly numb to life and focused on video games and fantasy sports. [SNIP]
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=304788&ac=PHedi&pg=1


I happen to agree with the general thrust of the article. The feminization of our culture (am I going to get smacked for that? :D) has really marginalized boys from achieving. Just look at the college graduating statistics and you'll see a incredible shift from thirty years ago. Boys aren't making it into college, not graduating, and resorting to manual labor type jobs that are disappearing with ever increasing technology. Now I'm sure the situation is more complex than this article presents, and just by allowing competition is not the complete solution by far. But the heart of this is I think true: boys need to compete, bump elbows, push each other, maybe even fight as a process toward manhood. That doesn't mean they don't get disciplined for it. The cycle of competing, fighting, disciplining is all part of the process. Boys are not little girls and they don't want to be made to feel like pansies. There needs to be an outlet for their inner boy to blosoom out into a man.

Sure, girls in the past were probably not taught to suceede in school and the real world. And hopefully we've adjusted for it today. But it's now time to adjust our teaching strategies for educating boys.

[TheFifthElement]

That's the basic premise of Fight Club.

[Lumiere]

Interesting topic. I think your on to something here. (It is, however, slightly frustrating to me as a female that our transition from girl to woman is generally not regarded with as much significance as the transition from boy to man, but that's a separate subject entirely). I certainly don't think it would hurt to see more encouragement in the area of competition for boys. They seem to thrive on it rather than be deterred by it. I think boys would breed competition on their own naturally if it were not so frowned upon today. I'm not sure how one would apply this idea practically. It seems it would be more of an attitude shift in the school system.

[Virgil]

That's the basic premise of Fight Club.

I'm not familiar with that. Is that a novel, movie?

[TheFifthElement]

It's both. The movie is pretty well known: Edward Norton and Brad Pitt star in it.

I do think competition is important, both for boys and girls. There's such a fear, though, that competition results in discrimination that schools seem to shy away from it now. My son's primary school doesn't seem to encourage competition or academic achievement, but they get medals if they're well behaved! Needless to say, my son thinks school is a total waste of time, and he's only 9. I just hope that secondary school will turn that around.

[Il Penseroso]

Hmmm, I've worked with child athletic programs (local YMCA) for several years now and I think parents pushing kids to compete to an exorbitant degree is still very much alive and well, at least around here. I've had to referee flag football games where coaches and parents scream and yell and antagonize me and other refs because they think that their third grader's talent is being marginalized by rules in place for safety reasons and to allow every player more equal opportunities. I think this type of behavior does more serious damage by far.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Hmm, I can't say that I think much of that article Virgil, for me it presents a far too simplistic and narrow-minded view of things and shows the personal agitations of the writer, rather than the reality. I did notice that you conceded to its simplistic view, but for me this is just one of those throwaway articles like you get in the Daily Mail or something.

I know that it is not meant to be anything more than a light opinion piece, which is fine, but he seems to jump to some rather strict knee-jerk conclusions. It might be true that on occasions "health and safety" goes a little too far at times, but this guy seems to want to blame all the wrongs of soceity on this to a ridiculous degree. It is also full of quite ridiculous loaded terminology and extreme hyperbole - I mean "our global business competitors and terrorist enemies are licking their chops" just made me laugh out loud, but you could also include:


Tens of thousands of years of human development cannot be swept aside to fit the "anti-competition" PC agenda.

You don't say? The "anti-competition PC agenda" just sounds like something straight out of Monty Python, you cannot take that line serious to any degree. I'm sure that "tens of thousands of years of human development" is perfectly safe from them.


An increasing number of boys are doing poorly in school and failing to mature in a positive way. More men are losing self-confidence and their passion for competing and achieving.

Are they, is he so sure of that? Where are the facts, how the hell can you quantify that, and if there are facts that point to the losses how can you determine that it has arisen due to a lack of competition?


While the top-performing 10 percent to 20 percent of boys and men are doing just fine, the growing number of underachieving males forces schools, businesses, the military and others to lower their standards and expectations. What happened?

What happened? Surely it must be the "anti-competition PC agenda"? How does this guy know that schools, businesses and the military (and others) are lowering their standards? This is certainly not true in the UK with University places anyway, and I doubt it is true of the US, but surely it is impossible to say unless you are a high government official with a finger in every pie.


Political correctness and new age wishful thinking have all contributed to the effort in our schools, families, and communities to take away intense competition from boys.

New age wishful thinking? In what context, Who? Druids and tree huggers? Quite ridiculous.


That's how many boys and men feel today even if they don't know why.

How the hell does he know what “many” boys and men feel?

I could go on but you get the picture.

I have also got a problem with simplifying men and women, girls and boys, into neat little pigeon-holes of femininity and masculinity. All of these things are simply cultural constructs of reality. I feel a little uneasy with these sorts of labels, I don't like reducing complex, very very complex human beings and the world into neat little cultural constructions such as these. As I say I know that you are just talking about the gist of this article and its overall message, and that you know such things are far more complex, but even so I just can't think that this fruitloop has much of a case at all, even if we cut through the nature of his amusing use of language.

So yes, and I'm going to get my mum to smack you regarding your "feminization of our culture" I just don't by that to any degree. Like I have said, occasionally "health and safety" and the "PC brigade" do restrict things a little, but you can bet that the whole thing is often blown up out of all proportion in silly little articles like these, reducing very complex issues to extremely simplified and highly exaggerated conclusions, while reinforcing old cultural stereotypes into the bargain! Rubbish.

[Virgil]

Hmmm, I've worked with child athletic programs (local YMCA) for several years now and I think parents pushing kids to compete to an exorbitant degree is still very much alive and well, at least around here. I've had to referee flag football games where coaches and parents scream and yell and antagonize me and other refs because they think that their third grader's talent is being marginalized by rules in place for safety reasons and to allow every player more equal opportunities. I think this type of behavior does more serious damage by far.
I think some boys do ok. I think the article refers to the bottom 20%. Serious damage from competition? What do you classify as serious damage? While I have heard of parents going too far in pushing their kids to play in sports, I know of no serious damage.

I think the gist of what the author was saying was that we should look at bringing the nature of sporting competitions into the classroom to get boys engaged more. The nature of competition seems to captivate and draw boys into a subject, and hopefully into learning.


Hmm, I can't say that I think much of that article Virgil, for me it presents a far too simplistic and narrow-minded view of things and shows the personal agitations of the writer, rather than the reality. I did notice that you conceded to its simplistic view, but for me this is just one of those throwaway articles like you get in the Daily Mail or something.

I have no idea what the Daily Mail is, but this seems to be an opinion piece in a Maine Newspaper. It's not a scholarly article. Nor do I think scholarly articles are all that important when it comes to real life issues. It is simplistic to drive a point.


I know that it is not meant to be anything more than a light opinion piece, which is fine, but he seems to jump to some rather strict knee-jerk conclusions. It might be true that on occasions "health and safety" goes a little too far at times, but this guy seems to want to blame all the wrongs of soceity on this to a ridiculous degree.
I don't see anything where he's talking about the wrongs of soiciety. He's talking about a single issue, "the growing number of underachieving males."


It is also full of quite ridiculous loaded terminology and extreme hyperbole - I mean "our global business competitors and terrorist enemies are licking their chops" just made me laugh out loud, but you could also include:
What's so outrageous about that? He makes a claim that certain ways of bringing up boys has been going on for ten thousand years. Whether that's exactly accurate or not, I hardly find it extreme or hyperbolic. It's a legitamate claim.



You don't say? The "anti-competition PC agenda" just sounds like something straight out of Monty Python, you cannot take that line serious to any degree. I'm sure that "tens of thousands of years of human development" is perfectly safe from them.
Yeah, there is a strain of that in contemporary universities and school systems, at least here in the US. I remember a lit net member of a Euroipean country telling me about how she goes to a school without grades. There is an "anti-competition agenda" in certain quarters.


Are they, is he so sure of that? Where are the facts, how the hell can you quantify that, and if there are facts that point to the losses how can you determine that it has arisen due to a lack of competition?
Well obviously you're not aware of it. There is an exploding gender gap in college graduates. Here from just a quick cursory google: http://www.bsos.umd.edu/socy/vanneman/endofgr/cpsgradsex.html
and http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-363985.html
and http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2005-10-19-male-college-cover_x.htm. And the gap is also specific to top fields such as lawyers and doctors.


What happened? Surely it must be the "anti-competition PC agenda"? How does this guy know that schools, businesses and the military (and others) are lowering their standards? This is certainly not true in the UK with University places anyway, and I doubt it is true of the US, but surely it is impossible to say unless you are a high government official with a finger in every pie.
I think the lowering of standards is fairly well documented. It was clear to me when I went to college in the early 80's that tests and grades were way stricter for those that went to college 20 years before me. I think it's probably gotten worse even since I went to school. Part of the reason is the openning up of college education to the masses.


I have also got a problem with simplifying men and women, girls and boys, into neat little pigeon-holes of femininity and masculinity. All of these things are simply cultural constructs of reality.
Frankly, to use your word, that's rubbish. To say there are no biological differences beteen men and women is absurd. All you have to do is look at the muscular differences and the size differences and you will see the difference, and the reason for those differences are hormones, and to say that hormones don't affect personality is ridiculous. Look at any nature show and you will see differences in behavior between males and females. Look at the behavioral difference of male and female lions. That's innate, not learned, and they're from hormonal differences.


I feel a little uneasy with these sorts of labels, I don't like reducing complex, very very complex human beings and the world into neat little cultural constructions such as these.
Actually by you claiming that there are no differences between men and women is the most simplistic reduction of complexity. You are the one reducing the comnplex to the ridiculously simple.

[Taliesin]

I think the lowering of standards is fairly well documented. It was clear to me when I went to college in the early 80's that tests and grades were way stricter for those that went to college 20 years before me. I think it's probably gotten worse even since I went to school. Part of the reason is the openning up of college education to the masses.

I do not know how it is in the US, but from my experience in a French university, I can wholeheartedly say that higher education for the masses does probably not mean low standards - the system in France seems to be: anyone can enter an university, the trick is staying in.
Seriously, it is bloody difficult.
I wouldn't equal public higher education with lower standards.
I would comment on the topic, but I'll go and study for the exams that I am going to fail anyhow.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Firstly, I’ll just clear up what I am getting at with the cultural construction of gender. There are obviously biological differences between men and women – which is the “sex” of the individual, but the “gender” of a person could be seen as the social construct – so in this case what it means to be “masculine” and “feminine” is determined from outside the self. So from this perspective nothing outside of the “sex” of the individual is natural. However, even the simple terms of “male” and “female” – the basic binaries – don’t even fit. What about cross-gendered individuals, transsexuals, hermaphrodites, “othered” groups who for some, such simple labels of “male” and “female” don’t seem to fit their own experience of the world? But let’s just move on from there.

So, if our present culture, at this time sees ideals as to what constitutes “feminine” and “masculine” the argument is that which society deems the values of these terms -, but these values are transient being different from culture to culture, and from time to time. Anyway, Judith Butler (a feminist critic) argues that we learn what it means to be “feminine” and “masculine” through our culture, and not through any inherent “reality”. So the little boy soon learns that “big boys don’t cry” and represses or conforms to that particular masculine ideal – to the point that such behaviour becomes “natural” – but it is not natural that boys don’t cry, it is the present cultural ideal of masculine behaviour. With this as an example we all learn what we believe is “natural” for our gender and for the most conform to that ideal.

My four year old girl basically refuses to wear anything that is not pink – she certainly won’t wear blue because “blue is a boys colour”. She has already started to learn the signposts for her desired gender from our culture which pigeon-holes gender into neat compartments, idealising what it means to be male and female, boy and girl, masculine and feminine. One of the problems arising from this, if you will let me sidetrack a little here, is the abuse of power from one sex to the other, the dominant and the passive ideal of male and female roles. I mean even the very nature of our language is loaded with terminology which favours one over the other, taking the male masculine as “naturally” dominant over the other. So a woman (wo-man, womb man, with man being the original default) is “naturally” seen as secondary because our language is rooted in old stereotypes, for example with the male taking natural default in such terms as “chairman” “manhole” etc, but anyway...

Going back to Butler she says that such gender construction acts as a “straitjacket” whereby the costs are high for both individuals who fit into neat gender categories, and for those who don’t. She says: “the construction ‘compels’ our belief in its necessity and naturalness. The historical possibilities materialized through various corporeal styles are nothing other than those punitively regulated cultural fictions alternately embodied and deflected under duress” (Butler, Gender Trouble). The “cultural fictions” are the narratives which we take as “naturally” occurring, blue is for boys, pink is for girls – which is ridiculous because they are just colours, they don’t have any inherent sexuality, it is all culturally determined, cultural fiction.

So, the article you posted for me was quite laughable on many grounds, but one of them being that widespread problems are occurring due to the “"anti-competition" PC agenda” which is “taking away the proving grounds for learning how to be strong men” from which “global business competitors and terrorist enemies are licking their chops”. When I say “widespread problems” you seemed to have misunderstood what I meant before when you said that he is not talking about widespread problems but a single issue that of “the growing number of underachieving males.” In the article he is seemingly making the point that the PC brigade is the root cause of underachieving males by taking away (supposedly taking away, see above poster) competition from our (your) schools, which is having the knocking on effect of weakening “schools, businesses, the military and others” by forcing them” to lower their standards and expectations” of individual. Notwithstanding the international threat to business and the terrorists who are now “licking their chops” because of the national weakening of male expectations due to the sole reason of the PC agenda with its “mushy, idealistic approach to child development.” Therein lies the hyperbole that you seem to think is a “legitimate claim”.

So anyway, there is a “gender gap” between male and female college graduates based on that graph you provided, so what exactly does that mean and what does it really show? Firstly, I put “gender gap” in speech marks because that phrase is automatically loaded, it suggests a problem, a gap that needs bridging. In actual fact it shows that the gender difference (though we really mean sex difference not gender) of college graduates is about 6% more for female, than it is for male population. We can also see that in the past, from about 1950, which is the date the graph goes back to, to about 1990 it was always males that came out on top in the graduate stakes. From here we can interpret this graph however we like.

We could write an article showing that these statistics prove that the problems facing women attending further education are being eradicated, meaning that a great deal of progress is being made for the equalities of the sexes. So in actual fact we could argue that this graph shows a great deal of progress in American institutions and society for greater equal opportunities. We could ask therefore what were holding women back in the past from progressing in education and come up with answers along the lines of the cultural expectations of female roles, getting married earlier etc. This is just one position you could argue, which would probably be my position, but with the realisation that this would be one point, based on one graph, which would naturally be generalised.

However, I wouldn’t say the stats show a problem for male education at college level at all. In fact it shows that since 1950 there has been a greater increase in male graduates from 1950 to the present, from just under 10 percent of the population in 1950 with a degree to about 27 percent of the population today. From here you could make a case for increasing standards of education across the both sexes over time. In fact you can make many, many points and counter argue them for days or years.

What the guy in the article seems to have done however, is to look at the 6 percent difference in male and female degrees, panic, and to blame this “problem” on the PC agenda and lack of competition in schools amongst boys! One thing just doesn’t follow on from the other at all. It is an opinion which is not built upon fact which only goes to show the weakness and prejudice of the author in question. It is an article which is possibly even intended to provoke an angry response from the readership, siding with their ill judged views on the “problems” of society and to seek an easy scapegoat (such as the political correctness) for them. It is not built upon any solid foundation at all, it is misguided, it is poorly written and it is possibly even a little sexist into the bargain – its appeal is there, I suspect to make a little easy money from an unsuspecting public. Like I said it is like a Daily Mail article, which is a paper that plays on the fears of the individual, usually misguided ones, and blows them up out of all proportion in order to sell papers and make money. The article you posted could have just have easily praised American standards of education for both the male and female population, but would that have sold as many papers or got as many hits?

This is just one of the reasons why I don’t read newspapers or other mass media forms because they often reduce very complex issues to ridiculous binaries, or they play off the fears and desires of an unsuspecting public that isn’t even built upon “reality” whatever “reality” is, where it is not culturally determined. Life and society is more complicated than that. :)

[motherhubbard]

I think that competition is good for boys and for girls alike. Most people will perform better than they think they can when the pressure is on. But, I don't think that a lack of competitive sports is inhibiting manhood. I think a more likely culprit is the lack of strong male role models-- fathers. There is much more to being a man than fighting your way through a scrimmage line. Maybe boys are becoming bullies because they are not taught how to manage their emotions or any kind of self-control. This article almost suggest that a man is someone who has proven himself against his peers. I disagree. A man is someone who takes care of his responsibilities.

[Petrarch's Love]

I happen to agree with the general thrust of the article. The feminization of our culture (am I going to get smacked for that? ) has really marginalized boys from achieving. Just look at the college graduating statistics and you'll see a incredible shift from thirty years ago. Boys aren't making it into college, not graduating, and resorting to manual labor type jobs that are disappearing with ever increasing technology.

Poor babies. I guess they just can't take the competition. :rolleyes:

[OrphanPip]

We should also acknowledge other possible explanations for the lower levels of male admission to higher education. The fact is that decently paying manual labour still exists as a means of income for men. Women who want to have any sort of appreciable income must have higher education. While it is much easier, and socially acceptable, for a man to enter a trade like carpentry or plumbing. My father made a very good living as a plumber for 45 years, and these jobs are still very much dominated by males.

This isn't to depreciate the importance of competitive sports. I played hockey from childhood to my mid-teens and loved every moment of it. However, I don't think I'd go so far as to credit it with me graduating top of my high school class and going on to receive a university degree. Moreover, competition doesn't mysteriously disappear without institutionalized forms like soccer. Teens compete for popularity, friends, lovers, and academic standing.

I also agree with Neely that gender is largely a social construct and when we push specific roles onto individuals who just can't fit that role we can cause real harm.

[Virgil]

I do not know how it is in the US, but from my experience in a French university, I can wholeheartedly say that higher education for the masses does probably not mean low standards - the system in France seems to be: anyone can enter an university, the trick is staying in.
Seriously, it is bloody difficult.
I wouldn't equal public higher education with lower standards.
I would comment on the topic, but I'll go and study for the exams that I am going to fail anyhow.
I can't speak for France. How do you know what the standards were in the past? You can read about grade inflation over the years here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_inflation.


Firstly, I’ll just clear up what I am getting at with the cultural construction of gender. There are obviously biological differences between men and women – which is the “sex” of the individual, but the “gender” of a person could be seen as the social construct – so in this case what it means to be “masculine” and “feminine” is determined from outside the self.

So you want me to believe that hormonal differences cause all sorts of physical differences between the sexes but they have no effect on personality? The feminists whine about about male patriarchy but can they name a single culture in the history of humanity where there wasn't male and female disticntions? Is it a coincidence that over the thousands of cultures we know of that no matriarchy as ever existed and that they all had male/female distinctions? Just a coincidence? Thousands of cultures with all having a similar social construct? How ridiculous. Again look at the animal world and you will see male and female traits. They weren't learned.


So from this perspective nothing outside of the “sex” of the individual is natural. However, even the simple terms of “male” and “female” – the basic binaries – don’t even fit. What about cross-gendered individuals, transsexuals, hermaphrodites, “othered” groups who for some, such simple labels of “male” and “female” don’t seem to fit their own experience of the world? But let’s just move on from there.
Have you ever heard of dysfunctionality from the norm? Have you ever heard of people having biological problems? Just today I came across dwarfism in the paper, a hormonal malfunction:

Extreme shortness in humans with proportional body parts usually has a hormonal cause, such as growth hormone deficiency, once known as "pituitary dwarfism". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarfism



So, if our present culture, at this time sees ideals as to what constitutes “feminine” and “masculine” the argument is that which society deems the values of these terms -, but these values are transient being different from culture to culture, and from time to time. Anyway, Judith Butler (a feminist critic) argues that we learn what it means to be “feminine” and “masculine” through our culture...
And what scientific degree does this Judith butler have? What medical education does she have? What biological experimentation has she performed to reach thgese conclusions? I bet she doesn't have any scientific background. I bet she's a liberal arts major of some sort. That's where this non-scientific rubbish originates from.


and not through any inherent “reality”. So the little boy soon learns that “big boys don’t cry” and represses or conforms to that particular masculine ideal – to the point that such behaviour becomes “natural” – but it is not natural that boys don’t cry, it is the present cultural ideal of masculine behaviour. With this as an example we all learn what we believe is “natural” for our gender and for the most conform to that ideal.

My four year old girl basically refuses to wear anything that is not pink – she certainly won’t wear blue because “blue is a boys colour”. She has already started to learn the signposts for her desired gender from our culture which pigeon-holes gender into neat compartments, idealising what it means to be male and female, boy and girl, masculine and feminine. One of the problems arising from this, if you will let me sidetrack a little here, is the abuse of power from one sex to the other, the dominant and the passive ideal of male and female roles. I mean even the very nature of our language is loaded with terminology which favours one over the other, taking the male masculine as “naturally” dominant over the other. So a woman (wo-man, womb man, with man being the original default) is “naturally” seen as secondary because our language is rooted in old stereotypes, for example with the male taking natural default in such terms as “chairman” “manhole” etc, but anyway...
Because the word woman originates from womb man a social construct has been formulated to minimize women? Frankly Neely this is so ridiculous. It defies common sense, let alone biology.



So, the article you posted for me was quite laughable on many grounds, but one of them being that widespread problems are occurring due to the “"anti-competition" PC agenda” which is “taking away the proving grounds for learning how to be strong men” from which “global business competitors and terrorist enemies are licking their chops”. When I say “widespread problems” you seemed to have misunderstood what I meant before when you said that he is not talking about widespread problems but a single issue that of “the growing number of underachieving males.” In the article he is seemingly making the point that the PC brigade is the root cause of underachieving males
No, he didn't say root cause, he contributed.


by taking away (supposedly taking away, see above poster) competition from our (your) schools, which is having the knocking on effect of weakening “schools, businesses, the military and others” by forcing them” to lower their standards and expectations” of individual. Notwithstanding the international threat to business and the terrorists who are now “licking their chops” because of the national weakening of male expectations due to the sole reason of the PC agenda with its “mushy, idealistic approach to child development.” Therein lies the hyperbole that you seem to think is a “legitimate claim”.
He said it effects the lower 20%, he didn't say everyone. You are projecting a lot more into his claims that are in the article.


So anyway, there is a “gender gap” between male and female college graduates based on that graph you provided, so what exactly does that mean and what does it really show? Firstly, I put “gender gap” in speech marks because that phrase is automatically loaded, it suggests a problem, a gap that needs bridging. In actual fact it shows that the gender difference (though we really mean sex difference not gender) of college graduates is about 6% more for female, than it is for male population. We can also see that in the past, from about 1950, which is the date the graph goes back to, to about 1990 it was always males that came out on top in the graduate stakes. From here we can interpret this graph however we like.
I think the significance is in the slope of the curve and the acceleration of the trend. There are legitamate claims that the education system is failing boys. I alluded to other articles that we have discussed here, let alone in the public domain.


We could write an article showing that these statistics prove that the problems facing women attending further education are being eradicated, meaning that a great deal of progress is being made for the equalities of the sexes. So in actual fact we could argue that this graph shows a great deal of progress in American institutions and society for greater equal opportunities. We could ask therefore what were holding women back in the past from progressing in education and come up with answers along the lines of the cultural expectations of female roles, getting married earlier etc. This is just one position you could argue, which would probably be my position, but with the realisation that this would be one point, based on one graph, which would naturally be generalised.
Actually a number of strategies were incorporated for the last 25 years to help women achieve, and obviously they have worked. The point that the article brings up is that we now need strategies directed at boys.


However, I wouldn’t say the stats show a problem for male education at college level at all. In fact it shows that since 1950 there has been a greater increase in male graduates from 1950 to the present, from just under 10 percent of the population in 1950 with a degree to about 27 percent of the population today. From here you could make a case for increasing standards of education across the both sexes over time. In fact you can make many, many points and counter argue them for days or years.
Again it's the slope of the curve and the acceleration of the trend.


This is just one of the reasons why I don’t read newspapers or other mass media forms because they often reduce very complex issues to ridiculous binaries, or they play off the fears and desires of an unsuspecting public that isn’t even built upon “reality” whatever “reality” is, where it is not culturally determined. Life and society is more complicated than that. :)
Well, with all due respect, that explains it. You're an academic and you're unaware of real life issues. ;)


We should also acknowledge other possible explanations for the lower levels of male admission to higher education. The fact is that decently paying manual labour still exists as a means of income for men. Women who want to have any sort of appreciable income must have higher education. While it is much easier, and socially acceptable, for a man to enter a trade like carpentry or plumbing. My father made a very good living as a plumber for 45 years, and these jobs are still very much dominated by males.

There may be something to that, but I believe the drop out rates have a significant gender gap as well. Also, most of those lower 20% boys are relatively unambitious and get themselves into trouble. They aren't thinking about manual labor jobs. They aren't thinking period.

[Il Penseroso]

I construe it to be "serious damage" if children grow up with the expectation that obliviousness toward others is acceptable. The original quotes the author of that article uses are laughable themselves; the parents saying "give it your best shot and have fun" are the progressives, in reality, and at one extreme you have parents who force their children into the view that winning is an object in itself without regard for their treatment of others (the other side) and in defiance of referees or other authority figures (potentially teachers). I see it as potentially damaging for players to learn from role models (their parents) who emphasize success in sports as the numerical ratio of wins to losses over relationships and fun. That is the hazard of a too competitive approach to eduction; students lose sight of the rewards of an education and see grades and such as the determining factor over what they get from classes.

Virgil,
What are you advocating here? If you acknowledge differences in the mentality of boys vs. girls, do you think it is appropriate to segregate the sexes in early grades? Give them different educations? How do you see reports like that above impacting actual education procedures?

[LitNetIsGreat]

Well, with all due respect, that explains it. [Not reading papers]. You're an academic and you're unaware of real life issues.

:lol: Because academics don’t live in the real world! Though I am hardly an academic, you flatter me there, no just a part-time student and sort of a trainee teacher. I don’t read papers for the reasons I gave before.


The point that the article brings up is that we now need strategies directed at boys.

And those strategies involve what? Encouraging boys to cut their knees so they can learn to be “real” men? :lol: But I’ve already given my opinions on the merits of the article, no need to go there again.


And what scientific degree does this Judith butler have? What medical education does she have? What biological experimentation has she performed to reach these conclusions? I bet she doesn't have any scientific background. I bet she's a liberal arts major of some sort. That's where this non-scientific rubbish originates from.

Judith Butler’s CV is quite impressive. Her “Gender Trouble” is arguably the most influential theoretical text of the 1990s which, as well as being an important feminist piece, was one of the founding texts of Queer Theory. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Yale University in philosophy and has taught at Johns Hopkins University and at the University of California at Berkeley. Her work distils forty years of French theory from important theorists in the field including the likes of Simone De Beauvoir, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Lousis Althusser, Jacques Derrida and MichelFoucault. In short she is held in high regard in the academic world. However, something tells me that you will be unimpressed with all this “non-scientific rubbish” with its “whining feminists” and its aloof non-connection with “reality”.


Have you ever heard of dysfunctionality from the norm? Have you ever heard of people having biological problems? Just today I came across dwarfism in the paper, a hormonal malfunction:

But who defines what the “norm” is? Science tells us that there is variation within the species, but it is man which labels and determines the norm.


Because the word woman originates from womb man a social construct has been formulated to minimize women? Frankly Neely this is so ridiculous. It defies common sense, let alone biology.

It is obviously much more complicated than that, Butler is not easy going stuff, but something tells me you would be entirely dismissive of it as “liberal arts” nonsense anyway.


So you want me to believe that hormonal differences cause all sorts of physical differences between the sexes but they have no effect on personality? The feminists whine about about male patriarchy but can they name a single culture in the history of humanity where there wasn't male and female disticntions? Is it a coincidence that over the thousands of cultures we know of that no matriarchy as ever existed and that they all had male/female distinctions? Just a coincidence? Thousands of cultures with all having a similar social construct? How ridiculous. Again look at the animal world and you will see male and female traits. They weren't learned.

I’m sure that hormones do have an effect on personality to some smaller degree, but I am sure that it is the cultural which determines identity, much more than hormones or anything which science can explore, however interesting science is, it is to social and cultural theorists we need to turn to in order to learn about social and cultural things. So for example, would you wear a skirt to walk down the street? I'm guessing not, but why not? It is just, after all, a piece of cloth to protect you from the elements. However, it is the cultural and social construction that attaches that particular piece of clothing a label of femininity, and isn’t that mental conditioning so strong, so ingrained in the psyche? However if you change culture and you go to Scotland a wear a kilt (which is just a skirt under a different name) the social connotation is one that is inherently masculine. It is the cultural which determines the ideal of masculine and feminine, which as I said previously is quite transient and therefore of course there are going to be differences amongst what it means to be male and female, over time and place, but they mostly culturally determined. Unless you want to argue that it is hormones that decides who should wear a piece of cloth that we give the name "skirt"?

[Il Penseroso]

But who defines what the “norm” is? Science tells us that there is variation within the species, but it is man which labels and determines the norm.


So for example, would you wear a skirt to walk down the street? I'm guessing not, but why not? It is just, after all, a piece of cloth to protect you from the elements. However, it is the cultural and social construction that attaches that particular piece of clothing a label of femininity

Are you equating an article of clothing with the cognitive processes involved in learning? That seems rather simplistic. Scientific studies (I'd have to find my linguistics textbook for specific reference, but I can do that if you'd like) have shown that there are early differences in how young boys and young girls behave and manifest themselves in learning environments. Sudies of apes, such as bobonos in the Congo, as well as chimpanzees, have shown differences between female apes and male apes in temperaments demonstrated in problem-solving. Is that also a matter of the culture solely?

Biological differences are real and they impact learning preferences. I just don't think enhancing classroom competition is the most productive way to benefit overall learning.

[LitNetIsGreat]

What article on clothing? I'm just giving an example from off the top of my head on how we as a culture attach feminine and masculine constructs to inanimate objects. Is a piece of cloth that you wrap around your legs inherently male or female? No. Is the colour pink a girl’s colour? No. Is blue a boy’s colour. No. Such things are culturally fabricated, and if these things are, then what else is also picked up? What signs are present in society to tell us how we should behave?

As I said I am sure that hormones do make a difference as to how young children behave and that biology is important, but I’m also sure that culture and language plays a huge role in shaping who we are as individuals.

As someone who also works in a classroom (in the real world too, I’ll have you know) I can see that the sex of pupil does, on the whole, seem to make a difference, generally speaking, in learning styles and outcomes. For example, in the top bands of English, girls tend to come out on top, whereas in maths boys tend to have the upper hand slightly, though not as much as the girls do in English. This is backed up with statistics across the board, throughout the country generally – this appears to be a biological difference, appears to be, though I would hazard a thought that even some of that could be put down to cultural pressures. For example “poetry” is often seen as a “soft” subject, something that is not very masculine, and although we know this is nonsense, I’ve seen boys with my own eyes completely disengaged by the thought of having to study a “girly” module, "gay" it tends to get called. I think on the whole though, this difference is more down to the fact that girls tend to mature at an earlier age than boys, which seems to have an significant impact on learning, but my point is even here, don’t dismiss cultural construction out of hand; it plays an important part of forming our so called “natural” identity, much more than people realise, or it seems, will even entertain...

[Virgil]

I construe it to be "serious damage" if children grow up with the expectation that obliviousness toward others is acceptable. The original quotes the author of that article uses are laughable themselves; the parents saying "give it your best shot and have fun" are the progressives, in reality, and at one extreme you have parents who force their children into the view that winning is an object in itself without regard for their treatment of others (the other side) and in defiance of referees or other authority figures (potentially teachers). I see it as potentially damaging for players to learn from role models (their parents) who emphasize success in sports as the numerical ratio of wins to losses over relationships and fun. That is the hazard of a too competitive approach to eduction; students lose sight of the rewards of an education and see grades and such as the determining factor over what they get from classes.

I don't know. I agree that parent's obnoxiously pushing kids in sports is not the best of all worlds, but i would have to see some statistics to be convinced it led to serious damage. Are they more likely to commit crimes or get into drugs? If you showed me something like that I would agree.


Virgil,
What are you advocating here? If you acknowledge differences in the mentality of boys vs. girls, do you think it is appropriate to segregate the sexes in early grades? Give them different educations? How do you see reports like that above impacting actual education procedures?
I'm not an educator. I don't know what specific thing to advocate. But like I've mentioned, there was a coordinate effort to assist women in the last thirty years, and it's apparently worked. So I'd advocate a plan to assist boys now. There have been studies that show that girls do better in school in an all girls environment. I don't know if that applies to boys. Probably not, but we need to study it and come up with new approaches.



:lol: Because academics don’t live in the real world! Though I am hardly an academic, you flatter me there, no just a part-time student and sort of a trainee teacher. I don’t read papers for the reasons I gave before.

;)


Judith Butler’s CV is quite impressive. Her “Gender Trouble” is arguably the most influential theoretical text of the 1990s which, as well as being an important feminist piece, was one of the founding texts of Queer Theory. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Yale University in philosophy and has taught at Johns Hopkins University and at the University of California at Berkeley. Her work distils forty years of French theory from important theorists in the field including the likes of Simone De Beauvoir, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Lousis Althusser, Jacques Derrida and MichelFoucault. In short she is held in high regard in the academic world. However, something tells me that you will be unimpressed with all this “non-scientific rubbish” with its “whining feminists” and its aloof non-connection with “reality”.
I am an engineer. I am completely unimpressed with anyone making scientific claims without any scientific schooling or experience. Period.


But who defines what the “norm” is? Science tells us that there is variation within the species, but it is man which labels and determines the norm.
Because the relationship between personality, hormones, and the brain and its maturity is largely not fully understood, identifying a norm is vague. But that's because we are in virgin territory. Since the brain and its functions remain undiscovered, it leads to all sorts of non scientists to come up with all sorts of nonsense theories, like vocabulary determines gender identity. Or should I even mention the nonsense about an Oedipal Complex. When we understand this relationship better, we will be able to identify norms and abnormalities. But I can tell you this with absolute confidence, having the urge to cut one's penis off and form a vagina - or what is supposed to pass for a vagina - between one's legs is not normal.


I’m sure that hormones do have an effect on personality to some smaller degree, but I am sure that it is the cultural which determines identity, much more than hormones or anything which science can explore, however interesting science is, it is to social and cultural theorists we need to turn to in order to learn about social and cultural things. So for example, would you wear a skirt to walk down the street? I'm guessing not, but why not? It is just, after all, a piece of cloth to protect you from the elements. However, it is the cultural and social construction that attaches that particular piece of clothing a label of femininity, and isn’t that mental conditioning so strong, so ingrained in the psyche? However if you change culture and you go to Scotland a wear a kilt (which is just a skirt under a different name) the social connotation is one that is inherently masculine. It is the cultural which determines the ideal of masculine and feminine, which as I said previously is quite transient and therefore of course there are going to be differences amongst what it means to be male and female, over time and place, but they mostly culturally determined. Unless you want to argue that it is hormones that decides who should wear a piece of cloth that we give the name "skirt"?
What you are describing there is cultural diversity, not gender identity. If men from Scotland feel that a kilt is masculine, then it is. It becomes identified with masculinity and therefore it's part of male identity. That doesn't support your argument at all. But I will take solace in your first sentence in that paragraph. Let's leave it that a complex interaction between hormones and brain function and development occurs to form personality, which includes gender identity. I guess we agree to some degree. :)


Are you equating an article of clothing with the cognitive processes involved in learning? That seems rather simplistic. Scientific studies (I'd have to find my linguistics textbook for specific reference, but I can do that if you'd like) have shown that there are early differences in how young boys and young girls behave and manifest themselves in learning environments. Sudies of apes, such as bobonos in the Congo, as well as chimpanzees, have shown differences between female apes and male apes in temperaments demonstrated in problem-solving. Is that also a matter of the culture solely?

Biological differences are real and they impact learning preferences.
Thank you very much. :) Perhaps you said it better than I or it just took another reasonable voice to chime in, but i think we've made headway in persuasion. :D


I just don't think enhancing classroom competition is the most productive way to benefit overall learning.
I would love to run an experiment to find out. I think it's worthy of a few trials. Why not form the boys into teams, have practice studies, have them coordinate responsibilities, and then have oral and written competitions between them? When I was in high school I was part of the math team and we competed against other schools and that led to a playoff system and a championship. That was great. We wanted to beat the heck out of our rivals. I personally think the guy writing the article is on to something.


As someone who also works in a classroom (in the real world too, I’ll have you know) I can see that the sex of pupil does, on the whole, seem to make a difference, generally speaking, in learning styles and outcomes. For example, in the top bands of English, girls tend to come out on top, whereas in maths boys tend to have the upper hand slightly, though not as much as the girls do in English.
Observation is the first step at science. Good for you. Now don't let all that other non scientific nonsense distort you views. :p

Actually Neely, here's another one for you. If social construct is the predominant factor in gender identity, then why is it that there aren't whole groups of siblings that are transgender? Obviously the social construct within their families was pretty much the same for all the siblings, why is it only an isolated case here or there?

[Paulclem]

My own experience of Primary school teaching is that there are few men, and this naturally has an effect upon the school culture. Many Primary schools in Coventry have no male staff, and I think this is reflected across the country.

I honestly did feel sorry for the boys, (and myself). There was much more singing - and the staff were expected to join in enthusiastically! (miming saved me) - and a lot less sport. Sports day was avoided if possible, or was one of those pointless, non-competitve affairs. There were 4 male teachers in a school of 38 staff, and so I think there was a bias against the interests of young boys. I can't blame the female teachers - they were doing their job well. It did skew the culture though. The male colleagues and I used to moan about it in the staff room regularly.

It continues to be a hot topic in he news too. In the Times today they were reporting that boys are significantly behind girls in writing when they get to Reception, (4-5 yrs). Gender differences and developmental factors were cited as the cause, and they were exploring ways of engaging boys in interesting ways to develop the fine motor skills for writing. It is a moot point though, whether this should be pushed at all.

There is a problem with boys in school, and it begins early.

[OrphanPip]

I am an engineer. I am completely unimpressed with anyone making scientific claims without any scientific schooling or experience. Period.


Of course, I agree with this statement Virgil. However, it is a scientific fact that a large amount of human behavior is learned. You need only look at the variety of cultural forms of gender to realize that it is substantially malleable. Gender expectations vary through different cultures and times. Concrete biological inclinations will colour the forms that gender norms take, but we shouldn't just accept what we expect of males to be what is the natural way of being "male".

[Il Penseroso]

Virgil,
Linguistic studies of classroom behavior focusing on gender differences have shown males to act in a more dominant manner, asserting ideas as if to control classroom discussion. This is essentially a competitive endeavor; each male student attepts to manage the floor of debate or exchange of ideas by injecting his opinion over the ideas of others, often resorting to speedy responses without time for deeper thought and understanding. Particularly for high school age and below, do we really trust students' competitive nerves and emotional nature to sidestep themselves and allow truly balanced perspectives to develop?

My question for you is whether or not this is really the most productive learning environment, for either males or females. If participation becomes a competition, dependent largely on power relationships developed between peers, what type of learning is taking place? Is it the fullest possible? Aren't more deliberative classroom environments better suited for developing real critical thinkers, capable of combining concepts to adapt to variables as they occur?

Neely,
My question was directed to what seems to me to be your linking of the internal processes of learning to an external article of clothing (your skirt example). The latter is, obviously, socially conditioned; however, the former is more open to debate, and perhaps (hopefully) impossible to quantify as far as which is the predominant influence. I agree that culture has an important influence over what interests individuals (generally reflected externally, especially amongst socially conscious teenagers), but I also think that biology plays an important role, particulalry when dealing with internal processes such as cognition.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I am an engineer. I am completely unimpressed with anyone making scientific claims without any scientific schooling or experience. Period.

She’s not making scientific claims, she’s a philosopher, a theorist, she is making cultural observations on a cultural topic, and she is one of the best and most important in her particular field – though like similar theorists not easy reading!


Because the relationship between personality, hormones, and the brain and its maturity is largely not fully understood, identifying a norm is vague. But that's because we are in virgin territory. Since the brain and its functions remain undiscovered, it leads to all sorts of non scientists to come up with all sorts of nonsense theories, like vocabulary determines gender identity. Or should I even mention the nonsense about an Oedipal Complex. When we understand this relationship better, we will be able to identify norms and abnormalities. But I can tell you this with absolute confidence, having the urge to cut one's penis off and form a vagina - or what is supposed to pass for a vagina - between one's legs is not normal.

:lol: Don’t forget that a large part of science is just theory too based on observations and speculations. If I’m right in remembering a scientific theory has to go a hell of a long way to actually be proven as a “fact”. I mean even what I would call the solid things like gravity and evolution have not yet passed into scientific “law” to the best of my knowledge, and evolution still seems to kick up a fuss. Just the other day I caught sight of a documentary about sharks (I though the kids would like it) and it showed sharks sleeping at the bottom of the ocean – this was obviously counter to the biology text book which I had at college showing a little diagram explaining that sharks needed to maintain a forward motion in order to breathe. That’s just a minor thing, but it goes to show that science is far from the solid rock some people take it for, science is largely theory too.

As for literary theory, which by its very nature borrows from other from other disciplines such as politics, social, linguistic, psychology, philosophy amongst everything else, I can honestly say that it is the single most important thing that I have covered during my six years of undergraduate study. Theory naturally takes from other disciplines because in an attempt to understand the literature, it must try to understand the motivations of that literature, which it needs to turn to the outside world to do. So to understand a character in a novel we might find it fruitful to turn to psychology, in psychoanalysis. In examining the structures present in the novel, say the church, education – we might turn to political theory. Either way literary theory naturally borrows from other disciplines (even science) in order to interpret events in a plot or character in a work of literature or art. Think of literature just capturing a moment in time, for example a Victorian novel, it is also capturing, like a photograph, the thoughts and motivations of that particular period, which in turn could lead us to looking “outside” of the text in order to learn more about it, or at least to undercover potential areas of exploration.

I would seriously consider theory a little before you totally dismiss it, what has been for me and many who study it, as a huge area of learning - sure it is not always applicable, but it is a great tool to have in the tool box! I would again recommend Peter Barry’s Beginning Theory, (Manchester University Press) as a great and lasting introductionary text on theory, though self-studying theory is not easy without the support of tutors and other students, you still might be able to gain a great deal by self-study. Your reaction to psychoanalysis is actually quite typical and not far off my position at all in starting literary theory, but when you start to see things from a psychoanalytical perspective in a text the evidence, like in science, seems to overwhelmingly mount up, that it is hard to be so dismissive of. Actually the Turn of the Screw is quite a handy set text of psychoanalysis if you’re still reading that then that is a great text to start on. If you’re interested ill post a few things in the relevant section if I have time, but myself I only have a foundation grip of theory, even after 2/3 years of studying theory on and off, I’m certainly not an expert or specialised in any one particular branch.

(With the vocabulary thing it is rather the other way round: vocabulary doesn’t determine gender identity, it is gender roles that helped to determine vocabulary. So for example in the past very few women worked down the sewers, (bless them not a women’s job?!) so they got the name “manhole” by default. Women in the past couldn’t possibly be trusted to run a large company so the title of “chairman” became the natural default. There is no term for a female teacher in France, I believe, because, bless them again, surely women aren’t bright enough to teach at the highest level? And then as we label things in nature, like “lion” and “lioness”, the male of the species is the default term – because it is a man that is deciding the labels! And as you look at the world around you, as you look at “mankind” you can see how language suits the dominant male party and why some feminists, or even non-feminists don’t think such terms are quite fair. Anyway, such a point was only really a minor footnote.)


Observation is the first step at science. Good for you. Now don't let all that other non scientific nonsense distort you views.

See my above post about theory, and don’t be so dismissive.:D



Actually Neely, here's another one for you. If social construct is the predominant factor in gender identity, then why is it that there aren't whole groups of siblings that are transgender? Obviously the social construct within their families was pretty much the same for all the siblings, why is it only an isolated case here or there?

Social construction is a factor in determining gender, but not the sex of the individual. What you are really talking about here is the sexual identity of a person which actually brings up a whole new nest of bees – which I may stir at a later date, but would perhaps rather not! Though in short I think the “sex” of an individual is quite inherent from birth, as I said, as Butler would state, but her main point, and it would be worth reading Foucault here too, is that such categories of “male” “female” “transsexual” etc, are quite unstable notions in themselves.


Neely,
My question was directed to what seems to me to be your linking of the internal processes of learning to an external article of clothing (your skirt example). The latter is, obviously, socially conditioned; however, the former is more open to debate, and perhaps (hopefully) impossible to quantify as far as which is the predominant influence. I agree that culture has an important influence over what interests individuals (generally reflected externally, especially amongst socially conscious teenagers), but I also think that biology plays an important role, particulalry when dealing with internal processes such as cognition.

OK, I'll let you off the hook...:)

[Babbalanja]

:rolleyes:

The value of any piece of cultural criticism decreases every time it mentions "political correctness."

Regards,

Istvan

[Bakiryu]

:D we should just throw them into a snake pit and be done with it. pfft. men.

[Virgil]

Of course, I agree with this statement Virgil. However, it is a scientific fact that a large amount of human behavior is learned. You need only look at the variety of cultural forms of gender to realize that it is substantially malleable. Gender expectations vary through different cultures and times. Concrete biological inclinations will colour the forms that gender norms take, but we shouldn't just accept what we expect of males to be what is the natural way of being "male".
First I am not going to put myself forth as an expert or even someone who has done any study in this area. But let me put forth this hypothesis. Like I addressed the kilt as hypothetically masculine in Scotland, there is cultural behavior that overlays our identities, but at the root there is still something biological which is masculine and feminine. How that gets intertwined must be incredibly complex, but it is evident there are levels of hormonal differences (possibly even brain structure) between the sexes. Just look at the different energy levels of boys. Look at the predominance toward the physical in teen boys. Look at aptitudes. Those are not culturally learned. I would expect those go across cultures. Cultural identity is masking over certain gender innateness, but it's there.


Virgil,
Linguistic studies of classroom behavior focusing on gender differences have shown males to act in a more dominant manner, asserting ideas as if to control classroom discussion. This is essentially a competitive endeavor; each male student attepts to manage the floor of debate or exchange of ideas by injecting his opinion over the ideas of others, often resorting to speedy responses without time for deeper thought and understanding. Particularly for high school age and below, do we really trust students' competitive nerves and emotional nature to sidestep themselves and allow truly balanced perspectives to develop?

My question for you is whether or not this is really the most productive learning environment, for either males or females. If participation becomes a competition, dependent largely on power relationships developed between peers, what type of learning is taking place? Is it the fullest possible? Aren't more deliberative classroom environments better suited for developing real critical thinkers, capable of combining concepts to adapt to variables as they occur?

All I'm saying is it's worth a study. I don't know and you don't know. In my career as an engineer, i have been continually surprised at what turns out to work and what doesn't. That's actually ther difference between an inexperienced engineer and one with experience. The best engineering teacher I ever had in college stressed that assumptions almost always lead you astray. You have to work out the equations and run the experiments. Look at the assumptions Neely and the Judith Butler types make. Until you run an experiment I can't predict. Utalizing what seems to be an innate competitiveness to boys is an interesting hypothesis worth putting to the test.

[Paulclem]

I don't know much about the theories, science etc, but when it comes to education you have to remember that the kids have already gone through a number of developmental stages and the teaching environment needs to provide the best learning model for the kids.
Of course this doesn't happen. It is pot luck whether your kid will get a sympathetic and understanding teacher, let alone one who can try to adapt to the needs of the pupils. I would have liked to have tried the Australian method of 15 mins pysical exercise before lessons in the primary school I worked in. It was supposedly good for boys to do this, but there was absolutely no flexibility in the curriculum. I would have liked to have tried different teaching methods like mind mapping and using music, but didn't become aware of them until after I had left Primary school teaching to teach adults.

Certainly there is a lack of role models and an apprecation of how boys learn. I don't know about the theories, but many of the boys I taught were more active, less attentive and less likely to fit into the one stop shop model of schooling that was offered them. You may not want boys sword fighting and playing war in school- which they definately wanted to - but conversely there was a palpable fear of the things that interested boys - sport, conflict, machines, adventure and competition.

[Virgil]

My own experience of Primary school teaching is that there are few men, and this naturally has an effect upon the school culture. Many Primary schools in Coventry have no male staff, and I think this is reflected across the country.

I honestly did feel sorry for the boys, (and myself). There was much more singing - and the staff were expected to join in enthusiastically! (miming saved me) - and a lot less sport. Sports day was avoided if possible, or was one of those pointless, non-competitve affairs. There were 4 male teachers in a school of 38 staff, and so I think there was a bias against the interests of young boys. I can't blame the female teachers - they were doing their job well. It did skew the culture though. The male colleagues and I used to moan about it in the staff room regularly.

It continues to be a hot topic in he news too. In the Times today they were reporting that boys are significantly behind girls in writing when they get to Reception, (4-5 yrs). Gender differences and developmental factors were cited as the cause, and they were exploring ways of engaging boys in interesting ways to develop the fine motor skills for writing. It is a moot point though, whether this should be pushed at all.

There is a problem with boys in school, and it begins early.


I don't know much about the theories, science etc, but when it comes to education you have to remember that the kids have already gone through a number of developmental stages and the teaching environment needs to provide the best learning model for the kids.
Of course this doesn't happen. It is pot luck whether your kid will get a sympathetic and understanding teacher, let alone one who can try to adapt to the needs of the pupils. I would have liked to have tried the Australian method of 15 mins pysical exercise before lessons in the primary school I worked in. It was supposedly good for boys to do this, but there was absolutely no flexibility in the curriculum. I would have liked to have tried different teaching methods like mind mapping and using music, but didn't become aware of them until after I had left Primary school teaching to teach adults.

Certainly there is a lack of role models and an apprecation of how boys learn. I don't know about the theories, but many of the boys I taught were more active, less attentive and less likely to fit into the one stop shop model of schooling that was offered them. You may not want boys sword fighting and playing war in school- which they definately wanted to - but conversely there was a palpable fear of the things that interested boys - sport, conflict, machines, adventure and competition.

Oh Paul, I didn't mean to ignore your first post. But I seemed to have by pass it accidently. I completely agree with you. It seems like you are experiencing the issue first hand and are looking for solutions. Anyone saying that it's not an issue is sticking their head in the sand.

[Paulclem]

Oh Paul, I didn't mean to ignore your first post. But I seemed to have by pass it accidently. I completely agree with you. It seems like you are experiencing the issue first hand and are looking for solutions. Anyone saying that it's not an issue is sticking their head in the sand.

No worries Virgil - I didn't feel ignored. I merely felt I was adding a slightly different anecdotal perspective.:)

[Virgil]

She’s not making scientific claims, she’s a philosopher, a theorist, she is making cultural observations on a cultural topic, and she is one of the best and most important in her particular field – though like similar theorists not easy reading!

She's making biological claims when she says that gender identity is not innate/biological. Yes sir, she is making scientific claims.


:lol: Don’t forget that a large part of science is just theory too based on observations and speculations. If I’m right in remembering a scientific theory has to go a hell of a long way to actually be proven as a “fact”. I mean even what I would call the solid things like gravity and evolution have not yet passed into scientific “law” to the best of my knowledge, and evolution still seems to kick up a fuss. Just the other day I caught sight of a documentary about sharks (I though the kids would like it) and it showed sharks sleeping at the bottom of the ocean – this was obviously counter to the biology text book which I had at college showing a little diagram explaining that sharks needed to maintain a forward motion in order to breathe. That’s just a minor thing, but it goes to show that science is far from the solid rock some people take it for, science is largely theory too.
If science can go astray - and i've never said it can't - what makes you think that a social scientist (that term rubs me the wrong way because there is nothing scientific about it) can by pulling things out of the air or by intuition or by whatever magic you want to hang your hat on can understand biology? At one time it was intuition that it was in the semen that a baby was formed and placed into a woman's womb. Boy as that wrong biology.


As for literary theory, which by its very nature borrows from other from other disciplines such as politics, social, linguistic, psychology, philosophy amongst everything else, I can honestly say that it is the single most important thing that I have covered during my six years of undergraduate study. Theory naturally takes from other disciplines because in an attempt to understand the literature, it must try to understand the motivations of that literature, which it needs to turn to the outside world to do. So to understand a character in a novel we might find it fruitful to turn to psychology, in psychoanalysis. In examining the structures present in the novel, say the church, education – we might turn to political theory. Either way literary theory naturally borrows from other disciplines (even science) in order to interpret events in a plot or character in a work of literature or art. Think of literature just capturing a moment in time, for example a Victorian novel, it is also capturing, like a photograph, the thoughts and motivations of that particular period, which in turn could lead us to looking “outside” of the text in order to learn more about it, or at least to undercover potential areas of exploration.
I don't know how literary theory came into this, but I guess all that deconstruction nonsense all interweaves together. Look, this pseudo science is as valid as the intuition that the earth is flat, or that the sun revolves around, or that the earth was created 6000 years ago, or that evolution doesn't exist. All of these ideas were divined magically by people who weren't qualified to make such statements. At least they had the excuse that the scientific method wasn't understood yet. Judith Butler and all these deconstructionist, post structuralists, new historicism, feminsts, psychoanlytists (why are there so many? because they all jump from one divination to another? :lol:), or whatever is the latests fad don't have that excuse.

I guess the rest is repetition and no use going over the same ground. Let's leave it as we disagree. But it was fun. :)

[LitNetIsGreat]

:brow: Ah, Virgil, I guess there is no teaching an old dog new tricks, especially a stuborn one...

It is a shame though because the world of literary theory does open up a huge area of thought and learning, a way to see things in a different light. It is always best to try to keep an open mind in these matters, but I fear, alas you have made up your mind before you have really delved any further, still I'm not here to preach or convert, but if you were to want to open your mind a little (is that not the purpose of education to open minds, not to close them?) then my door is always proverbially open. Or even you are feeling brave give Peter Barry a read!

Oh it seems Paulclem that primary is as frustrating as secondary. I must say that I am unimpressed with the way secondary education is going at least in my experience of the lower end of state schools. Really I'd like to teach post 16 or adult, I don't know if I want to necessarily hang around secondary schooling slogging my guts out with little reward, but I know that post 16 and adult is a little shaky to get into on a full-time basis. Anyway, I’ll end up doing what I’ll end up doing, I’m not really concerned with that at present. :)

Edit: Oh, maybe I'll teach theory to stuborn old adults, ha, ha. :D

[Paulclem]

:brow: Ah, Virgil, I guess there is no teaching an old dog new tricks, especially a stuborn one...

It is a shame though because the world of literary theory does open up a huge area of thought and learning, a way to see things in a different light. It is always best to try to keep an open mind in these matters, but I fear, alas you have made up your mind before you have really delved any further, still I'm not here to preach or convert, but if you were to want to open your mind a little (is that not the purpose of education to open minds, not to close them?) then my door is always proverbially open. Or even you are feeling brave give Peter Barry a read!

Oh it seems Paulclem that primary is as frustrating as secondary. I must say that I am unimpressed with the way secondary education is going at least in my experience of the lower end of state schools. Really I'd like to teach post 16 or adult, I don't know if I want to necessarily hang around secondary schooling slogging my guts out with little reward, but I know that post 16 and adult is a little shaky to get into on a full-time basis. Anyway, I’ll end up doing what I’ll end up doing, I’m not really concerned with that at present. :)

Edit: Oh, maybe I'll teach theory to stuborn old adults, ha, ha. :D

You have my sympathies teaching secondary - a difficult job. Hard to try new stuff when you are focused on keeping them focused.

I think the two tier system doesn't help. Primaries send the kids off to secondaries ill prepared for the experience of having 8? 9? teachers of each subject after having one main class teacher for most of theeir school life. Of course it is the vulnerable ones that cope least.

There are still kids who can't read properly - for a multitude of reasons - that are never going to get anywhere in secondary.

In my last full time Y6 class I sent two lads up to secondary school - one with suspected motor dyslexia that I had only just realised after gong on an adult ed course - and one with some kind of emotional disturbance - perhaps a form of autism - that had never been addressed, just coped with in the Primary school. I don't know what happened to the lad with dyslexia - it was too late for us to get him assessed or anything, but the kid with the emotional problems lasted three weeks before they sent him to a school for kids with emotional and behavioural problems. This was a fairly typical one form intake primary school. Who knows how many were sent that year and every year to fail in the secondary system. (By the time I had this class I was sick of the job and was already moving into Adult Ed - hence the course).

The problem with Adult Ed is difficult to get full time work, as you said, especially now, and the money is significantly lower. In colleges you might end up teaching 14-19 yr olds again. I have to say though that Ad Ed is a great job if you can get it, and much much less stressful. Scher's also in Adult Ed.

[LitNetIsGreat]

You have my sympathies teaching secondary - a difficult job. Hard to try new stuff when you are focused on keeping them focused.

I think the two tier system doesn't help. Primaries send the kids off to secondaries ill prepared for the experience of having 8? 9? teachers of each subject after having one main class teacher for most of theeir school life. Of course it is the vulnerable ones that cope least.

There are still kids who can't read properly - for a multitude of reasons - that are never going to get anywhere in secondary.

In my last full time Y6 class I sent two lads up to secondary school - one with suspected motor dyslexia that I had only just realised after gong on an adult ed course - and one with some kind of emotional disturbance - perhaps a form of autism - that had never been addressed, just coped with in the Primary school. I don't know what happened to the lad with dyslexia - it was too late for us to get him assessed or anything, but the kid with the emotional problems lasted three weeks before they sent him to a school for kids with emotional and behavioural problems. This was a fairly typical one form intake primary school. Who knows how many were sent that year and every year to fail in the secondary system. (By the time I had this class I was sick of the job and was already moving into Adult Ed - hence the course).

The problem with Adult Ed is difficult to get full time work, as you said, especially now, and the money is significantly lower. In colleges you might end up teaching 14-19 yr olds again. I have to say though that Ad Ed is a great job if you can get it, and much much less stressful. Scher's also in Adult Ed.

Yes, it seems that a lot slip through the net to get into secondary, but it is just so difficult to try to manage it all. As I work in a lower end secondary, (and I mean Lower end) there are a huge number that come to "us" that simply cannot cope with the transition at all, many of them with significant emotional and behavioural problems, who naturally have a total distaste for learning. I think that in special needs the latest intake was around 75% from Y6 to secondary, and this is not a special school, just a run of the mill lower end state school! It is all quite depressing, though my thoughts are often with those that want to progress and can't due to behaviour. Anyhow, it is Christmas, I don't want to depress myself too much - I'm on holiday still! Really the real world is all too painful, I'd rather hide in the lofty world of the academia, even as a hanger-on wannabe...:brow:

[pjjrfan1]

I would think some of it is more what's inherent in each boy's nature. My mom basically overprotected me and my brother, keeping us away from the gangs in our barrios keeping us out of sports, telling us not to join the armed services because of Viet Nam. I lisetened, my brother, well there was no stopping him, even when i aruged with him that he was breaking moms heart, he just met things head on, we didn't have a father present growing up and my Brother quickly picked upt he slack. He is 4 years younger than I, but the guys in the neighborhood knew not to mess with him while they lit up on me. I think we both came out alright, but his sense of how to handle the world was much more advanced than mine was.

[Virgil]

:brow: Ah, Virgil, I guess there is no teaching an old dog new tricks, especially a stuborn one...

It is a shame though because the world of literary theory does open up a huge area of thought and learning, a way to see things in a different light. It is always best to try to keep an open mind in these matters, but I fear, alas you have made up your mind before you have really delved any further, still I'm not here to preach or convert, but if you were to want to open your mind a little (is that not the purpose of education to open minds, not to close them?) then my door is always proverbially open. Or even you are feeling brave give Peter Barry a read!


:lol: Oh Neely, I may be an old dog, but I've been more than exposed to literary theory. I do have a masters in english lit. It's all a crock. ;) Frankly meaningful literary theory started and probably ended with Aristotle. :D

[LitNetIsGreat]

Oh Ok, I'm surprised that anyone can dismiss ALL of it though. (Anyway, the article was rubbish.:p)

[gbrekken]

Virgil-tis sad you leave out Horace and Longinus

[Virgil]

Virgil-tis sad you leave out Horace and Longinus

You know I felt a tug of regret when I left it at Aristotle, but then I went ahead anyway. Aristotle teaches us how to underastand art, but I think Horace (Ars Poetica) and Longinus (On the Sublime) concentrate on appreciation for and style of art rather than an understanding of art, though there is a relative mix. If you think that's not correct, feel free to dispute it. you might be right.

What's truly a shame is that today's literature students are fed this deconstruction (and that long list of associated theories I presented above) nonsense at the expense of Aristotle, Horace, Longinus, and the Renaissance humanists. I wonder how many literature graduates have even been exposed to non 20th century aesthetic theories. Perhaps Neely will see this and tell us if he has.

[LitNetIsGreat]

No, you are quite right they are not on my particular course or I doubt on many. However the benefits of studying part-time is that personally I have a little time to try and fill in any gaps myself, and my Norton Anthology starts with the likes of Leontini, Plato, Aristotle, Horace, Longinus, Quintilian, Plotinus, Hippo Macrobisu etc. Whereas I can't claim to have read many of those (only a little Plato and Aristotle) you can bet I will when I can get around to it - obviously I have to meet the priorities of the course first.

However, I am more concerned at large cuts in literature departments meaning drains on the teaching of the likes of Milton, Shakespeare, Dickens etc - (Sheffield university has just got rid of their only Dickens expert and one Shakespeare scholar, as well as a number of very good part-time tutors - this is all very sad to me, honestly what is happening to part-time study is a disgrace, but perhaps that's a different discussion?

[Virgil]

No, you are quite right they are not on my particular course or I doubt on many. However the benefits of studying part-time is that personally I have a little time to try and fill in any gaps myself, and my Norton Anthology starts with the likes of Leontini, Plato, Aristotle, Horace, Longinus, Quintilian, Plotinus, Hippo Macrobisu etc. Whereas I can't claim to have read many of those (only a little Plato and Aristotle) you can bet I will when I can get around to it - obviously I have to meet the priorities of the course first.

Actually other than Aristotle, who was specifically brought up by a single teacher, I had to read most of those on my own as well. Who is Leontini? He doesn't ring a bell.


However, I am more concerned at large cuts in literature departments meaning drains on the teaching of the likes of Milton, Shakespeare, Dickens etc - (Sheffield university has just got rid of their only Dickens expert and one Shakespeare scholar, as well as a number of very good part-time tutors - this is all very sad to me, honestly what is happening to part-time study is a disgrace, but perhaps that's a different discussion?
Oh that does sound unfortunate. Is it because of a shrinking department or are they choosing other scholars in lieu of those you mention?

[LitNetIsGreat]

Who is Leontini?

Oh sorry it is Gorgias of Leontinei (ca.483-376 B.C.E) (therefore a contemporary of Plato) it says:

With its observations on the power of speech (logos), Goergias's "Encomium of Helen" develops a classical rhetoric antithetical to Platonic poetics, one that anticipates Jacques Derrida's [really?] twentieth-centaury critique of Plato. Where Plato commends moral content, Gorgias praises element form/ where Plato is didactic, Gorgias aims to persuade through performance; where Plato - and those who followed him, like Augustine - condemns rhetoric as dangerously false, Gorgias embraces it. [etc, etc].

Gorgias came from as Greek colony in Sicily and, by all accounts, lived to be more than one hundred years old. Nothing is known of his life until he came to Athens in 427BCE as part of an embassy from his native Leontini. There his dazzling oratorical style, whose force is difficult to capture in translation, made him something of a sensation: he quickly become one of the sophists, a group of itinerant teachers who went form city to city earning their living by instructing others in subtle argumentations. [etc].

Gorgias confined himself almost exclusively to the teaching of oratory - rhetoric - which was the main road to success in Greek city states [etc]. Only fragments of Gorgias's rhetorical works survive, primarily in the form of commonplaces, or rhetorical exercises that were used to instruct others. [etc, oh this sounds interesting:]

Plato writes that he admired Gorgias because he did not claim to be a teacher of arete, or virtue; "in fact, he laughs at others he hears making such promises. He thinks one should make men skilful at speaking."

They have not given much to his work in the edition, only a couple of pages of his "Encomium of Helen". Basically it looks like he was good at talking. :)


Oh that does sound unfortunate. Is it because of a shrinking department or are they choosing other scholars in lieu of those you mention?

No, it is just cuts in spending. Really there are cuts to both the full-time uni (which I have little to do with) and the part-time department which is tiny, tiny, from which I owe nearly everything. They are making cuts throughout in the main uni, Sheffield, which includes as I said one Shakespeare scholar and the only Dickens expert, and maybe more I don't know? Consider though that Sheffield is a top uni so it is altogether a little worrying for the subject as a whole I think.

In the part-time department, like I say which is microscopic in comparison, they are basically just ripping it apart, so that when I will have finished later this year or early next, it is arguable that they will be any literature programme left at all. In fact I think that the main uni wants to get rid of the thing entirely, but it is good PR to keep it on, so I think it will exist but only in a watered down form. I suppose that they have to balance the books and it is true that numbers are low (because people are hooked to the TV set instead of going out learning?) but some of the people they are getting rid of are often amongst experts in their field and really inspiring people. It is just really sad. Any module that now can't attract the masses is having a red line through it, and that is that.

When you consider the part-time options left in the country the message is even sadder. There are four, yes four, departments within the UK offering part-time degrees, not including the Open University, which I never fancied, and all of them are under serious threat of closure. At the end of the day if they don't attract the punters they go to the wall, and sometimes even if they do attract the "punters" (one department is two and a half times over subscribed) they go to the wall anyway. Very sad indeed. What is wrong with people?

[Virgil]

Thanks Neely. Hopefully when the economy recovers, the Uni will be able to hire more.

[Dinkleberry2010]

I don't know about England, but let me state a few things about the college and university situation here in the U.S., as far as the economic situation has affected it. Previously, the general rule in U.S. colleges and universities was that graduate students and assistant instructors took care of the basic courses, that is, they conducted the basic required composition courses and in many cases the required world literature courses. The full-fledged professors and associate professors taught only the upper level courses and did research. Now with the economic situation being what it is, many colleges and universities have had to cut back on their grad students and assistant fellowships and stipends, and the full professors and associate professors now find themselves in the position of actually having to teach. Horrors of horrors! If it wasn't so pathetic, it would be funny.

[Virgil]

LOL, horror of horrors is right. I bet most of them can't teach. They get their PhDs for whatever research they want to do and teaching is only secondary. Most of their research is a waste of time anyway.

[stlukesguild]

Interesting discussion topic, Virgil. As an educator I'm going to have to state that I agree with any number of the premises and concerns. There has been a concerted effort to assist girls in education... to utilize teaching strategies that favor girls, to invest heavily in girls sports, and to stress the notion of school as a competition free environment. We may add to this the gross overuse of medication (Ritalin, etc...) to sedate any student (primarily boys) who appear overly energetic rather than to attempt to focus or direct this energy in a positive manner. I'm not certain that I would blame the declining success of boys in schools or the declining numbers of male entrants into college and universities (and yes, these may certainly be documented) fully upon some PC anti-competition mindset. There are many other variables. One might consider, for example, that in the US a great majority of the poor urban students are being raised in single family homes... with the vast majority of these headed by a woman. This is not to suggest that many women cannot do a competent job at raising boys... but not having a positive male role model for a huge percentage of the population... leaving that role model to gangs and TV celebrities to fill may certainly have an affect on the maturity of many.

Sharing, empathy, cooperation, etc... are certainly qualities worthy of being taught... but so is competition. Through competition one may learn the value of rules, playing fair, good sportsmanship... and one may discover the reality of success and failure. The reality is that the adult world is built upon competition. Contrary to feel-good notions of egalitarianism, academia and even the arts are every bit as competitive as the cut-throat capitalism of Wall Street, London, Berlin, Tokyo, and Shanghai. Public education in the US has a long history of attempted social engineering... attempting to reconstruct society according to some egalitarian ideal through the elimination of grades or other means of competition... social promotion... continual positive feedback and praise (often unwarranted) and even the banning of the use of red ink to mark wrong answers (lest a student become too distraught over his "failure" and his or her frail self esteem be unrepairably damaged. The result is that American students often have the highest... often unrealistic sense of self-worth and unrealistic expectations of what they are entitled to... in sharp contrast to their actual abilities in comparison to many other countries as measured on standardized tests. Entering into the real world with the same unrealistic expectations is most certainly not the most ideal of situations.

Again... as Virgil first noted... I don't think the questions about boy's success in school is something that can be easily explained as being the result of a single element of education that can be quickly corrected... but neither can it be swept aside as a paranoid fantasy.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Thanks Neely. Hopefully when the economy recovers, the Uni will be able to hire more.

Yes, hope so.

Here is a really interesting article that shows what life is like in a typical state school, probably a bottom 30% or so with the sound of it. It was in the Private Eye a few years back, I've managed to find it. Amongst other things it certainly shows the complexity of problems which exist amongst schools of this sort (and why I want to get into adult or post 16 ed :nod:) which are not going to be fixed by a simple solution, or set of solutions. It is a very honest account I feel, and you get the sense that this guy has just had enough. You can see, I think, why just including more competition in schools is just not going to fix things in itself. It is certainly worth reading if you have the time, it is not that long:

http://web.archive.org/web/20040718031921/www.private-eye.co.uk/content/showitem.cfm/issue.1110/section.teacher

[Virgil]

Interesting discussion topic, Virgil. As an educator I'm going to have to state that I agree with any number of the premises and concerns. There has been a concerted effort to assist girls in education... to utilize teaching strategies that favor girls, to invest heavily in girls sports, and to stress the notion of school as a competition free environment. We may add to this the gross overuse of medication (Ritalin, etc...) to sedate any student (primarily boys) who appear overly energetic rather than to attempt to focus or direct this energy in a positive manner. I'm not certain that I would blame the declining success of boys in schools or the declining numbers of male entrants into college and universities (and yes, these may certainly be documented) fully upon some PC anti-competition mindset. There are many other variables. One might consider, for example, that in the US a great majority of the poor urban students are being raised in single family homes... with the vast majority of these headed by a woman. This is not to suggest that many women cannot do a competent job at raising boys... but not having a positive male role model for a huge percentage of the population... leaving that role model to gangs and TV celebrities to fill may certainly have an affect on the maturity of many.

Sharing, empathy, cooperation, etc... are certainly qualities worthy of being taught... but so is competition. Through competition one may learn the value of rules, playing fair, good sportsmanship... and one may discover the reality of success and failure. The reality is that the adult world is built upon competition. Contrary to feel-good notions of egalitarianism, academia and even the arts are every bit as competitive as the cut-throat capitalism of Wall Street, London, Berlin, Tokyo, and Shanghai. Public education in the US has a long history of attempted social engineering... attempting to reconstruct society according to some egalitarian ideal through the elimination of grades or other means of competition... social promotion... continual positive feedback and praise (often unwarranted) and even the banning of the use of red ink to mark wrong answers (lest a student become too distraught over his "failure" and his or her frail self esteem be unrepairably damaged. The result is that American students often have the highest... often unrealistic sense of self-worth and unrealistic expectations of what they are entitled to... in sharp contrast to their actual abilities in comparison to many other countries as measured on standardized tests. Entering into the real world with the same unrealistic expectations is most certainly not the most ideal of situations.

Again... as Virgil first noted... I don't think the questions about boy's success in school is something that can be easily explained as being the result of a single element of education that can be quickly corrected... but neither can it be swept aside as a paranoid fantasy.
Thanks StLukes. I pretty much agree with evcerything you say there. I'm not sure if the author of that article was saying the root cause was anti competition (I can't quite remember) but he was offering some solutions. I think we all can acknowledge that there is an issue in teaching boys. And intereting you bring up the ritalin. I had forgotten about that. The absence of role models is important. I still think forming boys into teams where they have to compete academically is an interesting approach to teaching.


Yes, hope so.

Here is a really interesting article that shows what life is like in a typical state school, probably a bottom 30% or so with the sound of it. It was in the Private Eye a few years back, I've managed to find it. Amongst other things it certainly shows the complexity of problems which exist amongst schools of this sort (and why I want to get into adult or post 16 ed :nod:) which are not going to be fixed by a simple solution, or set of solutions. It is a very honest account I feel, and you get the sense that this guy has just had enough. You can see, I think, why just including more competition in schools is just not going to fix things in itself. It is certainly worth reading if you have the time, it is not that long:

http://web.archive.org/web/20040718031921/www.private-eye.co.uk/content/showitem.cfm/issue.1110/section.teacher

Yikes, I skimmed through his blog Neely and it sounds horrible. I hear of horror stories like that here too. But that's an overall issue, not a boys specific issue.

[Hank Stamper]

I am going to wade in without reading all the responses, sorry...

I agree that competition is a good thing (irrespective of gender) - although, like Neely, the idea that terrorists are 'licking their chops' at the prospect of underachieving kids is ridiculous hyperbole ("Don't worry Osama, they'll never detect this suspicious ticking package I'm carrying - they weren't challenged enough at school!")

But I have always thought the old mantra 'it's not the winning, but the taking part that counts' does nothing but foster a culture where mediocrity is something to celebrate.. I don't like to see a bad loser, but that doesn't mean one should be happy to lose.. if you want a society that is high on aspiration, then this 'losers' mentality needs to be ditched... I don't think the likes of Usain Bolt or Roger Federer are motivated by just 'taking part'

Academically I think underachieving kids (those who deliberately underachieve because it is 'cool' to be disruptive or 'uncool' to be clever) should be routinely humiliated, thus creating a culture where children are competitive because they want to do well and avoid public ridicule... obviously that will never happen, but certainly for schools in the UK, I think the real problem is not political correctness or lack of competition, but a severe lack of discipline

[LitNetIsGreat]

I am going to wade in without reading all the responses, sorry...

I agree that competition is a good thing (irrespective of gender) - although, like Neely, the idea that terrorists are 'licking their chops' at the prospect of underachieving kids is ridiculous hyperbole ("Don't worry Osama, they'll never detect this suspicious ticking package I'm carrying - they weren't challenged enough at school!")

But I have always thought the old mantra 'it's not the winning, but the taking part that counts' does nothing but foster a culture where mediocrity is something to celebrate.. I don't like to see a bad loser, but that doesn't mean one should be happy to lose.. if you want a society that is high on aspiration, then this 'losers' mentality needs to be ditched... I don't think the likes of Usain Bolt or Roger Federer are motivated by just 'taking part'

Academically I think underachieving kids (those who deliberately underachieve because it is 'cool' to be disruptive or 'uncool' to be clever) should be routinely humiliated, thus creating a culture where children are competitive because they want to do well and avoid public ridicule... obviously that will never happen, but certainly for schools in the UK, I think the real problem is not political correctness or lack of competition, but a severe lack of discipline

I certainly agree with your thoughts here. If you have had chance to read the article I posted above you can see the result that a lack of discipline and the "it is cool to be a moron attitude" has in state schools. Often competition is not the issue, several schools have lots of competitive events going on all the time, but discipline and the "cool to be a fool" attitude needs sorting fast.

http://web.archive.org/web/200407180...ection.teacher

[Virgil]

May i ask Neely what do you have against boys having a little competition between them? It seems like you're philosophically against it prior to even giving it a chance. I just did a cursory search and came up with more articles on boys thriving in a competitive environment.


Boys Thrive in Competitive Environments

I recently touched upon this issue in the article “Should Boys be Bribed into Reading?” What I failed to discuss, however, was the distinct difference between girls and boys when it comes to competing.

The more and more I read and learn about how competition can spur boys to accomplish educational goals, the more I am inclined to encourage teachers and librarians to institute their own reading competitions in their libraries, classrooms, and even at home.

Michael Sullivan discusses mixing reading with competition in his book Connecting boys with books: what libraries can do. (Forward is by Jon Scieszka!) He writes:

“… mixing reading with competition- something boys are likely to respond to- may encourage boys to read more. It is reasonable to argue that rewards for reading are a temporary fix and that, in the end, boys will see reading as a chore for which rewards are necessary. But I am more inclined to view rewards as trophies for accomplishment, an acknowledgement of success.

Boys shy away from reading largely from insecurity; the feeling that this is not the right thing for them to do. A well-designed reading challenge can counter this insecurity if the goals are kept in mind. We must convince boys that reading is an acceptable activity and that reading in quantity is, in itself, success.”

Sullivan goes on to suggest that libraries ready to establish reading competition programs should base success on the quantity of books or pages read, not hours devoted to reading. He also encourages librarians and teachers to allow any type of book, even lower-level reading material, to be counted as a competitive book. Boys may be more likely to reading lower-level books in greater qualities than “better books” they are uninterested in and find boring. (However, monitor boys’ selections to make sure they are not choosing a book solely on the basis that it is an extremely easy and fast read!)

He also warns librarians of pushing boy’s to pursue reading for the “pure joy of reading” where time spent in quiet, reflective reading matters the most. Since boys are more likely to read informational purposes, their particular method of reading may not be reflective and may not be… quiet!

Create Your Own Reading Competition Just for Boys

Are you ready to start a reading competition for boys? Here are some tips for making it successful:

1) Have boys log books read… not hours read.
2) Allow boys to choose what types of book to read. For instance, perhaps one month they can choose to read as many books about baseball as they can…
3) Have prizes that they can look forward to receiving. (They might not want, let’s say, a book. After all, you’re teaching them they can read books for free from the library.)
4) Consider what author Abigail Norfleet James calls “cooperative competition.” James observes, in her experience, that boys are more likely to participate in cooperative competition (where they work together for a common goal for the good of the group) when they are in a single-sex environment. They will treat the group as “an extension of their individual identity.” (Excerpted from: Teaching the male brain: how boys think, learn, and feel in school.) For instance, award prizes when the group as a whole achieves a specific goal.
5) Have short-competition spans. Boys will lose interest in a competition that lasts an entire semester. Start with a smaller goal: a group prize or individual prizes when students read five books each. Try themed competitions: Perhaps each student reads a Roald Dahl book or scary books at Halloween time. (With parents approval, of course!)
6) Incorporate games into the competition. If boys are all reading the same book, have them each create “quizzes” where they try and stump their friends. http://www.gettingboystoread.com/content/boys-and-competitive-reading

and


White working class boys need structure and competition to succeed

By Janet Daley Politics Last updated: December 16th, 2008

First the good news: British education is not institutionally racist (or sexist). The children of all ethnic minorities, male and female, do better at school than white working class boys who are proving to be the real losers in the academic race (which is the bad news).

What is most interesting in the latest statistics is that the boys who do worst are those in isolated, inward-looking, deprived working class communities. Those who live in more mobile, racially and culturally mixed neighbourhoods seem to be benefiting from the stimulus of this social variety. Or it may be simply that they are not having their defeatist, anti-educational attitudes unfailingly reinforced by everyone with whom they come into contact. But the real question here is: why have the attitudes of these boys become so alienated from school, and what, if anything, can be done about it?

The real reason, I suggest, for working class boys having lost almost all interest in education is that their two chief motivations for achievement were systematically removed from the primary school curriculum: competition and a clear sense of measurable, structured accomplishment.

So determined was the education establishment to ensure “equality” in the classroom, that it banned any reference to winners and losers, to high achievers and lower ones, to being the best or the poorest in any capacity. So the thing that spurred on many boys to excel – the idea of being “top of the class”, or the best at maths, or the prize-winning reader – has now been eradicated in the very schools (those in deprived areas) where it is most needed. And thrown out along with this will-to-win, were the clear, identifiable signs of goals having been reached: in order to avoid any child feeling that he had failed in relation to his classmates or his teacher’s expectations, the steps to progress were obscured and the expectations lowered.http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/janetdaley/5983638/White_working_class_boys_need_structure_and_compet ition_to_succeed/


By the way, that "cooperative competition" in the first of these two articles sounds just like the team learning I've advocated here.

[Hank Stamper]

I certainly agree with your thoughts here. If you have had chance to read the article I posted above you can see the result that a lack of discipline and the "it is cool to be a moron attitude" has in state schools. Often competition is not the issue, several schools have lots of competitive events going on all the time, but discipline and the "cool to be a fool" attitude needs sorting fast.

http://web.archive.org/web/200407180...ection.teacher

good link Neely thanks.. have heard of some proper horror stories about some state schools over here - a family friend quit her job as a teacher because of the abuse from the children (or at least a particularly unruly one) and the school's inability to do anything about it.. I forget what happened exactly, but from what I've heard (and what that diary reveals) most teachers are powerless to do anything about disruptive students anyway...

[LitNetIsGreat]

May i ask Neely what do you have against boys having a little competition between them? It seems like you're philosophically against it prior to even giving it a chance. I just did a cursory search and came up with more articles on boys thriving in a competitive environment.

No, you misunderstand me totally, I'm not against competition at all, I'm sure that it could be a good thing, it is just that I initially reacted to the ridiculous hyperbole of the original article and then we got side tracked talking fun nonsense. However, above all, I only see it as a minor thing, certainly not a root issue.

Hank hit the nail well and truly when he mentioned behaviour, or the B word as it has become to be known (because we are not allowed to talk about it) it is behaviour and the pampering of students to the ridiculous degree that for me, is the Major issue. Sure, we can put more sports days on and incorporate that competitive spirit in class, but when it has become acceptable for students to shout and swear in your face on a daily basis, then I think we should tackle that first. That's all. Of course things may be a totally different in the US, but I hardly think it could be all that different in reality.


good link Neely thanks.. have heard of some proper horror stories about some state schools over here - a family friend quit her job as a teacher because of the abuse from the children (or at least a particularly unruly one) and the school's inability to do anything about it.. I forget what happened exactly, but from what I've heard (and what that diary reveals) most teachers are powerless to do anything about disruptive students anyway

Oh yes, it doesn't surprise me. I work with a lot of good, experienced teachers and many are totally fed up, it is sad to see. Turnover in schools is high. One teacher left this Christmas without even having another job to go to, she just packed it in. Personally I have gone through the frustrated stage I think, or I am getting there. I can't change the world and have given up trying - besides many more people have got it much worst than me in other fields, I mean even poor nurses get assaulted too and they don't get the holidays?!! I do what I can in small ways, and for the most part feel OK, even if deep down I know that in no way should education have to be like this.

[Paulclem]

The discipline culture in a school has to be built up over time. Neely's article was so familiar in that the small disciline issues are not addressed by the teacher because there was no structure to deal with it.

One flaw in the article I thought was the assumption that some teachers just have it -discipline - and that others don't. It really is not true. It has to be built up over time. I have known a number of teachers who have changed school and seemingly lost all their disciplinary qualities. They didn't lose it. It worked in the old school because they had built up a recognised status, which brings confidence, which leads to a recognition by other staff and kids.

The problem lies with management. Clearly lots of school kds are not managed well. Teachers make up the management team, and their skills are in teaching their own subjects, not managing a system.

Of course none of this is helped by high teacher turnover, supply teachers, and a failure to deal with issues like swearing etc. School is also a one stop shop which does not fit a lot of kids. There will need to be a rethink about how education is managed. I reckon that it will become a scandal sooner or later. It has been too long coming as well.

The tragedy is that lots of the kids want to learn and get on, and they are held back by the bad behaviour of the significant minority. In my humble opinion, the kids like this could almost be taught in much larger groups, as they could be trusted to do the business. If this was the case, then perhaps there would be space and time to address the needs of the disruptive kids, and perhaps they would be able to improve their skills enough to cope better.

[LitNetIsGreat]

The discipline culture in a school has to be built up over time. Neely's article was so familiar in that the small discipline issues are not addressed by the teacher because there was no structure to deal with it.

Yes, a teacher has to try to pick the battles that they think they can win, and they have to let things go or nothing will occur in the class apart from discipline battles.


One flaw in the article I thought was the assumption that some teachers just have it -discipline - and that others don't. It really is not true. It has to be built up over time. I have known a number of teachers who have changed school and seemingly lost all their disciplinary qualities. They didn't lose it. It worked in the old school because they had built up a recognised status, which brings confidence, which leads to a recognition by other staff and kids.

Yes I think that is mostly true, but when you are in the heat of things, (like that guy was/is) it can often just look like some people just "have it". But I have know people who could stop a full blown riot with a raised eyebrow, almost fail completely when they move to a different school, so that adds weight to your argument.


The problem lies with management. Clearly lots of school kids are not managed well. Teachers make up the management team, and their skills are in teaching their own subjects, not managing a system.

Yes, predominately a teacher's job is to teach, and yes that does include discipline, but on the whole they are subject specialists, not army cadets. You could put William Shakespeare in a drama class and he would fail OFSTED.


Of course none of this is helped by high teacher turnover, supply teachers, and a failure to deal with issues like swearing etc. School is also a one stop shop which does not fit a lot of kids. There will need to be a rethink about how education is managed. I reckon that it will become a scandal sooner or later. It has been too long coming as well.

Within the year I'm sure that there will be a major scandal one way or another, and it is my guess that someone is likely to get seriously hurt into the bargain.


The tragedy is that lots of the kids want to learn and get on, and they are held back by the bad behaviour of the significant minority. In my humble opinion, the kids like this could almost be taught in much larger groups, as they could be trusted to do the business. If this was the case, then perhaps there would be space and time to address the needs of the disruptive kids, and perhaps they would be able to improve their skills enough to cope better.

Yes this is the real tragedy, and incredibly frustrating, though how much do we persevere with kids who constantly disrupt learning? It is my opinion that for the majority of those in secondary it is already too late - yes that is incredibly sad, but I have yet to be proved wrong in my personal assessment of individuals.

[Virgil]

The tragedy is that lots of the kids want to learn and get on, and they are held back by the bad behaviour of the significant minority.

If I were a parent of a good kid who is not fully receiving a proper education based on the disruption of a minority, I would be blowing a fit. If a group of kids are preventing others from learning, they need to be removed.

Actually, they (the disruptive kids) are being failed by the educational systerm as well as the good kids. To lay the blame on the kids is an abdication of responsibility. Obviously teaching methods are not getting through to those kids. These are the 20% that the author of the original article I posted is talking about. These are probably the kids that could best use a different teaching structure, say that comeptitive environment.

[stlukesguild]

Neely; I'm somewhat surprised at the lack of discipline you describe in your schools, although I suppose I shouldn't be. We often think of the discipline issue as something uniquely American... related to our poverty rates and refusal to properly invest in public education. So what is the answer? Many of us believe that we should return to "tracking" children: placing those who have the self motivation and academic abilities in one environment where they can develop to the fullest of their abilities without continual disruption, while placing habitually disruptive students in another environment... with teachers trained in how to deal with the behavioral issues. Liberal egalitarian ideals have led us to place every child in the same environment so as to not "mark" them or damage their precious egos... but as Virgil notes, such an approach fails the disruptive and academically weak students even more than it fails the motivated and academically "bright".

[Paulclem]

If I were a parent of a good kid who is not fully receiving a proper education based on the disruption of a minority, I would be blowing a fit. If a group of kids are preventing others from learning, they need to be removed.

Actually, they (the disruptive kids) are being failed by the educational systerm as well as the good kids. To lay the blame on the kids is an abdication of responsibility. Obviously teaching methods are not getting through to those kids. These are the 20% that the author of the original article I posted is talking about. These are probably the kids that could best use a different teaching structure, say that comeptitive environment.

I agree. It needs some creative thinking and purposeful application by a strong leader. Some "Super" Heads have turned around failing schools, but they don't always succeed. They need the support of the staff, parents and pupils, and where that comes together with a vision for a good school, the usual model would work.

It's the bog standard school where it just doesn't work for 20% of the kids. A significant minority who deserve to be better served, as do the ones they are holding back.

Funnily enough Neely, the 20% are some of the ones who you'd be getting in Ad Ed classes should you find something suitable. They come with all kinds of stories of past humiliations and labelling from 10, 20, 30 years of schooling.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Stluke, yes discipline is bad, but keep in mind that I am talking about the bottom 20-30% of state schools - I'm not saying they are all like this. Plus the chap in the article seemed to get an unfair crop of bad classes even in that environment, but even so it is not good in these bottom schools.

The spilt you are talking about, talking the best and teaching them in one environment, and taking the bottom lot, and putting them in another used to be standard practice up until the 60s/70s. It was called the 11 plus exam, whereby students either went to a grammar school if they passed or a secondary modern if they failed. The grammar schools were more academic based and the secondary modern more hands-on and practical. This practice has all but disappeared and you are left with a one school fits all, though a few grammar schools do remain. I think this is what you are talking about with "tracking" students in your context of schooling. However like you suggest other problems come from this approach, not to mention the fact that you are all but deciding the entire future of a student based on one exam at age 11! So, I don't know, I think that in some ways a return to such an exam system would be a good idea and in other ways it wouldn't - there are no easy answers but that is the very nature of it and what I keep getting on at, there is no simple solution, it is a complex and messy problem.

The current government’s “solution” is to privatise failing schools into what they call academies or trust schools, which therefore gets rid of the failing school from the government books, but of course doesn’t fix the problem at all. What they do is let them privatise the schools, throw money at them and hope for the best – it is far to say that it is an approach that I do not have any faith in. On top of this 95% of the special schools, which in the past dealt with children with extreme special needs or real behavioural issues have been closed down under the banner of “inclusion” within the last ten years or so. It has been suggested that these sorts of individuals now work better within a mainstream environment and not with specially trained staff at all. Of course the pessimists and realists amongst us would say that this is another cost cutting exercise, but what do we know? What the answer is though, I don’t really claim to know, to be honest I don’t think that there really is one without getting really drastic and that won’t happen.

Do the bottom American schools suffer as bad behaviourally in your opinion as in the UK?


Funnily enough Neely, the 20% are some of the ones who you'd be getting in Ad Ed classes should you find something suitable. They come with all kinds of stories of past humiliations and labelling from 10, 20, 30 years of schooling.

Oh yes I can imagine. So many slip through the net as well. The problem is that the whole environment is shaped by mediocrity or defined by poor behaviour so that it affects absolutely everyone.

[OrphanPip]

Neely; I'm somewhat surprised at the lack of discipline you describe in your schools, although I suppose I shouldn't be. We often think of the discipline issue as something uniquely American... related to our poverty rates and refusal to properly invest in public education. So what is the answer? Many of us believe that we should return to "tracking" children: placing those who have the self motivation and academic abilities in one environment where they can develop to the fullest of their abilities without continual disruption, while placing habitually disruptive students in another environment... with teachers trained in how to deal with the behavioral issues. Liberal egalitarian ideals have led us to place every child in the same environment so as to not "mark" them or damage their precious egos... but as Virgil notes, such an approach fails the disruptive and academically weak students even more than it fails the motivated and academically "bright".

I'm surprised that this isn't how American schools are operated, it certainly is the way that Quebec schools are. I went to a terrible public high school that was ranked second to last for academic achievement, although we did have a very good basketball team. There were numerous programs in the school for the more academically inclined students. For example I followed a high school program that certified me as bilingual by graduation. I did the same French language courses as the francophone students and wrote the same exams. Moreover, I did Quebec history in French and my biology courses. Likewise, I was in a special English class that was experimenting with computers in the classroom. On the other side of things, there were classes for the "special" children and our school also contained a program for the mentally handicapped to achieve a high school diploma.

Anyway, despite all these special programs, our school did suffer a great deal from behavioral problems. While I was in high school two teachers were beaten up by students, there was a gang brawl that left one student blinded, and an incident with a knife being drawn in school. It reached a point where they started using dispersion tactics to fight the gangs, forcefully transferring students around the city. We also had a former professional football player who used to hang around the school as some sort of good "black role model" and we had a permanently assigned police officer who alternated between our school and the Francophone one in the neighbourhood.

[stlukesguild]

Stluke, yes discipline is bad, but keep in mind that I am talking about the bottom 20-30% of state schools - I'm not saying they are all like this.

Certainly... and the horror stories of American schools are largely centered upon the poverty-ridden urban and rural schools... which is unfortunate... even unconscionable when you consider that these are the children most in need of a proper education if they are ever to escape the cycle of poverty... but I somewhat suspect that such is not the intention. We can't have all those poor getting wise to us now, can we?:(

The split you are talking about, talking the best and teaching them in one environment, and taking the bottom lot, and putting them in another used to be standard practice up until the 60s/70s.

Yes. It was the same here. I was "tracked". By "tracking" I mean that students were placed in classrooms according to academic abilities and their progress was closely monitored ("tracked"). A student whose efforts slacked off might find himself/herself moved out of the classes with higher expectations or a student in one of the "slower" groups might work his or her way into the "higher" performing classes.

It was called the 11 plus exam, whereby students either went to a grammar school if they passed or a secondary modern if they failed. The grammar schools were more academic based and the secondary modern more hands-on and practical.

Yes.

This practice has all but disappeared and you are left with a one school fits all, though a few grammar schools do remain. However like you suggest other problems come from this approach, not to mention the fact that you are all but deciding the entire future of a student based on one exam at age 11!

This was the reason that it was all but outlawed. Parents objected to their child being marked as "slow" and the idealistic egalitarian impulses in education and the government were offended by the notion that some children might be smarter than others... or better suited to one sort of task than another. While a child could work his or her way out of a given "track" it was rare... and many suspected once you were there it was for good. Of course, the reality is that in many cases you can recognize the students who will do good or poorly quite early on. This is the main reason for the current push for quality education in the first few years of school. A child who falls behind then almost never catches up.

What was positive about this approach was that it was realistic. It recognized that not every child learned the same way or at the same rate; not every student is made out to go on to college and a PhD. Students who were probably not going to make it in college were prepared with real-life skills for a career beyond flipping burgers (auto mechanics, electricians, carpentry, etc...) and any adult who finally hunkers down and wants to try the college route has the option.

So, I don't know, I think that in some ways a return to such an exam system would be a good idea and in other ways it wouldn't - there are no easy answers...

Indeed... yet it seems clear that the current approach helps no one. It disrupts the educational process of those who are focused and able to achieve at a higher rate... effectively penalizing them... and it clearly fails the students who are not able to achieve in the current context and leaves them virtually unprepared for life and a career once their schooling is over.

The current government’s “solution” is to privatise failing schools into what they call academies or trust schools, which therefore gets rid of the failing school from the government books, but of course doesn’t fix the problem at all. What they do is let them privatise the schools, throw money at them and hope for the best...

It we seem our education leaders are following each others lead. We currently have a push for "charter" schools. "Charter" schools are effectively private schools and need not follow the state and federal regulations concerning schools. They may refuse students who are too disruptive or who have learning difficulties that would make educating them too expensive. At the same time, parents are given vouchers based upon the tax dollars allocated per child with which they may pay part or the whole of their child's tuition to the charter school. This a charter school is effectively a "private school" on paper... but largely paid for with public money... yet not held to the same standards as the public schools. As a result the poorer public schools are stuck dealing with an inordinate amount of disruptive students and students with learning disabilities or other special needs.

It is far to say that it is an approach that I do not have any faith in.

Indeed.

On top of this 95% of the special schools, which in the past dealt with children with extreme special needs or real behavioural issues have been closed down under the banner of “inclusion” within the last ten years or so.

As here. Our federal government... congress... has legislated that "special needs" students be included in the regular classrooms with few exceptions. Any time a child is not to be included a huge slew of paperwork must be generated to document why junior cannot function in the normal setting... and this must be regularly followed up on. It never strikes them that placing blind children in the normal art class or students with an IQ of 70 (I've even had one with an IQ of 32 who essentially just laid on the floor... she couldn't walk... and flopped around like a fish... and I was to strap a marker in her hand a pretend she was learning something about art.:() in the regular classroom is not an issue of fairness but essentially of neglect. There is no way that the average teacher can deal with a number of students with special needs while also running a class geared toward the abilities of the average student.

It has been suggested that these sorts of individuals now work better within a mainstream environment and not with specially trained staff at all. Of course the pessimists and realists amongst us would say that this is another cost cutting exercise, but what do we know?

Cost cutting at the expense of the students? Now that's something we know nothing about in the US:rolleyes::goof:

Do the bottom American schools suffer as bad behaviourally in your opinion as in the UK?

If anything... I would guess worse. The bottom US schools have the added issue of the sort of violence that is prone to the urban areas of all large US cities, the racial issues, gangs, etc... I teach in a pre-K-8 school... a school that houses students from Preschool through age 14-15. This is another cost-cutting idea... but one that exposes the youngest children to the poor behavioral examples of students at the worst ages (puberty). We have two full-time security guards in spite of housing just over 350 students. Police gang units have been called in on a regular basis and we have had more than a few incidents involving weapons. The only reason we have security now is because the entire district made the national news when one irate student at another school shot two teachers and two other students and then killed himself.

Stluke, yes discipline is bad, but keep in mind that I am talking about the bottom 20-30% of state schools - I'm not saying they are all like this.

Certainly... and the horror stories of American schools are largely centered upon the poverty-ridden urban and rural schools... which is unfortunate... even unconscionable when you consider that these are the children most in need of a proper education if they are ever to escape the cycle of poverty... but I somewhat suspect that such is not the intention. We can't have all those poor getting wise to us now, can we?:(

The split you are talking about, talking the best and teaching them in one environment, and taking the bottom lot, and putting them in another used to be standard practice up until the 60s/70s.

Yes. It was the same here. I was "tracked". By "tracking" I mean that students were placed in classrooms according to academic abilities and their progress was closely monitored ("tracked"). A student whose efforts slacked off might find himself/herself moved out of the classes with higher expectations or a student in one of the "slower" groups might work his or her way into the "higher" performing classes.

It was called the 11 plus exam, whereby students either went to a grammar school if they passed or a secondary modern if they failed. The grammar schools were more academic based and the secondary modern more hands-on and practical.

Yes.

This practice has all but disappeared and you are left with a one school fits all, though a few grammar schools do remain. However like you suggest other problems come from this approach, not to mention the fact that you are all but deciding the entire future of a student based on one exam at age 11!

This was the reason that it was all but outlawed. Parents objected to their child being marked as "slow" and the idealistic egalitarian impulses in education and the government were offended by the notion that some children might be smarter than others... or better suited to one sort of task than another. While a child could work his or her way out of a given "track" it was rare... and many suspected once you were there it was for good. Of course, the reality is that in many cases you can recognize the students who will do good or poorly quite early on. This is the main reason for the current push for quality education in the first few years of school. A child who falls behind then almost never catches up.

What was positive about this approach was that it was realistic. It recognized that not every child learned the same way or at the same rate; not every student is made out to go on to college and a PhD. Students who were probably not going to make it in college were prepared with real-life skills for a career beyond flipping burgers (auto mechanics, electricians, carpentry, etc...) and any adult who finally hunkers down and wants to try the college route has the option.

So, I don't know, I think that in some ways a return to such an exam system would be a good idea and in other ways it wouldn't - there are no easy answers...

Indeed... yet it seems clear that the current approach helps no one. It disrupts the educational process of those who are focused and able to achieve at a higher rate... effectively penalizing them... and it clearly fails the students who are not able to achieve in the current context and leaves them virtually unprepared for life and a career once their schooling is over.

The current government’s “solution” is to privatise failing schools into what they call academies or trust schools, which therefore gets rid of the failing school from the government books, but of course doesn’t fix the problem at all. What they do is let them privatise the schools, throw money at them and hope for the best...

It we seem our education leaders are following each others lead. We currently have a push for "charter" schools. "Charter" schools are effectively private schools and need not follow the state and federal regulations concerning schools. They may refuse students who are too disruptive or who have learning difficulties that would make educating them too expensive. At the same time, parents are given vouchers based upon the tax dollars allocated per child with which they may pay part or the whole of their child's tuition to the charter school. This a charter school is effectively a "private school" on paper... but largely paid for with public money... yet not held to the same standards as the public schools. As a result the poorer public schools are stuck dealing with an inordinate amount of disruptive students and students with learning disabilities or other special needs.

It is far to say that it is an approach that I do not have any faith in.

Indeed.

On top of this 95% of the special schools, which in the past dealt with children with extreme special needs or real behavioural issues have been closed down under the banner of “inclusion” within the last ten years or so.

As here. Our federal government... congress... has legislated that "special needs" students be included in the regular classrooms with few exceptions. Any time a child is not to be included a huge slew of paperwork must be generated to document why junior cannot function in the normal setting... and this must be regularly followed up on. It never strikes them that placing blind children in the normal art class or students with an IQ of 70 (I've even had one with an IQ of 32 who essentially just laid on the floor... she couldn't walk... and flopped around like a fish... and I was to strap a marker in her hand a pretend she was learning something about art.:() in the regular classroom is not an issue of fairness but essentially of neglect. There is no way that the average teacher can deal with a number of students with special needs while also running a class geared toward the abilities of the average student.

It has been suggested that these sorts of individuals now work better within a mainstream environment and not with specially trained staff at all. Of course the pessimists and realists amongst us would say that this is another cost cutting exercise, but what do we know?

Cost cutting at the expense of the students? Now that's something we know nothing about in the US:rolleyes::goof:

Do the bottom American schools suffer as bad behaviourally in your opinion as in the UK?

If anything... I would guess worse. The bottom US schools have the added issue of the sort of violence that is prone to the urban areas of all large US cities, the racial issues, gangs, etc...

[Drkshadow03]

There is so much I agree with in what St. Luke said, yet I think caution needs to be advised too. As a devil's advocate approach to St. Luke's:

What about the kid with a learning disability but still gets strong marks in all disciplines with extra help from the resource center and also happens to be in the school's Gifted program. Then in High school basically gets mediocre grades in all disciplines, except History. Then in college suddenly rises to a consistent 3.7 magna cum laude student and goes on to grad school.

It would've been very easy to label such a student because they had a learning disability and had a lot of difficulty with certain activities related to reading and writing. Since this student happens to be me . . .

One of the best things to happen to me was that I was never labeled as a resource student kid. Everyone knows those were the "dumb" kids who were in the slow classes in high school. What about the fact that I was weak at reading and writing when I was younger, but ended up with an English masters? What about the fact that I was an amazing math student when I was younger and in honors, getting high marks until about 9th grade, and then math became a foreign language and I was struggling just to pass the subject? How do we explain how my weakest discipline became my strongest and my strongest became my weakest? What happens with these variable if someone labels me?

In theory, your system could work as the classes I would take would adapt to my abilities, even as they change. Of course, what about motivation? I could've handled AP History intellectually, but maturity-wise and motivation I never would've been able to handle it or wanted to when I was in high school.

I think there are too many other factors. Motivation and intelligence are not the same things. Not to mention there are also the video game/technology factors beyond poverty and ability. One could have plenty of ability and just prefer to play their Xbox than read Shakespeare because he doesn't come in eye-burning graphics.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Well this is what I meant when I talked about the inconsistencies of trying to judge a student too early - mostly you find that you can make excellent estimations based on data and observation, but there will always be a grey area of students who can go either way, this was one of the drawbacks to the old system. However what we have now, instead of a two school fits all system, we have a one school fits all system - though neither of them are ideal, you could make a case for the former to be the best of the two models. Either way there are no easy answers to what is a complex set of problems, and besides the future of education lies in the privatised all inclusive school, so there is sense of discussing the merits of two tier system because it just won’t happen.

I would strongly suggest that the best form of learning comes from personal motivation and a want or passion for a particular subject or subjects, though what do you do when you have to teach students with no interest at all? How productive is forced, authoritarian teaching and learning, either from the student or teachers point of view? Of course, the argument is that students at such an age are not always mature enough to know what is in their long-term best interests and that the will be grateful of the enforced learning in the future, but push too hard and you risk creating a total aversion to learning which only feeds the cycle of poverty you are trying to break in the first place!

Motivation and intelligence certainly aren't the same things. There are plenty of academically bright individuals (or those with such potential) within the bottom band schools or groups. The potential is not in question often, but the motivation or the positive role models are just not there - they quite often just do not care and no amount of strategies are going to work with such students who have gone that far.

Certainly the fascination with instant forms of entertainment does not make the teacher’s job any easier. Students often demand such instant gratification in the classroom, without wanting to put in any commitment from their side, they want entertaining all the time and are often “bored” and distracted every 5 minutes. The vast majority of them laugh at the thought of reading anything for pleasure let alone Shakespeare, it is just an uphill struggle with no real solution. I don’t want to sound totally negative or anything, there are some good moments and occasional breakthroughs, and some great students who battle on regardless of those around them - but essentially I’m just seeing the situation as it is.

[Dinkleberry2010]

I am going to relate something about high school education in a certain part of the U.S. which you may find unbelievable, but it happened.

I substituted taught in high school in east Tennessee for a couple of years.

I once substituted for a math teacher for one day in a high school. In the classroom there was a TV that was mounted on the wall. The TV was turned on when I entered the classroom and it was tuned to a music station that was playing rap and hard rock music rather loudly. I proceeded to turn the TV off.

About five minutes later, the high school principal came into the classroom, walked to the TV and turned it back onto the same music channel. He came to me and all he said was this: "That is an educational channel that we leave on." And he walked out of the classroom.

I don't know how the principal knew that I had turned the TV off. But the fact that he came into the classroom and turned the TV back on to a rap and rock music station during a math class simply astounded me.

Does this say anything about the state of education in high school in the U.S.? I don't know. All I know is that I quit substitute teaching not long afterwards.

[Paulclem]

Yes. It was the same here. I was "tracked". By "tracking" I mean that students were placed in classrooms according to academic abilities and their progress was closely monitored ("tracked"). A student whose efforts slacked off might find himself/herself moved out of the classes with higher expectations or a student in one of the "slower" groups might work his or her way into the "higher" performing classes.

It was called the 11 plus exam, whereby students either went to a grammar school if they passed or a secondary modern if they failed. The grammar schools were more academic based and the secondary modern more hands-on and practical.

Hi Neely and St Lukes. The Grammar school system largely gave way to the comprehensive system in the 1960s in the UK. This really was a two tier system of academic kids and factory fodder which labelled and and rejected kids with the 11 plus. The comprehensive system was based upon a good education for all, but this has not been the success it was supposed to be.

The tracking you mention relates more closely to streaming whereby classes consisted of kids of similar ability. You had the top, middle and "spoonies" - (spoon fed) as one teacher in my comprehensive referred to them. The "spoonies" were in effect supervised through school.

It worked ok for me - though it wasn't a good school by any means and my education should have been better. My son has just been through secondary, which is often mixed ability until the classes are set for their GCSE exams. The classes were often disrupted with all the behaviour problems associated with it.

Different models have been tried, but no one system works well. There are rose coloured attitudes to the grammar school system, but that solution served a divided society where the expectation was that you either studied or got a job.

The system is changing again with more emphasis on vocational studies - engineering etc - for those students who are not academically inclined.

The problem is that education is not valued by the 20%- 30%. it is seen as an expectation that will provide without the input. (You only have to compare the attitudes of immigrant children/ parents who come from countries where there is no free education to see some of the problem). Those attitudes come from parents and those strong role models that permeate our cultures and profoundly affect the kids. Education is not seen as cool. Being tough or whatever is. It's difficult.

[The Comedian]

Education is not seen as cool.

Man, so much of the problem boils down to this simple ideas -- for boys especially. And, you know the funny thing: I know how to make it cool. Tell kids they can't have education. Make it only for adults. Make it something that adults practice in secret, like drugs or drinking. The more we make it as good for you as broccoli, the more we make it taste like broccoli.

One problem, that I've seen, anyway, is that boys have a more difficult time fulfilling a variety of roles than girls do. Girls are better at seeming themselves as studious, silly, fun, rebellious, and athletic. Whereas boys, modern boys, tend to really focus on only one aspect of their characters devote a false and damaging loyalty to it.

And today, I think being able to see your character as comprised of multiple roles is more important than ever.

I also think that most have not solved the great problem of Google: that information does not need to be given by teachers (it's there for many already) and the research (superficial, sure) is recreational for most. So the idea of teachers as information-givers is not in good standing with the modern world.

If anything, teachers need to be emotional leaders. . . . sources of wisdom, even (as hokey as that sounds). And, education needs to embrace more (but not exclusively) an activity-based curriculum.

EDIT: And girls are generally more brave than boys (I'm not sure why this is). Whenever I assign a speech in one of my classes, I have the students volunteer the order of their speeches. And, without fail (and only a few exceptions) a line of scared females take the initiative to go, and most of the boys skulk and wait until the women have gone posing a pathetic apathy that they try to pass off as devil-may-care courage, which is really just fear having got the best of them.

[Virgil]

Originally Posted by Paulclem
Education is not seen as cool.
That's why competition can frame the experience as cool. ;)

[LitNetIsGreat]

That's why competition can frame the experience as cool. ;)

I'm afraid that competition is not the magic wand you seem to think it is. In my school competition is widely used, competition in sports days, activity days, cross curriculum, business enterprise, presentation competitions - all with prizes to boot. At most it seems to work in engaging those who are already engaged. The problem lies in trying to engage those who do not care, those who are too far gone to give a damn about education. The problem lies with the whole rigid structure of the system, the lack of positive role models, all the cartload of issues which arise from poverty from abuse, to poor diet and beyond, and a thousand other things. Introducing more competition is fine, but by itself it is going to do very little.


The problem is that education is not valued by the 20%- 30%. It is seen as an expectation that will provide without the input. (You only have to compare the attitudes of immigrant children/ parents who come from countries where there is no free education to see some of the problem). Those attitudes come from parents and those strong role models that permeate our cultures and profoundly affect the kids. Education is not seen as cool. Being tough or whatever is. It's difficult.

Yes this is another massive barrier to have to try and breakthrough - though I would say that by the time you have reached secondary age, maybe Y8 at most, it is already too late for the vast majority - the negative attitude is well and truly cemented and minds are already closed.


If anything, teachers need to be emotional leaders. . . . sources of wisdom, even (as hokey as that sounds). And, education needs to embrace more (but not exclusively) an activity-based curriculum.

Yes, this is the route which some schools are going down. I think some aspects of this approach are good, but it is perhaps difficult to maintain in the long-term - for teachers who are new to such methods at least! Students expect to be constantly entertained and this sort of model works well to feed that desire, but there are some things that have to be learnt in the traditional way I think. Also why is it that whenever I have seen examples of activities of this kind it always seems to involve building towers out of used toilet rolls?? I'm not really sure how such things are supposed to improve basic literacy and numeracy and things like that, but it seems that the kids enjoy it. :thumbs_up:lol:

[Petrarch's Love]

I happen to agree with the general thrust of the article. The feminization of our culture (am I going to get smacked for that? ) has really marginalized boys from achieving.

As long as I'm here, I thought I'd respond to this part of the intial post. Let's talk about big boys and girls for a minute, Virg. Yes, the college graduation rates show that girls are getting more higher education degrees than boys. But when you look at what happens when these girls become working women, the picture changes significantly. You like numbers. Check out the US Census report on the earnings of men and women for 2006-2008: http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2008_3YR_G00_S2001&-ds_name=ACS_2008_3YR_G00_ It shows that men are still coming out very much on top with a median earning of $35, 124 for men and $23, 928 for women. The census quick facts page, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html also shows that, while women make up 50% of the population, only 28% of firms are female owned. The top positions in business, government and most other sectors are still male dominated. For example, I just recently came across a "positive" article saying that there are a record number of women in congress right now. That means that 17 out of the 100 senators are women, and 74 of the 435 representatives are women. Not exactly equal numbers.

These are not things I would normally bring up because I think women have made tremendous progress in the past several decades and I think that the gap shows every sign of continuing to close in the future. Certainly having a female speaker of the House, for example, may do much to help change public perception of the face of our government and to help break the current record for number of women elected in congress. I generally have a very optimistic view about the future progress of my generation of women. I don't, however, want to hear about the "feminization of our culture" until I start to see numbers reflecting a real equality or (perish the thought!) women earning more than their male counterparts.

From a woman's persepective, I also can't help but think that the sort of continuing inequality in status and pay that I'm pointing out may have much more to do with the number of women graduates we're seeing than a lack of attention to boys in education. As a young woman looking at the kind of numbers I cited above, and living in a society where I get the impression that it's still fairly hard for a woman to make it to the top, I have to say that it makes me think I'd better work twice as hard and be twice as sharp as my male counterparts if I even want a chance to get the same paycheck they're getting (the census numbers show that the average income for a woman like myself with a graduate degree is about $27,000 less than a man with the same level of education) . It may be that other girls and young women feel the same thing and that they are applying themselves more competitively because of it. This may suggest, not that boys don't have enough competition, but that they're suddenly getting plenty of competition from girls that wasn't a factor in earlier generations and that they haven't figured out yet that they need to up their game in response.

In terms of the suggestion that competition could be helpful in the classroom, I am inclined to agree with St. Luke's that learning how to handle competition in life can be a very useful skill to introduce to children because competition will be a part of their future life. This would, however, seem like it would be equally applicable to boys or to girls.

[Paulclem]

As long as I'm here, I thought I'd respond to this part of the intial post. Let's talk about big boys and girls for a minute, Virg. Yes, the college graduation rates show that girls are getting more higher education degrees than boys. But when you look at what happens when these girls become working women, the picture changes significantly. You like numbers. Check out the US Census report on the earnings of men and women for 2006-2008: http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2008_3YR_G00_S2001&-ds_name=ACS_2008_3YR_G00_ It shows that men are still coming out very much on top with a median earning of $35, 124 for men and $23, 928 for women. The census quick facts page, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html also shows that, while women make up 50% of the population, only 28% of firms are female owned. The top positions in business, government and most other sectors are still male dominated. For example, I just recently came across a "positive" article saying that there are a record number of women in congress right now. That means that 17 out of the 100 senators are women, and 74 of the 435 representatives are women. Not exactly equal numbers.

These are not things I would normally bring up because I think women have made tremendous progress in the past several decades and I think that the gap shows every sign of continuing to close in the future. Certainly having a female speaker of the House, for example, may do much to help change public perception of the face of our government and to help break the current record for number of women elected in congress. I generally have a very optimistic view about the future progress of my generation of women. I don't, however, want to hear about the "feminization of our culture" until I start to see numbers reflecting a real equality or (perish the thought!) women earning more than their male counterparts.

From a woman's persepective, I also can't help but think that the sort of continuing inequality in status and pay that I'm pointing out may have much more to do with the number of women graduates we're seeing than a lack of attention to boys in education. As a young woman looking at the kind of numbers I cited above, and living in a society where I get the impression that it's still fairly hard for a woman to make it to the top, I have to say that it makes me think I'd better work twice as hard and be twice as sharp as my male counterparts if I even want a chance to get the same paycheck they're getting (the census numbers show that the average income for a woman like myself with a graduate degree is about $27,000 less than a man with the same level of education) . It may be that other girls and young women feel the same thing and that they are applying themselves more competitively because of it. This may suggest, not that boys don't have enough competition, but that they're suddenly getting plenty of competition from girls that wasn't a factor in earlier generations and that they haven't figured out yet that they need to up their game in response.

In terms of the suggestion that competition could be helpful in the classroom, I am inclined to agree with St. Luke's that learning how to handle competition in life can be a very useful skill to introduce to children because competition will be a part of their future life. This would, however, seem like it would be equally applicable to boys or to girls.

Hi Petrarch
I think it was last year that it was revealed that in the UK, Grammar school results - the 11+ years exam taken by pupils up to the end of the 1960s before the advent of the comprehensive school system - were weighted in favour of Boys in order to balance the numbers. So lots of schoolgirls were denied a place that they legitimately got in favour of boys who did less well.

It has been known for a long time about the advantages Girls have which is not reflected in pay and conditions. A scandal, but, as you say, things are moving in the right direction - at least in the UK - though there is still an imbalance.

I think the views on competitiveness refer more directly to the botton 50% rather than the better achieving ones. The are hard to motivate in secondary -high school- education, but certainly it was apparent anecdotally from the Primary schools I taught in. Boys are competitive, in a way girls aren't, with each other. It's all top dog and pecking order in all younger male groups which may be one reason why The Comedians students don't want to risk their status. (In Yorkshire the correct term for the hardest kid was "**** of the school" which I'm sure the Freudians would relish).

It is such a big factor with boys that it is a shame when ways are not found to capitalise upon it. When it doesn't - the young lad's priorities diverge from school - possibly never to return.

Man, so much of the problem boils down to this simple ideas -- for boys especially. And, you know the funny thing: I know how to make it cool. Tell kids they can't have education. Make it only for adults. Make it something that adults practice in secret, like drugs or drinking. The more we make it as good for you as broccoli, the more we make it taste like broccoli.

You're right.

I like the multiple roles idea as well Comedian, because I think we have to become that to be successful. The one dimensional, double y chromosome, alpha male hard man rock ape - whose stereotype inhabits every type of action film a lad would want to watch - is not successful in our complex societies. He'll be the one in some institution or other. Unless channelled. I channelled my rock ape aspirations into rugby, whilst studying. (I was ok at rugby - I wasn't much of a rock ape though).

[Virgil]

As long as I'm here, I thought I'd respond to this part of the intial post.
Nice to have you join us Ms. Petrarch. ;)


Let's talk about big boys and girls for a minute, Virg. Yes, the college graduation rates show that girls are getting more higher education degrees than boys. But when you look at what happens when these girls become working women, the picture changes significantly. You like numbers. Check out the US Census report on the earnings of men and women for 2006-2008: http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2008_3YR_G00_S2001&-ds_name=ACS_2008_3YR_G00_ It shows that men are still coming out very much on top with a median earning of $35, 124 for men and $23, 928 for women.
First of all the impact of the boy's graduation rates has not had a cultural impact yet. But be that as it may, the feminists salary comparison argument is bogus. First of all that blurs together all salaries. Well, there are at least three significant reasons why that disparity in a global salary comparison exists. (1) Career lives for women only occured 25-ish years ago. Obviously women haven't caught up in time with men. (2) Those numbers don't account for women who take career breaks for raising families. If a women takes off from work seven to ten years to raise children, then there is no way that she can have the same salalary as anyone, man or woman, who does not. And the promotional opportunities also shrink with reduction of experience. (3) Women for whatever reasons traditionally have chosen the lower paying professions even in the same level of education - either secretary over construction worker, nurse over doctor, teacher over engineer, or even vetenartian over doctor. The real fruitful comparison is between men and women with the same experience for the same job. I have never seen any numbers that would say that women get less given the same qualifications. In my 24 years of experience I have never heard anyone purposely deny women the same pay as a man. We offer the same starting salary for both sexes. And if anything women where I work get certain EEO points on promotional interviews, since there aren't that many women in engineering. And despite the fraction of women in engineering, the Director of R&D at my place (about the equivalent of vice president) is a woman, who by the way never married or had children. I resent the underlying assumption that feminist make that there is some coordinated effort by men to restrict women's salaries. The overwhelming majority of men i know tend to be gentlemanly in their dealings with women and give them the same deference as any man.


The census quick facts page, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html also shows that, while women make up 50% of the population, only 28% of firms are female owned. The top positions in business, government and most other sectors are still male dominated. For example, I just recently came across a "positive" article saying that there are a record number of women in congress right now. That means that 17 out of the 100 senators are women, and 74 of the 435 representatives are women. Not exactly equal numbers.
I can't answer why women only own 28% of firms. But can you cite any law that would prevent them from doing so? Perhaps they don't choose to do so. Starting businesses requires risk taking and men tend to be more risk takers. As to women in elective office, are you saying there is an inherent bias in who gets elected? You do realize that women actually vote in more numbers than men. All I can tell you is, I voted for a woman to be vice-president in the last presidential election. Did you? :p


These are not things I would normally bring up because I think women have made tremendous progress in the past several decades and I think that the gap shows every sign of continuing to close in the future. Certainly having a female speaker of the House, for example, may do much to help change public perception of the face of our government and to help break the current record for number of women elected in congress. I generally have a very optimistic view about the future progress of my generation of women. I don't, however, want to hear about the "feminization of our culture" until I start to see numbers reflecting a real equality or (perish the thought!) women earning more than their male counterparts.
:lol: Point taken.


From a woman's persepective, I also can't help but think that the sort of continuing inequality in status and pay that I'm pointing out may have much more to do with the number of women graduates we're seeing than a lack of attention to boys in education. As a young woman looking at the kind of numbers I cited above, and living in a society where I get the impression that it's still fairly hard for a woman to make it to the top, I have to say that it makes me think I'd better work twice as hard and be twice as sharp as my male counterparts if I even want a chance to get the same paycheck they're getting (the census numbers show that the average income for a woman like myself with a graduate degree is about $27,000 less than a man with the same level of education) .
Show me where those numbers are in effect for the same job. Show me which companies have a different salary structure based on gender. I don't believe it. Any company today that had a salary structure based on gender will get sued out of business. You are completely incorrect. Compare the same job. You are swallowing propaganda.


It may be that other girls and young women feel the same thing and that they are applying themselves more competitively because of it. This may suggest, not that boys don't have enough competition, but that they're suddenly getting plenty of competition from girls that wasn't a factor in earlier generations and that they haven't figured out yet that they need to up their game in response.
All I'm saying is that there is probably a better approach to teaching boys. I don't think that's a radical concept. I've cited a number of articles throughout here supporting it and how competition seems to engage boys in learning. Here are a few more:
http://www.spring.org.uk/2005/07/teaching-girls-and-boys-differently_11.php
and
http://www.lewrockwell.com/taylor/taylor64.html


In terms of the suggestion that competition could be helpful in the classroom, I am inclined to agree with St. Luke's that learning how to handle competition in life can be a very useful skill to introduce to children because competition will be a part of their future life. This would, however, seem like it would be equally applicable to boys or to girls.
I am not against that. In no way do I want to imply that I want to hold back girls in any way. Their success is marvelous and certainly will be beneficial to society. I look for diversity on my project teams because i believe people process information subtly differently and more perspectives will induce more options, one of which is more optimal. I've encouraged and pushed along two women engineers who did a great job on a one of my projects seven/eight years ago and now are the same level as me, despite me having at least twelve more years experience than they do.

Oh as it turns out, I'm actually interviewing a perspective female new hire tomorrow. ;)

One last comment: May you be blessed with all sons in your motherhood. :D

[kilted exile]

just as a side note because I saw the 11 plus mentioned. I happen to know a lecturer at a very respected London university that failed his 11 plus.

Everyone develops differently and 11 really is too young to start placing children into either the blue or white collar path.

[Scheherazade]

For example, I just recently came across a "positive" article saying that there are a record number of women in congress right now. That means that 17 out of the 100 senators are women, and 74 of the 435 representatives are women. Not exactly equal numbers. 'Sokay... Quality vs quantity and all that.

:D

[Petrarch's Love]

First of all the impact of the boy's graduation rates has not had a cultural impact yet.

I'll agree with that. We don't actually know one way or the other what kind of effect it may have. As I said, I do think that things are continuing to change, and I'm willing to talk about women being dominant in society when I see much clearer signs that it's actually happening.


But be that as it may, the feminists salary comparison argument is bogus. First of all that blurs together all salaries. Well, there are at least three significant reasons why that disparity in a global salary comparison exists. (1) Career lives for women only occured 25-ish years ago. Obviously women haven't caught up in time with men.

Again, I said that I think things are still changing. We'll see what happens when my generation and the ones following have been out there working longer.


(2) Those numbers don't account for women who take career breaks for raising families. If a women takes off from work seven to ten years to raise children, then there is no way that she can have the same salalary as anyone, man or woman, who does not. And the promotional opportunities also shrink with reduction of experience. (3) Women for whatever reasons traditionally have chosen the lower paying professions even in the same level of education - either secretary over construction worker, nurse over doctor, teacher over engineer, or even vetenartian over doctor.

I am well aware of these factors and I agree that they definitely contribute to the numbers we're seeing. I suppose where we may differ on this is that I am not content to dismiss the pay gap by simply saying that women choose lower paying professions for "whatever reasons." The reasons behind this could be many. To begin with, female dominated professions have traditionally had lower salaries than male dominated professions. I think this is changing because there are fewer professions that are exclusively female any more, but there's still a little hold over there. There may also still be cultural factors that are dissuading girls from entering certain kinds of professions. It wasn't so long ago that we still heard the president of Harvard declaring that girls can't do math and science. While I certainly have nothing to complain about personally in the way my own professional career has progressed thus far, I have fairly often gotten comments from people (men and women) who are surprised that I'm becoming a professor because professors are supposed to look like men with beards. I've even gotten more than one person telling me I should just settle into high school teaching because that would be easier for a woman. With a few exceptions most of the people making such comments aren't raging misogynists, but they do have a certain image of what a professor should look like and a certain idea of how much time and energy a woman has to put into her career. I can see how a young woman who has not had the sort of strong female role models that I've had in my life and/or doesn't have an exceptionally strong innate ambition might simply accept that women just don't chose to go into certain types of careers and assume that applies to her.

The biggest factor, however, is as you rightly point out, the issue of a woman's role in raising children and tending to home and family. This has obviously long been the factor in women's liberation and it's no accident that things really started changing dramatically in the 20th century with the birth control pill which allowed women to chose to have a manageable sized family and not have the physical impediment and the danger of constant pregnancy holding them back. I'll agree that the issue now of women being less successful in their careers because they have taken time off for their children is a very complex one. Certainly as things are now, women do have to chose between work and family or strike a balance between the two in a way that most men never have to, and I can see that the desire to be home with one's children is in many cases coming from the woman herself rather than any particular social pressure. At the same time, not too long ago the argument ran that women couldn't have any kind of career at all because they had to stay at home with the children and tend the family home, and things have changed a lot with, among other things, fathers becoming more involved in the home life and the raising of their children. Now we're hearing that women simply can't get into top positions because they need to be home more with the children. I don't really know if we've reached a settled point or not with this. I don't know if the care for children will become much more 50/50, if we'll start seeing some dads who prefer to stay home, or if this really is where things will settle. I think it's an open question at the moment and I'll be interested to see where things go as my generation gets older.


The real fruitful comparison is between men and women with the same experience for the same job. I have never seen any numbers that would say that women get less given the same qualifications. In my 24 years of experience I have never heard anyone purposely deny women the same pay as a man. We offer the same starting salary for both sexes. And if anything women where I work get certain EEO points on promotional interviews, since there aren't that many women in engineering.

I agree that for men and women with the same qualifications and experience in the same position these days the pay is usually about the same. I don't think it's true that there are absolutely zero incidents of preference for men over women in appointing people to top positions. I have known a couple of women who, in recent years, have been clearly passed up for promotion because there was some slight preference for having a man in the position (one was told that "Ed" needed the job more because he was the breadwinner for his family when both she and "Ed" had the same number of children and spouses who worked). I do, however, believe that such prejudice is absolutely the exception to the rule, quickly disappearing altogether, and that salaries on these terms are more or less equal.


Show me where those numbers are in effect for the same job. Show me which companies have a different salary structure based on gender. I don't believe it. Any company today that had a salary structure based on gender will get sued out of business. You are completely incorrect. Compare the same job. You are swallowing propaganda.

Again, I am not claiming that the disparity in pay is primarily because of a difference in pay for the same job. I am saying that women with my level of education are making less than men with the same level of education. I'll agree that this could largely be because they're simply not either getting or pursuing the same high paying job and that this could be for a variety of complicated factors, but it doesn't mean you can throw out the numbers as bogus for indicating that women are not getting as far as men.


And despite the fraction of women in engineering, the Director of R&D at my place (about the equivalent of vice president) is a woman, who by the way never married or had children.

Exactly. While I'm sure that this particular woman is happy with her choices and that it works for her, the implication here is that a woman who is going to make it to the top is one who will have given up marriage and/or children. We never hear that a man was able to make it to a top position because he didn't marry or have kids. Obviously most women are not going to forgo children and marriage altogether if they beleive that's the price they have to pay to make it to the top or if we all agree that it is the necessary price. Most men wouldn't either.


I resent the underlying assumption that feminist make that there is some coordinated effort by men to restrict women's salaries. The overwhelming majority of men i know tend to be gentlemanly in their dealings with women and give them the same deference as any man.

You are putting words in my mouth based on your own assumptions about my attitudes toward feminism. I do not believe that there is a coordinated effort by men to restrict women's salaries, and I can certainly say that I have always been treated as an equal in the workplace myself. I was not bringing these numbers up because I wanted to vilify men. I was bringing them up because you were making remarks about the "feminization of our culture." I agree with you that the reasons behind the gap in pay shown by the census numbers are much more complex and debatable than simply misogynists not wanting to pay women well, and I think that it probably has as much to do with the attitudes of women as it does with the attitudes of men. Still, while the reasons behind it are up to debate, the gap itself is not, in fact, a myth. Men overall are getting more pay and more status in our society and, regardless of the reasons for it, I think that means that it is ridiculous to imply that we are living in a "feminized culture" that puts young men at a disadvantage. When the women have really taken over I will hear your complaints.


I think the views on competitiveness refer more directly to the botton 50% rather than the better achieving ones. The are hard to motivate in secondary -high school- education, but certainly it was apparent anecdotally from the Primary schools I taught in. Boys are competitive, in a way girls aren't, with each other. It's all top dog and pecking order in all younger male groups which may be one reason why The Comedians students don't want to risk their status. (In Yorkshire the correct term for the hardest kid was "**** of the school" which I'm sure the Freudians would relish).

It is such a big factor with boys that it is a shame when ways are not found to capitalise upon it. When it doesn't - the young lad's priorities diverge from school - possibly never to return.


All I'm saying is that there is probably a better approach to teaching boys. I don't think that's a radical concept. I've cited a number of articles throughout here supporting it and how competition seems to engage boys in learning. Here are a few more:

To get back to your initial suggestion, I have no problem with talking about teaching approaches that might help either boys or girls succeed. I had, in fact, noticed that young men are especially competitive (it still shows a lot in the college classroom too, where the young men are definitely the majority of those who feel the need to challenge my authority, though that sort of challenge is very easy to deal with at the university level) and I don't see why, as Paulclem says, teachers couldn't capitalize on that sometimes if it will help them to reach a certain part of the class. What I was reacting to was the implication that men are at a disadvantage in our society, when I'm not really seeing that this is true at all (at least not yet) when you look at the bottom line of where men end up in terms of their pay and career as compared with women.

The only problem I have with the suggestions Virg. is making about competition is that they seem a little vague to me and I would be more interested in hearing some specific examples of things that really work in practice with hard to reach young men. I am sure that any teacher, man or woman, dealing with the bottom 20-50% of boys and young men would grasp at anything they thought might get the kids engaged. I also don't really know that I'm seeing where competition has been washed out of schools. The high school scene is still very much focused on football, a highly competitive sport that women can't participate in at all, and I seem to remember teachers engaging us in competitive class activities when I was in school. St. Luke's may have a point about the exaggerated catering to self esteem that may sometimes be a part of the curriculum, but that again seems to be an issue that would affect either boys or girls.



One last comment: May you be blessed with all sons in your motherhood.:D

Good idea. That way I can be sure they're brought up right. :D


'Sokay... Quality vs quantity and all that.

:D

:lol:

[Paulclem]

My experience is mainly in primary school, and I think Virgil's comments are certainly pertinent in the UK in general. As I said earlier - most Primary school teachers are women. Many don't have any male staff. The large school I worked in had 3 men out of 38 staff. It was a naturally feminised environment. It's not negative, but it needs balance. As such there as a lack of sport and competition.

From my own school days, my mates were ultra competitive in everything, and this did drive us to achieve more. The problem is how to channel that creatively early enough to stimuate those boys who respond to it.

The problems with the competitive 11+ grammar school exam have been illustrated by Scher and Kilted Exile. Exams are competitive by nature, and I'm not referring to those. It's more about healthy competition which is a preparation for exams as well as life.

(In Yorkshire the correct term for the hardest kid was c-o-c-k of the school" which I'm sure the Freudians would relish).

C-o-c-k here refers to the cockerel, rather than the member, which I should have made clear. I didn't realise the forum was so sensitive.
I'm sure the members of the forum will understand. :lol:

[gbrekken]

Passing through-can't believe some of the things that pass as truth these days. My words will never pass as such. Why would they? Alchemists almost had better answers.
Why is such a(an) sexist question considered for answer? Cannot anyone (regardless of gender) overcome oneself? I'm not holding my breath or anything else for reply.

[Virgil]

I am well aware of these factors and I agree that they definitely contribute to the numbers we're seeing. I suppose where we may differ on this is that I am not content to dismiss the pay gap by simply saying that women choose lower paying professions for "whatever reasons." The reasons behind this could be many. To begin with, female dominated professions have traditionally had lower salaries than male dominated professions. I think this is changing because there are fewer professions that are exclusively female any more, but there's still a little hold over there. There may also still be cultural factors that are dissuading girls from entering certain kinds of professions. It wasn't so long ago that we still heard the president of Harvard declaring that girls can't do math and science.
Oh yeah, that guy is now in the Obama administration. :D

I understand the points you made above, and they crossed my mind to as I was putting together my argument. I can't answer why. Culture is complex. Was there a prejudice toward paying women? I would say yes, that is part of it. Do the traditional women's jobs have lesser skills? Yes, I would say that is part of it too. Have women had a propensity toward those jobs? In an old fashion industrialized world, is there a greater requirement for a brawny man to do physical labor, and therefore commend a higher pay? Yes, i would say historically that is true. I would say that is part of it too. Have women accepted lower pay? There are studies that show they have, so yes, that is part of it too. How do you unwind such complex interweaving threads? My irritation with the feminists is that they focus on a male conspiracy approach as if women weren't part of the decision making. If no one would accept a job as a secretary for $20,000/year (to pick a number) then the market would adjust and offer $25,000/year.


While I certainly have nothing to complain about personally in the way my own professional career has progressed thus far, I have fairly often gotten comments from people (men and women) who are surprised that I'm becoming a professor because professors are supposed to look like men with beards. I've even gotten more than one person telling me I should just settle into high school teaching because that would be easier for a woman. With a few exceptions most of the people making such comments aren't raging misogynists, but they do have a certain image of what a professor should look like and a certain idea of how much time and energy a woman has to put into her career. I can see how a young woman who has not had the sort of strong female role models that I've had in my life and/or doesn't have an exceptionally strong innate ambition might simply accept that women just don't chose to go into certain types of careers and assume that applies to her.
You think men aren't told to settle for high school teaching also? I don't know. I've had lenty of female professors.


The biggest factor, however, is as you rightly point out, the issue of a woman's role in raising children and tending to home and family. This has obviously long been the factor in women's liberation and it's no accident that things really started changing dramatically in the 20th century with the birth control pill which allowed women to chose to have a manageable sized family and not have the physical impediment and the danger of constant pregnancy holding them back. I'll agree that the issue now of women being less successful in their careers because they have taken time off for their children is a very complex one. Certainly as things are now, women do have to chose between work and family or strike a balance between the two in a way that most men never have to, and I can see that the desire to be home with one's children is in many cases coming from the woman herself rather than any particular social pressure. At the same time, not too long ago the argument ran that women couldn't have any kind of career at all because they had to stay at home with the children and tend the family home, and things have changed a lot with, among other things, fathers becoming more involved in the home life and the raising of their children. Now we're hearing that women simply can't get into top positions because they need to be home more with the children. I don't really know if we've reached a settled point or not with this. I don't know if the care for children will become much more 50/50, if we'll start seeing some dads who prefer to stay home, or if this really is where things will settle. I think it's an open question at the moment and I'll be interested to see where things go as my generation gets older.
Well, that's true, women have had the major responsibility of raising children and it's tough to do both. Frankly, call me sexist, but I think it's natural for women to be the nurturers. But those decisons should be made at the family level. I know lots of men who jest they would love to be house husbands. ;) Most working career couples do share roughly 50/50. There is no alternative around it. There is only so much time in a day.



I agree that for men and women with the same qualifications and experience in the same position these days the pay is usually about the same. I don't think it's true that there are absolutely zero incidents of preference for men over women in appointing people to top positions.
Sure, I agree. There is a certain gravitas that is perceived in a man when picking for leadership. Not right, but I think women need to adjust certain aspects to the way they relate to people. I think the teaching of women in the last twenty, thirty years has done wonders here. This is part of the success that has occurred in the teaching skills for women. I don't know if it has to do with roles, though I'm sure role models provide a sense of comfort. Women's sports has been great for women. Whatever the teachers are doing is working. Hey, my female R&D director is a pretty forceful lady. And i have seen some very aggressive women in the business world.


I have known a couple of women who, in recent years, have been clearly passed up for promotion because there was some slight preference for having a man in the position (one was told that "Ed" needed the job more because he was the breadwinner for his family when both she and "Ed" had the same number of children and spouses who worked). I do, however, believe that such prejudice is absolutely the exception to the rule, quickly disappearing altogether, and that salaries on these terms are more or less equal.
Wow, that's so old thinking. And in the very liberal world of university culture? Are you sure they weren't just coming up with excuses? People, including myself, come up with rationalizations when getting passed over. If true, that is wrong.


Again, I am not claiming that the disparity in pay is primarily because of a difference in pay for the same job. I am saying that women with my level of education are making less than men with the same level of education. I'll agree that this could largely be because they're simply not either getting or pursuing the same high paying job and that this could be for a variety of complicated factors, but it doesn't mean you can throw out the numbers as bogus for indicating that women are not getting as far as men.
I just find that hard to believe. Women professors are making less than a male professor for the same level of experience? And how is the college getting away with that? If you women can prove it, I suggest you take it to a lawyer and sue.


Exactly. While I'm sure that this particular woman is happy with her choices and that it works for her, the implication here is that a woman who is going to make it to the top is one who will have given up marriage and/or children. We never hear that a man was able to make it to a top position because he didn't marry or have kids. Obviously most women are not going to forgo children and marriage altogether if they beleive that's the price they have to pay to make it to the top or if we all agree that it is the necessary price. Most men wouldn't either.
And I don't blame them and let me tell you there is probably greater satisfaction in being a successful mother than any sucessful career. There are many, if not most, women who swear by it. I have said many times here on lit net that women and especially mothers are the glue that holds society together. They are ourt true heros.


You are putting words in my mouth based on your own assumptions about my attitudes toward feminism.
I did not mean to put words in your mouth. I was rebutting the feminist argument.


I do not believe that there is a coordinated effort by men to restrict women's salaries, and I can certainly say that I have always been treated as an equal in the workplace myself. I was not bringing these numbers up because I wanted to vilify men. I was bringing them up because you were making remarks about the "feminization of our culture."
:lol: Well, truth be told, our culture has probably improved with it being more feminized. I was feeling particularly masculine when I wrote that. :p


I agree with you that the reasons behind the gap in pay shown by the census numbers are much more complex and debatable than simply misogynists not wanting to pay women well, and I think that it probably has as much to do with the attitudes of women as it does with the attitudes of men.
Oh good, we agree.


Still, while the reasons behind it are up to debate, the gap itself is not, in fact, a myth. Men overall are getting more pay and more status in our society and, regardless of the reasons for it, I think that means that it is ridiculous to imply that we are living in a "feminized culture" that puts young men at a disadvantage. When the women have really taken over I will hear your complaints.
Good rebuttal. You did a better job in debating than Neely. I'll leave it at that. :)


To get back to your initial suggestion, I have no problem with talking about teaching approaches that might help either boys or girls succeed. I had, in fact, noticed that young men are especially competitive (it still shows a lot in the college classroom too, where the young men are definitely the majority of those who feel the need to challenge my authority, though that sort of challenge is very easy to deal with at the university level) and I don't see why, as Paulclem says, teachers couldn't capitalize on that sometimes if it will help them to reach a certain part of the class. What I was reacting to was the implication that men are at a disadvantage in our society, when I'm not really seeing that this is true at all (at least not yet) when you look at the bottom line of where men end up in terms of their pay and career as compared with women.

The only problem I have with the suggestions Virg. is making about competition is that they seem a little vague to me and I would be more interested in hearing some specific examples of things that really work in practice with hard to reach young men.
It is vague. I'm no educator, and really these things require experimentation. It may be vague to everyone at the moment. In my engineering, when we are trying to feel our way toward a solution, I refer to it as a lack of visibility. I believe that's the thrust of the article.


I am sure that any teacher, man or woman, dealing with the bottom 20-50% of boys and young men would grasp at anything they thought might get the kids engaged. I also don't really know that I'm seeing where competition has been washed out of schools. The high school scene is still very much focused on football,
But that's not the competition I'm talking about. Women apparently need some form of sport to bring out the competitiveness out of their personalities. Boys already have the competitveness. They need to focus it on education, not ball playing.

Hey, i made an offer to that perspective female new hire today, and we did not offer her less than any man. ;) Actually she has a 3.6 grade point average and that's outstanding in engineering. I hope she accepts.

[stlukesguild]

Virgil- (2) Those numbers don't account for women who take career breaks for raising families. If a women takes off from work seven to ten years to raise children, then there is no way that she can have the same salalary as anyone, man or woman, who does not. And the promotional opportunities also shrink with reduction of experience. (3) Women for whatever reasons traditionally have chosen the lower paying professions even in the same level of education - either secretary over construction worker, nurse over doctor, teacher over engineer, or even vetenartian over doctor.

Petrarch'sLove- I am well aware of these factors and I agree that they definitely contribute to the numbers we're seeing. I suppose where we may differ on this is that I am not content to dismiss the pay gap by simply saying that women choose lower paying professions for "whatever reasons." The reasons behind this could be many. To begin with, female dominated professions have traditionally had lower salaries than male dominated professions. I think this is changing because there are fewer professions that are exclusively female any more, but there's still a little hold over there.

You don't need to tell me this. I work in one of the traditionally female-dominated professions. It has only been as a result of increased male participation in teaching and strong union involvement that the absolutely absurd pay and treatment of teachers has changed for the better over the last several decades. It was not more than a decade or so ago that a female teacher could be dismissed for becoming pregnant... even if she was married. There is still the thinking among many that teaching is easy work... "woman's work"... something to bring home extra income... while the husband makes the real money. Even among the field of educators there are those who imagine elementary education to be far less demanding than teaching at a secondary or post-secondary level. While certainly the teacher at the secondary or the professor at the post secondary level needs to be far more knowledgeable of his or her discipline, the demands in teaching younger children are just is great... albeit of a different sort. The good teacher needs to understand the developmental stages of children and recognize psychological issues, learning and physical disabilities, and be able to motivate and maintain discipline... something which is incredibly challenging as anyone having put in time substituting (especially in an urban school setting) will tell you.

I've even gotten more than one person telling me I should just settle into high school teaching because that would be easier for a woman. With a few exceptions most of the people making such comments aren't raging misogynists, but they do have a certain image of what a professor should look like and a certain idea of how much time and energy a woman has to put into her career.

Such a comment also shows the clear lack of respect and understanding for the teachers working in elementary and secondary schools. It ignores the fact that these teachers all have a minimum of a bachelor's degree with intensive courses in child development, and child psychology... beyond and above the study of the field that they are teaching. It also ignores the fact that a great majority of such teachers have a Masters Degree as well in education, educational practices, classroom control, motivation, etc... I have several close friends who are currently professors in art... but have in the past taught in the public schools. Not one of them would dare suggest that teaching in high school (or middle school, or elementary school) is in the least bit easier. Indeed, the frequently acknowledge that it is far, far more difficult and continually prod me to get the hell out.

At the same time, not too long ago the argument ran that women couldn't have any kind of career at all because they had to stay at home with the children and tend the family home, and things have changed a lot with, among other things, fathers becoming more involved in the home life and the raising of their children. Now we're hearing that women simply can't get into top positions because they need to be home more with the children. I don't really know if we've reached a settled point or not with this. I don't know if the care for children will become much more 50/50, if we'll start seeing some dads who prefer to stay home, or if this really is where things will settle. I think it's an open question at the moment and I'll be interested to see where things go as my generation gets older.

Intriguing questions. I have a friend whose wife is a doctor, while he (with a degree in art) stays at home and raises the kids. There is a degree of resentment there as she misses out on the traditional role of watching the kids grow and learn. The son's first words were "Daddy" rather than "Momma" and both are incredible tight with the father. When she comes home, she wants nothing more than to spend time with the children, rather than him. These issues bring up questions of the impact of parents on their children's development and questions of the roles of men and women as dictated by biology vs society.

...the implication here is that a woman who is going to make it to the top is one who will have given up marriage and/or children. We never hear that a man was able to make it to a top position because he didn't marry or have kids.

But neither do we discuss much what is lost in modern society in which men have long been expected to leave the homes and earn the money to support the family while women have had the option to stay at home. I say "modern" society" to differentiate it from earlier times in which the family worked together... whether in farming (agriculture being the largest single occupation)... or in skilled labor (as blacksmiths, goldsmiths, carpenters, etc...)... or in a family run business. The traditional model of the artist's studio in the past involved the father/master artist in charge of the creation of the art, business dealings, teachings of apprentices, etc... the wife assisting with day to day business and organization, teaching the younger apprentices, etc... and the children also involved as apprentices following in the father's shoes. If women struggle with the maternal urge and desire to be at home raising their children we cannot assume that men do not struggle with the same desires.

[Petrarch's Love]

Oh yeah, that guy is now in the Obama administration. :D

I know. :rolleyes: It is one of the things I'm not too thrilled with regarding the current administration.


I understand the points you made above, and they crossed my mind to as I was putting together my argument. I can't answer why. Culture is complex. Was there a prejudice toward paying women? I would say yes, that is part of it. Do the traditional women's jobs have lesser skills? Yes, I would say that is part of it too.

Well, I don't know about the part about lesser skills. Yes, this may be true of some traditional women's jobs, but as St. Luke's points out teaching, and I would add nursing, are both traditionally "women's work" that require a high degree of educational training and professional expertise. Though this has changed a lot in the present generation, it also used to be true that the term "secretary" covered women who were doing business work that went far beyond simple filing and answering of phones.



How do you unwind such complex interweaving threads? My irritation with the feminists is that they focus on a male conspiracy approach as if women weren't part of the decision making. If no one would accept a job as a secretary for $20,000/year (to pick a number) then the market would adjust and offer $25,000/year.

I completely agree with your observations that it is a very complex issue with a lot of factors like the ones you bring out at play and a lot of other factors as well.

As for the question of people accepting or not accepting a certain level of pay, that's where you clearly need some sort of union or other organized group agreeing that they won't work for less than a certain amount.

It's also something that's actually happening with traditional women's jobs like teaching and nursing. There used to be a pool of workers who couldn't do any other kind of professional work and so you could find really top notch teachers willing to work for low pay. Now that women have other options many top people (though, thankfully for our schools, not all, as our own St. Luke's and others on these forums demonstrate) are simply refusing to work for the really low paycheck and are going somewhere else instead. Nursing as a field is starting to catch onto the shortage of good workers resulting from the exodus of liberated women and nursing pay has gone up in response. Teaching still seems to be lagging behind some, and people still seem to think you can get the old excellent group of teachers for not much more than the old small salaries.


You think men aren't told to settle for high school teaching also?

Not on the grounds that it's more suited to their gender.


I don't know. I've had lenty of female professors.

I have too, and it's not a stereotype I would have thought existed as much anymore if it wasn't that I've gotten the comment a lot. Possibly it's mostly from people who haven't attended college in recent years, or ever, and are basing their idea of professors from images on TV or elsewhere?


Well, that's true, women have had the major responsibility of raising children and it's tough to do both. Frankly, call me sexist, but I think it's natural for women to be the nurturers. But those decisons should be made at the family level. I know lots of men who jest they would love to be house husbands. ;) Most working career couples do share roughly 50/50. There is no alternative around it. There is only so much time in a day.

It is a tough balance, and it's a very personal decision. Whether it's more natural for women to be nurturers than men, I'm really not sure. This is true of some women, but I know others who really aren't very nurturing types, and I know men who are very warm and nurturing. I do agree that it's obviously the kind of thing that should be a family level decision and that each person needs to figure out what works for him or herself and their spouse.



Sure, I agree. There is a certain gravitas that is perceived in a man when picking for leadership. Not right, but I think women need to adjust certain aspects to the way they relate to people. I think the teaching of women in the last twenty, thirty years has done wonders here. This is part of the success that has occurred in the teaching skills for women. I don't know if it has to do with roles, though I'm sure role models provide a sense of comfort. Women's sports has been great for women. Whatever the teachers are doing is working. Hey, my female R&D director is a pretty forceful lady. And i have seen some very aggressive women in the business world.

Yes, I agree that the times they are a changin'


Wow, that's so old thinking. And in the very liberal world of university culture? Are you sure they weren't just coming up with excuses? People, including myself, come up with rationalizations when getting passed over. If true, that is wrong.

I was flabbergasted by it. The woman in question isn't an academic. She works in a tech. field. (Yes, I would be flabbergasted to the point of incredulity regarding anything like that happening in academia). I told her to complain about it, but I think she unfortunately let it pass because she believed the higher ups in a rather small company were similar minded. She ultimately found a job elsewhere. Their loss.


I just find that hard to believe. Women professors are making less than a male professor for the same level of experience? And how is the college getting away with that? If you women can prove it, I suggest you take it to a lawyer and sue.

I think the disparity according to education is less in terms of the same level faculty making different salaries (though that does occasionally happen) than the fact that many women, either by choice or because they have no other options, tend to end up with lower paid lecturer positions rather than the tenure-track job. Part of this may be prejudice and part of it is, I think, a more subtle problem with how much women themselves are willing to give up. This dynamic is clearest to me in terms of academic couples. Obviously it is fairly common for people to meet in grad. school and on the job, and I know or am acquainted with a very large number of academic couples. The academic market is very competitive and jobs at the same school are rare. What I've noticed is that when it comes to someone making a career sacrifice and taking the lower paying/less prestigious/less permanent job as an adjunct instructor or lecturer while the other takes the tenure-track job, it is almost inevitably the woman who sacrifices her career in favor of her husband's. The only exceptions I can think of are couples who have the fortune to both be employed at good positions at the same school or schools sufficiently near each other. I can't think of any situation I've even heard of in which the academic man has made a major career sacrifice for his wife's career. As someone who has been spending what, after my year on the market next year, will have been seven years of grad. school and eleven years of my life altogether building a career that I love I can see that this would be a huge sacrifice to make for either a man or a woman, but it does strike me as very imbalanced that it always seems to be the woman compromising her career. This kind of cultural based trend, however, along with some continuing prejudice that I imagine will fade more and more with time, may well be part of the reason for the pay gap between men and women with graduate degrees.



And I don't blame them and let me tell you there is probably greater satisfaction in being a successful mother than any sucessful career. There are many, if not most, women who swear by it. I have said many times here on lit net that women and especially mothers are the glue that holds society together. They are ourt true heros.

Well, no one can disagree that mothers are wonderful people. :angel: I personally absolutely want to be a mother someday and think that it is probably one of the most satisfying experiences to be had. I imagine, though, that fathers might also say that their children are more important to them than any career. I don't see that having children for either men or women should mean that they have to give up a career that, even if secondary to family, is also a very important way for them personally to contribute to the world.

I should also be clear that I have nothing respect for mothers or fathers who choose to stay at home. My mother chose to be a stay at home mom because it was what she wanted more than anything else. That was the one way she felt pulled to contribute to the world. She actually gets quite irritated by people who suggest to her that she should be doing more by having a career when it's really not something she wants, so I certainly don't mean to imply that there's anything wrong or "lesser" about staying home with the children full time. I know that for myself, however, and for many other people, my career is something I feel passionately about and is a part of who I am. Obviously everyone regardless of gender eventually needs to make some level of compromise in life for the sake of personal happiness, and it is usually well worth it, but making too drastic compromise when a person truly loves their career might lead to a lot of unhappiness as well.



:lol: Well, truth be told, our culture has probably improved with it being more feminized.

Glad to hear it. :D



I was feeling particularly masculine when I wrote that. :p

Well, we all have our bad days. ;)




Oh good, we agree.
:banana:



It is vague. I'm no educator, and really these things require experimentation. It may be vague to everyone at the moment. In my engineering, when we are trying to feel our way toward a solution, I refer to it as a lack of visibility. I believe that's the thrust of the article.

But that's not the competition I'm talking about. Women apparently need some form of sport to bring out the competitiveness out of their personalities. Boys already have the competitveness. They need to focus it on education, not ball playing.

As I say, there may be something to developing some classroom exercises that can help a group that's not doing too well. Don't see much of a problem with that in and of itself.


Hey, i made an offer to that perspective female new hire today, and we did not offer her less than any man. ;) Actually she has a 3.6 grade point average and that's outstanding in engineering. I hope she accepts.

Sounds good. I hope she accepts too.

[Scheherazade]

Actually she has a 3.6 grade point average and that's outstanding in engineering. Only because there aren't more women studying engineering, Virgil! Otherwise, you would have gotten used to coming across such high GPAs in your field too.

:p

[Petrarch's Love]

Such a comment also shows the clear lack of respect and understanding for the teachers working in elementary and secondary schools. It ignores the fact that these teachers all have a minimum of a bachelor's degree with intensive courses in child development, and child psychology... beyond and above the study of the field that they are teaching. It also ignores the fact that a great majority of such teachers have a Masters Degree as well in education, educational practices, classroom control, motivation, etc... I have several close friends who are currently professors in art... but have in the past taught in the public schools. Not one of them would dare suggest that teaching in high school (or middle school, or elementary school) is in the least bit easier. Indeed, the frequently acknowledge that it is far, far more difficult and continually prod me to get the hell out.

An excellent point, and I hasten to add that I did not mean to imply that I myself believe that secondary and elementary teachers are in any way inferior to professors, though that was, as you point out, the insult to injury implied in the sort of remark I referred to. Though the work in attaining the PhD is obviously more difficult than teaching certification and the job market, at least in my branch of academia, is more competitive, once you get into a tenured academic job the teaching aspect of the job is absolutely easier than either elementary or secondary teaching because we don't have to deal with the discipline at the university level. I am frankly in awe of teachers who deal as well as they do with some of the things that get thrown at them and am sure I would do a terrible job if tossed into a public school classroom tomorrow. Then there's the pay...why don't you get out again? Perhaps you're a saint as your handle here implies. :angel: :D


Intriguing questions. I have a friend whose wife is a doctor, while he (with a degree in art) stays at home and raises the kids. There is a degree of resentment there as she misses out on the traditional role of watching the kids grow and learn. The son's first words were "Daddy" rather than "Momma" and both are incredible tight with the father. When she comes home, she wants nothing more than to spend time with the children, rather than him. These issues bring up questions of the impact of parents on their children's development and questions of the roles of men and women as dictated by biology vs society.

Yes, I think a reverse role situation can work, but obviously there can be the need for some adjustment on both sides. I think all these issues are very complex and still very much open to debate as well as very much different for each individual and couple.


But neither do we discuss much what is lost in modern society in which men have long been expected to leave the homes and earn the money to support the family while women have had the option to stay at home. I say "modern" society" to differentiate it from earlier times in which the family worked together... whether in farming (agriculture being the largest single occupation)... or in skilled labor (as blacksmiths, goldsmiths, carpenters, etc...)... or in a family run business. The traditional model of the artist's studio in the past involved the father/master artist in charge of the creation of the art, business dealings, teachings of apprentices, etc... the wife assisting with day to day business and organization, teaching the younger apprentices, etc... and the children also involved as apprentices following in the father's shoes. If women struggle with the maternal urge and desire to be at home raising their children we cannot assume that men do not struggle with the same desires.

I think this is an excellent point. The sort of past family dynamic you allude to was one of the great surprises to me when I first started to study history. Though obviously there were a lot of absolutely unthinkable attitudes and practices regarding the status of women in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, one thing that is different from what one might expect is that families did not seem to, in practice, always follow the man breadwinner/woman in the household dichotomy many today think of as a rigid traditional pattern. Men had the ultimate say and women had almost no rights, but in terms of the bottom line of the work being done and the way families worked together, there was a lot more partnership in many businesses and a lot more Wife of Bath types working cleverly behind the scenes than one might ever imagine. Women balancing work and family is not an entirely new thing. Women getting the same kind of credit and pay as men is.

In any case, I agree that it may not be fair to men either to claim that they have no feelings about being involved with the raising of their children. A more balanced system may benefit everyone.

[Virgil]

I know. :rolleyes: It is one of the things I'm not too thrilled with regarding the current administration.

There isn't anything I'm thrilled about the current administration. :cold:


Well, I don't know about the part about lesser skills.
When I said lesser skills, I was thinking of secretary, nanny, waitress. Don't get me wrong, those jobs are very important, but it doesn't take a lot of training for them.


It's also something that's actually happening with traditional women's jobs like teaching and nursing. There used to be a pool of workers who couldn't do any other kind of professional work and so you could find really top notch teachers willing to work for low pay. Now that women have other options many top people (though, thankfully for our schools, not all, as our own St. Luke's and others on these forums demonstrate) are simply refusing to work for the really low paycheck and are going somewhere else instead.
Well, that's good. I didn't think of it, but yes, because women were sort of confined to limited types of jobs, that would create a glut in those fields and drive the salaries down. Good point. I agree teachers need to be paid more, though here in the northeast, teacher's salaries are not bad.


Nursing as a field is starting to catch onto the shortage of good workers resulting from the exodus of liberated women and nursing pay has gone up in response.
Nurses salaries are outstanding, and you see more and more men going into them. There is a shortage in nurses. We need more of them and that's driving the pay.


Teaching still seems to be lagging behind some, and people still seem to think you can get the old excellent group of teachers for not much more than the old small salaries.
The thing in my opinion that limits teacher's pay is that there is for the most part a monopoly (that being the city school system) that prevents job options. There is no one that can steal a good teacher away, unless the teacher is willing to move. In the northeast, New Jersey school systems have stolen NY City teachers and that has caused (in my non-economist perception) the salaries to go up.


Not on the grounds that it's more suited to their gender.
That's true.


Yes, I agree that the times they are a changin'
The other thing is that occurred to me after in thinking about why women aren't percieved to have gravitas is that they are typically smaller in stature and have higher pitched voices. So visually they don't usually come across as the natural pick for a leader. I'm not the tallest man and i don't have a deep voice (not that I'm short and squeeky :lol:) so I was conscious that one has to have different leadership approaches. Assertiveness, person to person bonding, and focus are great leadership skills that would offset the "lead actor" persona. I think of Margret Thatcher for a great female leader. She's great here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okHGCz6xxiw


I think the disparity according to education is less in terms of the same level faculty making different salaries (though that does occasionally happen) than the fact that many women, either by choice or because they have no other options, tend to end up with lower paid lecturer positions rather than the tenure-track job. Part of this may be prejudice and part of it is, I think, a more subtle problem with how much women themselves are willing to give up. This dynamic is clearest to me in terms of academic couples. Obviously it is fairly common for people to meet in grad. school and on the job, and I know or am acquainted with a very large number of academic couples. The academic market is very competitive and jobs at the same school are rare. What I've noticed is that when it comes to someone making a career sacrifice and taking the lower paying/less prestigious/less permanent job as an adjunct instructor or lecturer while the other takes the tenure-track job, it is almost inevitably the woman who sacrifices her career in favor of her husband's. The only exceptions I can think of are couples who have the fortune to both be employed at good positions at the same school or schools sufficiently near each other. As someone who has been spending what, after my year on the market next year, will have been seven years of grad. school and eleven years of my life altogether building a career that I love I can see that this would be a huge sacrifice to make for either a man or a woman, but it does strike me as very imbalanced that it always seems to be the woman compromising her career. This kind of cultural based trend, however, along with some continuing prejudice that I imagine will fade more and more with time, may well be part of the reason for the pay gap between men and women with graduate degrees.
My brother was completely disheartened with the salary and hiring in universities. He spent a year trying to get a full time professorship somewhere in the country, anywhere, after getting his PhD in anthropolgy. He was ready to look for something altogether different. Unless you are a full time professor (is the term tenured?), they treat you like crap. He ultimately took a professorship at the American University in Kuwait, and has committed himself for three years there.


Sounds good. I hope she accepts too.


Only because there aren't more women studying engineering, Virgil! Otherwise, you would have gotten used to coming across such high GPAs in your field too.

:p

;) I don't always care that much on strictly GPA, but she came across as articulate, professional, and someone who wouldn't just accept an answer because it was conventional, even if it's my conventional thinking. :D She doesn't graduate until May, so she will probably have lots of interviews from now till then and she may get better offers. We'll see.

[Scheherazade]

~
R e m i n d e r

Please do not let this topic turn into a discussion of current politics.
~

[Petrarch's Love]

The thing in my opinion that limits teacher's pay is that there is for the most part a monopoly (that being the city school system) that prevents job options. There is no one that can steal a good teacher away, unless the teacher is willing to move. In the northeast, New Jersey school systems have stolen NY City teachers and that has caused (in my non-economist perception) the salaries to go up.

I don't know that I'm entirely following your argument here. When you refer to a monopoly, are you suggesting an existing government monopoly versus some sort of voucher or charter system? How would the number of available jobs be dependent on a new system? I'm also not following what is wrong with a teacher not moving unless he/she is willing to move? Or are you trying to suggest that because the brain drain to Jersey has caused New York salaries to go up in response, that competition from the private sector would have a similar effect? (correct me if I'm misreading this. Just trying to clarify the argument you're laying out).

You may be right that competition from the private sector might help to increase teacher pay, and I imagine that whoever increases teacher pay will likely start attracting a larger pool of teachers and have more selection from which to pick the best faculty.

Indeed, I can certainly see the argument in favor of competition among schools. The problem with competition is that someone is going to lose, and in this case it may be a portion of our students. The issue with a voucher system is in terms of how well it will serve all students. As long as we have all our tax money in public schools, every child in this country must by law be accepted into that system. Once you start saying that the money can go to private institutions, then it means that our tax dollars can go to private schools. However, because they are private schools, they do not have to accept all students. If a student is rejected by all the private schools because he/she is not scholastically gifted, a disciplinary problem, etc. then he/she is left in the public school system while his/her more talented peers can take their money elsewhere. This could very quickly create a deeply unbalanced two tier system.

Now, I can certainly see how such a system could look preferable to a lot of people. If I were a parent of a child in an impoverished school district and I had a bright child I thought could get out of that to a better school using a voucher, I can see wanting that option. I can also see that it might be attractive for us as a society to see the brightest underprivileged kids get a better chance at an educational start in life. We'd have to think long and hard, however, as to whether it's worth it to us or not to pay the price that funding private competition would entail, which is to give up on trying to maintain a universal education system in which everyone is guaranteed a spot. I've never heard a pro-voucher argument that can sufficiently account for how this wouldn't be the outcome, though I'm willing to listen to any suggestions for how we could have competition from private schools involved and maintain a universal system.


The other thing is that occurred to me after in thinking about why women aren't percieved to have gravitas is that they are typically smaller in stature and have higher pitched voices. So visually they don't usually come across as the natural pick for a leader. I'm not the tallest man and i don't have a deep voice (not that I'm short and squeeky ) so I was conscious that one has to have different leadership approaches. Assertiveness, person to person bonding, and focus are great leadership skills that would offset the "lead actor" persona. I think of Margret Thatcher for a great female leader. She's great here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okHGCz6xxiw

Yes, there's certainly still a perception that more masculine traits are more desirable in a leader, and a woman has to be pretty tough/canny/unusually charismatic to get to the very top. There's a reason the first British PM was nicknamed the "Iron Lady." :nod:


My brother was completely disheartened with the salary and hiring in universities. He spent a year trying to get a full time professorship somewhere in the country, anywhere, after getting his PhD in anthropolgy. He was ready to look for something altogether different. Unless you are a full time professor (is the term tenured?), they treat you like crap. He ultimately took a professorship at the American University in Kuwait, and has committed himself for three years there.

Yes, it's an incredibly competitive job market and I agree that the gap between tenured (yes, that's the term for the good full time jobs) and non-tenured jobs is appalling. I'm sorry to hear your brother had such a bad experience in his search. I'm pretty nervous about the job search myself next fall, especially when the economy is making jobs everywhere tough to find, and jobs in an already narrow market tougher than before. Oh well. I can only do my best and hope.

Interesting to hear that your brother ended up in Kuwait. A colleague of mine currently on the market may be ending up in Abu Dhabi. Maybe the Middle East is becoming the hot place for job desperate PhD's to run to...maybe I'd better be reading my copy of the Qur'an more closely. :D

[stlukesguild]

An excellent point, and I hasten to add that I did not mean to imply that I myself believe that secondary and elementary teachers are in any way inferior to professors, though that was, as you point out, the insult to injury implied in the sort of remark I referred to.

Its intriguing that among my numerous Asian friends teaching is an absolutely revered position... not thought of as inferior to engineering or medicine... and certainly far more respected than lawyers. But by and large, in the US at least, respect and salary are virtually equated as being one and the same. Better to be an illiterate pop star or basketball player than an engineer or teacher. Hell... even the garbage man may have a higher level of respect; the guy who drives the truck gets paid better than I do.:eek:

Though the work in attaining the PhD is obviously more difficult than teaching certification and the job market, at least in my branch of academia, is more competitive, once you get into a tenured academic job the teaching aspect of the job is absolutely easier than either elementary or secondary teaching because we don't have to deal with the discipline at the university level. I am frankly in awe of teachers who deal as well as they do with some of the things that get thrown at them and am sure I would do a terrible job if tossed into a public school classroom tomorrow. Then there's the pay...why don't you get out again? Perhaps you're a saint as your handle here implies.

Saint...?:angel: Far from it:brow:... although my last girlfriend in college used to say I reminded her of a sort of medieval monk... of the Friar Tuck variety (not likely to give up his women:ladysman: or good spirits:sick: easily, handy in any barroom brawl:smash:... yet ready to quote Dante or Chaucer.:lol: No seriously you have answered much of the question yourself. Academia is incredibly competitive and without an advanced degree from an elite university it is even more difficult to obtain those tenured positions. With a family to support the public education job is far more secure and has some fairly solid benefits. The salary itself... at least if one is employed in a large urban school district... especially in the North-East... does not lag far behind that for most professors... at least in the arts. I actually earn a good deal more than two of my professor friends who hold positions as adjunct (or is is assistant?) professors, and have far better benefits... although they have far better working conditions and hours.

I think this is an excellent point. The sort of past family dynamic you allude to was one of the great surprises to me when I first started to study history. Though obviously there were a lot of absolutely unthinkable attitudes and practices regarding the status of women in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, one thing that is different from what one might expect is that families did not seem to, in practice, always follow the man breadwinner/woman in the household dichotomy many today think of as a rigid traditional pattern. Men had the ultimate say and women had almost no rights, but in terms of the bottom line of the work being done and the way families worked together, there was a lot more partnership in many businesses and a lot more Wife of Bath types working cleverly behind the scenes than one might ever imagine. Women balancing work and family is not an entirely new thing. Women getting the same kind of credit and pay as men is.

I immediately think of this great painting by the 15th century Flemish painter, Quentin Massy's. I can't help but love the relationship between the moneylender and his wife as she leafs through her luxurious (an quite expensive) Book of Hours while watching the transactions and weighing of gold out of the corner of her eye. Certainly, nothing gets by her.:lol:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4042/4261231660_eab95edd44_o.jpg

I don't know that I'm entirely following your argument here. When you refer to a monopoly, are you suggesting an existing government monopoly versus some sort of voucher or charter system?... Or are you trying to suggest that because the brain drain to Jersey has caused New York salaries to go up in response, that competition from the private sector would have a similar effect?

You may be right that competition from the private sector might help to increase teacher pay, and I imagine that whoever increases teacher pay will likely start attracting a larger pool of teachers and have more selection from which to pick the best faculty.

Unfortunately, from my experience here in Ohio... the very heart of the Charter School experiment... the exact opposite is true. The Charter Schools are not held to the same standards as those dictated to Public Schools... they do not need to follow standards for classroom size, teacher license, equal accessibility for all students (ie. they can refuse to accept any "difficult" student whether the difficulty be behavioral, learning or physical disability) and they tend to pay anywhere from 50% to 75% of what the Public Schools pay... and with far fewer benefits.

Indeed, I can certainly see the argument in favor of competition among schools. The problem with competition is that someone is going to lose, and in this case it may be a portion of our students...

In the long run it is both the teachers and students who are losers. The teachers recognize that the privatization of the schools (which are "private" only in name and freedom from government oversight... they are still funded through tax-dollars) is merely a means of cost-cutting through the breaking up or undermining of the unions and all that teachers have gained over the last several decades. At the same time, it is equally recognized that privatization of the schools means that we all get what we pay for... and as a result those communities with far more wherewithal (a larger tax base per capita) will have the ability to attract the best and the brightest, while those children in the poorest districts who are already at a disadvantage will be penalized even more and left with the bottom of the barrel. At present the primary motivating factor for many to even consider teaching in the larger poverty-ridden districts is that they quite often pay near the top of the pay scale.

The issue with a voucher system is in terms of how well it will serve all students. As long as we have all our tax money in public schools, every child in this country must by law be accepted into that system. Once you start saying that the money can go to private institutions, then it means that our tax dollars can go to private schools. However, because they are private schools, they do not have to accept all students. If a student is rejected by all the private schools because he/she is not scholastically gifted, a disciplinary problem, etc. then he/she is left in the public school system while his/her more talented peers can take their money elsewhere. This could very quickly create a deeply unbalanced two tier system.

Bingo!:nod:

Now, I can certainly see how such a system could look preferable to a lot of people. If I were a parent of a child in an impoverished school district and I had a bright child I thought could get out of that to a better school using a voucher, I can see wanting that option. I can also see that it might be attractive for us as a society to see the brightest underprivileged kids get a better chance at an educational start in life. We'd have to think long and hard, however, as to whether it's worth it to us or not to pay the price that funding private competition would entail, which is to give up on trying to maintain a universal education system in which everyone is guaranteed a spot. I've never heard a pro-voucher argument that can sufficiently account for how this wouldn't be the outcome, though I'm willing to listen to any suggestions for how we could have competition from private schools involved and maintain a universal system.

I'm listening too.:confused:

[Paulclem]

I think the problem of boys and education, like all education problems, is complex. You just have to see how the conversation has gone so far. We've had stats, feminist ideas, a bit of psychology, anecdotes, teaching experience, social theory, US and UK school systems, wage structuring, careers...off the top of my head.

There are lots of interested parties from governments - especially in election years - to parents, teachers, ed psychologists, researchers, local authorities...a whole mass of professional and organisational bodies. It's no wonder that education is organised essentially the same as it was 100 years ago. The problem with that - in those sections where it is a problem such as the bottom % of boys - is that there has been little change whereas the kids have. Old methods won't necessarily work.

In the UK it is often said that Kids have no respect. That may be so. The flip side of that is that the kids are confident, intelligent and willing to speak up. As a parent that's what I want my kids to be like - to be able to stand up for themselves when necessary. What I'm getting at is that it needs some new thinking, organisation etc, to get the best for the Boys - and all the kids.

To be fair, the Govt in the UK has brought in more vocational studies so that 14 year olds have the opportunity to go to college and do engineering etc if that's what they choose. I was talking to a lad the other day who is doing just that because he's not interested in the academic stuff. There needs to be more innovation regarding the classroom though. I see IT as offering new innovative ways of delivering subjects.

[Scheherazade]

I was talking to a lad the other day who is doing just that because he's not interested in the academic stuff.From my experience, what this usually means that that they simply cannot be bothered to concentrate long enough to learn their timestables or how to spell at least most of the everyday words and punctuate their sentences (when they manage to write in complete sentences, that is). I had a student in one of the Numeracy classes, who wanted to become a social worker of some sort and he was quite resentful that he had to do Level 2 in Numeracy as well as in Literacy.

Once this young man goes to the College to study engineering, he will end in Literacy and Numeracy classes as one cannot complete any studies without basic literacy and numeracy skills. I am beginning to feel for the vocational tutors: How much can they embed to improve the skills of someone whose English and Maths is barely better than Yr 3 level?

It is an excellent idea (in theory) to get everyone training for a particular job as early as possible if that is what they would like to achieve but this should not be seen as a cop-out. When someone goes to college, they should realise that they need to put some work in and improve their over all skills. And there really is a need for a major make-over in the Post 16 sector for the vocational training routes to be successful.

[Paulclem]

From my experience, what this usually means that that they simply cannot be bothered to concentrate long enough to learn their timestables or how to spell at least most of the everyday words and punctuate their sentences (when they manage to write in complete sentences, that is). I had a student in one of the Numeracy classes, who wanted to become a social worker of some sort and he was quite resentful that he had to do Level 2 in Numeracy as well as in Literacy.

Once this young man goes to the College to study engineering, he will end in Literacy and Numeracy classes as one cannot complete any studies without basic literacy and numeracy skills. I am beginning to feel for the vocational tutors: How much can they embed to improve the skills of someone whose English and Maths is barely better than Yr 3 level?

It is an excellent idea (in theory) to get everyone training for a particular job as early as possible if that is what they would like to achieve but this should not be seen as a cop-out. When someone goes to college, they should realise that they need to put some work in and improve their over all skills. And there really is a need for a major make-over in the Post 16 sector for the vocational training routes to be successful.

Yes, I can understand that. There's the danger that this post 16 provision becomes a dumping ground, though I don't think it's intended to be like that. I am speaking with only a small amount of knowledge in this area, and you would know better than me.

The lad in question surprised me, as he was reasonable and erudite, and I just assumed he'd be more academic than he suggested.

Another young chap I know is quite the opposite though, and is attending vocational training as a last resort. I don't hold out much hope for him achieving much until he grows up, and gets some new mates. He has his mum's support, but he's making bad choices. It must be a common pattern.#

I've got to find a new avatar now, as I have the avatar bug - or is that too avatar-icious?

[OrphanPip]

An approach similar to what I think Paulclem is proposing has been undertaken in Quebec in the 70s. Here we finish secondary school at grade 11 (Americans and the rest of Canada go to grade 12). After secondary school you then go to CEGEP (Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel), where you choose whether to undertake pre-university education in health science, pure and applied science, commerce, social science, or liberal arts. I did my CEGEP diploma in health science before going to university to study microbiology. The other option is to undergo a professional training program, where you complete your secondary level education for the equivalent of grade 12 and pursue some sort of trade training.

I don't think this has really improved male success rates in school though.

edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEGEP

A clearer explanation from wiki, I also think the real reason behind instituting CEGEPs is to keep Quebec students within Quebec and to prevent a brain drain to the rest of Canada and the USA.

[Paulclem]

Hi Ophanpip. It's already happened in the UK. My son's year were given options that included vocational routes. I'm not saying that it works, though at leas they were trying something new.

I think by that time, the lads who are going to be turned off by school have already become so. Something new needs trying much earlier in the school system.

[Virgil]

I don't know that I'm entirely following your argument here. When you refer to a monopoly, are you suggesting an existing government monopoly versus some sort of voucher or charter system? How would the number of available jobs be dependent on a new system? I'm also not following what is wrong with a teacher not moving unless he/she is willing to move? Or are you trying to suggest that because the brain drain to Jersey has caused New York salaries to go up in response, that competition from the private sector would have a similar effect? (correct me if I'm misreading this. Just trying to clarify the argument you're laying out).
I’m saying that inside New York City, there is essentially one place to work as a teacher – the NYC school system. Other than the few private school positions, you have to move out of the city. I guess with the rise of the suburbs the last 20 years, it has given some competition to hiring.


Indeed, I can certainly see the argument in favor of competition among schools. The problem with competition is that someone is going to lose, and in this case it may be a portion of our students.
And no one is losing now?????? Are you kidding? I find it hard to knock American anything, but the best I can honestly do is say the American public school system is at best average, but honestly it’s below average.


The issue with a voucher system is in terms of how well it will serve all students. As long as we have all our tax money in public schools, every child in this country must by law be accepted into that system. Once you start saying that the money can go to private institutions, then it means that our tax dollars can go to private schools.

So? Excuse me if I’m wrong, but private Universities get plenty of gov’t money from the tax payer. In my day it was called TAP and BEOG, I think. Can’t recall and it’s probably changed. What is financial aid but a voucher?


However, because they are private schools, they do not have to accept all students. If a student is rejected by all the private schools because he/she is not scholastically gifted, a disciplinary problem, etc. then he/she is left in the public school system while his/her more talented peers can take their money elsewhere. This could very quickly create a deeply unbalanced two tier system.

No I don’t agree with that all. Competition will force the public schools to be better. More talented peers get scholarships into private schools now. That goes on all over NYC here. What you are saying is that the power of decision making should be in the hands of the school (and in effect it’s in the hands of the teacher’s union) instead of the parents to take their child to whichever school they want. I believe the parent should have power not the school.


Now, I can certainly see how such a system could look preferable to a lot of people. If I were a parent of a child in an impoverished school district and I had a bright child I thought could get out of that to a better school using a voucher, I can see wanting that option. I can also see that it might be attractive for us as a society to see the brightest underprivileged kids get a better chance at an educational start in life. We'd have to think long and hard, however, as to whether it's worth it to us or not to pay the price that funding private competition would entail, which is to give up on trying to maintain a universal education system in which everyone is guaranteed a spot. I've never heard a pro-voucher argument that can sufficiently account for how this wouldn't be the outcome, though I'm willing to listen to any suggestions for how we could have competition from private schools involved and maintain a universal system.

You’re assuming only certain people get vouchers. I’m saying that everyone gets vouchers and the parents take that voucher to whichever school they deem best fits the needs of their child. Just like college students take that financial aid to the public colleges. No different. The public school system, if it even continues to exist, would have to establish a price and the parent would use that voucher at the school if they choose it. In this way, the schools would have to finally be concerned with accounting for the finances. And have to compete and show results.

Finally, I would like to transform the pre-college education system to reflect our university system. I am proud of our university system. It’s among the best in the world, if not the best. Why is our university system so good and our public school systems so mediocre? Think about it. And finally (a second "finally" :p) that’s all I ever hear from teachers, maintain the status quo. As if the status quo is acceptable. All I can say is, it’s the influence of the teacher’s union. I’ve never seen a more conservative (and obviously I don’t use that politically) institution in my life. They had to come kicking and screaming to allow chartered schools. And forget about merit pay. That’s like sacrilege. It’s all about what’s best for the teachers and not what’s best for the students. That’s exactly what you get under socialism; the customer has no recourse and ultimately no power.

Update on that interview: She took the job with the company but with a different division than mine. I’m pissed. This is not the first time that division has lured a good young job applicant from me. And I believe we do the more interesting work. It must be me. I scare them. :bawling:

[stlukesguild]

You’re assuming only certain people get vouchers. I’m saying that everyone gets vouchers and the parents take that voucher to whichever school they deem best fits the needs of their child. Just like college students take that financial aid to the public colleges. No different. The public school system, if it even continues to exist, would have to establish a price and the parent would use that voucher at the school if they choose it. In this way, the schools would have to finally be concerned with accounting for the finances. And have to compete and show results.

AS I noted in the earlier post, Virgil, the idea sounds good on paper, but the result has repeatedly been that the schools exercise their option to refuse the more "difficult" students. This means that they refuse to accept students who have physical or cognitive (learning) disabilities, as well as students who have a history of discipline problems. Of course we can understand the logic from a purely economic point view: all of these students demand extra services and as a result they are effectively less profitable or even a financial loss. Thus these are the students who are repeatedly kicked back into the public schools where we are expected to teach them and to match the results of the private schools and charter schools who work only with the top students. The worst aspect of this is that following ADM week in which the state accountants count the student body and the money in released to the schools based upon these numbers, the charter schools begin to bump the worst of their students out and back to the public schools where we must teach them without any added funding... while the charter schools keep the funding for students they have removed. Makes a great game, eh?

Finally, I would like to transform the pre-college education system to reflect our university system. I am proud of our university system. It’s among the best in the world, if not the best. Why is our university system so good and our public school systems so mediocre? Think about it.

Of course the Universities and colleges, unlike the public schools, have the option to refuse any student... especially if the needs of that student are likely to be a financial drain upon the institution's resources. They also have the option to remove any student. Now the multi-tiered system of the past in which students were "tracked" by ability certainly approached this is that students with the highest abilities were put in the most demanding classes with the expectations that they would be the most likely to be the ones who went on to advanced college degrees, while the lowest were placed in an environment in which (ideally) the teachers were properly trained to deal with learning disabilities and behavioral issues, and these students were given practical work training leading to trades or professions such as auto mechanic, carpentry, electrician, plumbing, etc... As the system now stands we have still have a multi-tiered system... but one based largely upon economics. The students in the well-to-do districts are assured a quality education, while those in the poorer districts... the very children in the most need of help to escape the cycle of poverty... are given the worst. The reality is that the charter schools up until the present have largely been little more than a drain upon the resources of the poorer school districts offering false hopes and little in way of results. A student would be far better off attending school in any wealthy suburban district (but such is based upon residency) than attending an urban charter school. Indeed, now that testing scores are beginning to trickle in, we find that there is no real difference in scores, and in many instances the public schools are doing better.

Another thought upon colleges and universities that I have seen conveyed by any number of education leaders is the concern over lessening standards in these institutions. It has been pointed out that colleges, desperate for bodies and the money that accompanies them, have lowered admission standards and inflated grades quite a deal in the undergraduate level. As a result, it is not difficult for most students to get accepted into college... in spite of glaring lapses in reading and writing skills, abilities in critical thinking, study skills, etc... If these institutions followed stricter standards the result would lead to pressure upon the public schools... and ultimately appropriate funding to assure the access to appropriate materials and teachers. In other words... how long would the lax standards in the suburban districts last if suddenly we found that biff and buffy weren't making the grade enough to get into college?

And finally (a second "finally" ) that’s all I ever hear from teachers, maintain the status quo. As if the status quo is acceptable.

No... teachers are not against change. What they are against is the continual cycle of change for the sake of change without allowing for appropriate training or for time to analyze whether the new idea/course of study/methods actually work. Nearly every two years the big urban school districts throw out the old books, standards, curriculum, etc... and on the first day of school throw an entire new curriculum upon the teachers. The reality is that teaching must be learned as well as math or reading. Given an entire new curriculum and books and teaching methods the first time through each given lesson is a learning process for us as well. We find out what works and what doesn't work and we fine tune things so that the next time we teach it will run smoother. But there rarely is a "next time"... and many teachers begin to suspect that the continual rewriting of curriculum has little to do with what is best for the children and far more to do with keeping PhDs. in curriculum design and text-book writers employed. As the art teacher I am fortunate in that for the most part they really don't give a rat's *** about what I teach. As a result I have been able to build up a body of lessons that work and fine tune them while jettisoning those that don't work. Certainly, I bring current technologies (where available) and current concerns into the lesson... but the reality is that studies have found that a strict, conservative approach to education... utilizing phonics (sounding words out), rote memorization, drills, etc... are far more effective... especially with urban children. As a conservative, you might be surprised that the educational leader, E. D. Hirsch has built an educational theory in which he recognizes that the "liberal" goal of equal education and equal opportunity for all is best served by a "conservative" approach to education, rather than by a "liberal" or "progressive" approach. If you are really interested check out Hirsch's book, The Schools We Need, And Why We Don't Have Them or his web site:

http://coreknowledge.org/CK/index.htm

All I can say is, it’s the influence of the teacher’s union. I’ve never seen a more conservative (and obviously I don’t use that politically) institution in my life.

Nonsense. Without the union teachers would still be paid salaries equal to a McDonald's worker. The Union was behind setting standards for teacher certification including the appropriate college degrees. The school administrations are simply very good... especially during contract negotiations... at playing politics and at portraying the teacher's union as the great roadblock to progress. The manner in which the school administrations treat non-union employees (principals, office workers, etc...) is reprehensible... as are their own notorious records of theft, graft, nepotism, etc...

They had to come kicking and screaming to allow chartered schools. And forget about merit pay. That’s like sacrilege.

Of course. But let's face it... the school administrators are just as much against charter schools for the very reason (spelled out above) that these charter schools are competing with us for students... and ultimately for our jobs... and yet are competing on far from equal terms. As for merit pay... how do we measure who is or is not deserving of such? The common answer is that this is based upon student achievement... scores on standardized tests. But how is this managed in an equitable manner that truly awards those deserving? In many urban schools it is not uncommon for 30-40% of the students who were there in September to be gone by April or May when testing takes place... replaced by other students. How can a given classroom teacher be responsible for scores under such circumstances? How can he or she be held accountable when a large portion of his or her incoming students are 2... 3... 4 grade levels below where they should be? How can a teacher be accountable for classroom success when the class has 3 or 4 students who are serious discipline problems with parents who don't care or are openly hostile... with a principal who refuses to deal with them (whether through suspension or other means)... as suspensions and time spent out of the class by students are negative marks against him or her... and with an administration that refuses to deal with the problem as to do so amounts to 1. Spending money 2. negative publicity?

It’s all about what’s best for the teachers and not what’s best for the students. That’s exactly what you get under socialism; the customer has no recourse and ultimately no power.

C'mon Virgil... "Socialism"? Not that old bug-bear. We have endless aspects of socialism in our society: the police, the fire department, the utilities, the highway department, the military, etc... Even the higher education institutions that you so admire are seeped in socialism. Without the students loans and funding for state universities and community colleges higher education would be largely reserved for the wealthy alone. Yes, the teacher's unions are all about what is best for the teachers. That's what the role of the union is. I don't imagine that the UAW is deeply involved in what is best for the nation as a whole or for GM's administration. The reality is that the union is just a collective of all the teachers with a few elected representatives. As big as my school system is, we have only a few union officials who are not also classroom teachers. Certainly, there are instances in which the Union becomes too militant... in which incompetent teachers abuse the system by utilizing the union as a form of legal defense. Most teachers are adamantly against such abuses as they ultimately tarnish all of our reputations. But no system is perfect. The legal system of the US has the same forms of abuse. Certainly we all know of or have read of those who utilize legal loopholes to avoid consequences properly due. If the administration and the teachers were not placed in such adversarial roles... if administration worked one on one with the teachers (perhaps eliminating the giant top-heavy systems and replacing them with multiple neighborhood based schools) perhaps we might affect far more change... but the answers are not easy.

[Petrarch's Love]

And no one is losing now?????? Are you kidding? I find it hard to knock American anything, but the best I can honestly do is say the American public school system is at best average, but honestly it’s below average.

I'm not saying it's a perfect system by any stretch of the imagination. Of course there are kids who are slipping through the cracks and kids who have a slim chance in the current system. I'm not against some kind of reform. I'm just seeing that there is a group of kids who would get no chance, or next to no chance, in a privatized system.


So? Excuse me if I’m wrong, but private Universities get plenty of gov’t money from the tax payer. In my day it was called TAP and BEOG, I think. Can’t recall and it’s probably changed. What is financial aid but a voucher?

Yes, but the University system is an exclusionary system. That's what I'm saying. If we want to give government money to private schools because we think they'll do a good job of educating many kids, that's fine, but then we'll have to accept the fact that those schools may not accept all kids. More on universities in a minute.



No I don’t agree with that all. Competition will force the public schools to be better. More talented peers get scholarships into private schools now. That goes on all over NYC here. What you are saying is that the power of decision making should be in the hands of the school (and in effect it’s in the hands of the teacher’s union) instead of the parents to take their child to whichever school they want. I believe the parent should have power not the school.

I said in my post that I fully understand why parents would want to take their kids to a better school. I also said that the fact of the matter is that private schools can take or reject whatever students they please. Let's say that all the parents in a certain area want to take their kids to school X, but school X only accepts the top 50% or fewer of those kids--the ones who are bright/talented/hardworking/not goof-offs etc.--because they have lot of people eager to get in so they may as well choose the very best. Now you're left with the bottom 50% of kids whose parents may want their kids to go to a good school, but find they just can't get in. That bottom 50% are going to be stuck together in a school somewhere that absolutely won't be attracting the very best teachers to it or anyone's interest. It will also mean that there's no way that the bottom 50% schools can possible compete with the top 50% schools. There could be a lot of problems with this sort of two tier system.


You’re assuming only certain people get vouchers. I’m saying that everyone gets vouchers and the parents take that voucher to whichever school they deem best fits the needs of their child.

No, I'm not. I'm assuming that schools will be able to cherry pick and there will be a two tier separation. Sure, there will be places willing to pick up the money for the not so good kids, but what's to guarantee they'll give them any kind of reasonable education. Even if they wanted to, it seems unlikely that they'll be able to provide the same level of education as the places that have the top kids given that their classes are full of, not only the slower learners, but all the trouble makers and kids who are full of attitude, uninterested etc.


Just like college students take that financial aid to the public colleges. No different. The public school system, if it even continues to exist, would have to establish a price and the parent would use that voucher at the school if they choose it. In this way, the schools would have to finally be concerned with accounting for the finances. And have to compete and show results.

Finally, I would like to transform the pre-college education system to reflect our university system. I am proud of our university system. It’s among the best in the world, if not the best. Why is our university system so good and our public school systems so mediocre?

I can tell you why our university system is better than our public school system. Our university system is an exclusionary and non mandatory system while our public schools are mandatory and universal. Not everyone goes to college. Top public universities only accept a very small percent of their applicants. Universities pick the best and the brightest from our own country and from people all over the world, so they're able to do the best thinking, teaching, research etc. If our university system were suddenly required to accept every single person in the United States and every person was required to sit in university classes for four years whether they wanted to or not, then I guarantee you that we wouldn't have one of the best university systems in the world.

What I was saying in my post is that, sure, you can set up a system in which schools are able to select the top kids and reject the less desirable ones in the way that universities do, but then you'll have to accept that you're no longer giving all kids the same universal education. Whether you think it's worth it to lose some altogether in order to give others a better chance than they have now may be a good question (and whether private or charter schools will, in reality, give this better chance is another good question) but there's just no way that private schools are going to allow for continued universal education.


And finally (a second "finally" ) that’s all I ever hear from teachers, maintain the status quo. As if the status quo is acceptable. All I can say is, it’s the influence of the teacher’s union. I’ve never seen a more conservative (and obviously I don’t use that politically) institution in my life. They had to come kicking and screaming to allow chartered schools. And forget about merit pay. That’s like sacrilege. It’s all about what’s best for the teachers and not what’s best for the students. That’s exactly what you get under socialism; the customer has no recourse and ultimately no power.

You can call it socialist or whatever you want. The bottom line is that if you have a public education system then you can control whether all kids receive an education and have universal standards for teachers (which not only encompasses things like pay, but also the teachers' level of credential and education etc.), while under a competitive "capitalist" (if you will) system some of the people are going to lose out in terms of getting the top notch education slots. We're fine as a society with saying that if a kid just can't cut it for whatever reason then he won't get into university. Are we fine with saying if he can't cut it he won't get into high school? Or with saying that some kids will just get into a bottom 20% high school? I don't have a problem with you backing an argument in favor of "capitalist" competition among schools, but you need to at least recognize what the cost of such a system will be as well as the benefit. It may be that you're alright with saying that we don't want to be "socialist" so we don't care if education isn't universal and there's a divide between the high and the low. Historically, of course, universal education hasn't been the norm. Lots of people just went without education, often even basic education, or were simply poorly educated in the past because they weren't required to go and/or schools weren't required to take them.

I do think there are a lot of problems in our schools and would be open to thinking about educational reform. I just don't see how privatization is going to work if we want to maintain a universal system. I don't actually know a great deal about models that maintain a universal education system and are more successful than ours, but I would be much more interested in seeing such models and what the factors that can help improve a universal model might be.

edit: I see that St. Luke's has posted whilst I was called away in the middle of responding. Apologies for any needless repetitions in our respective responses.



Update on that interview: She took the job with the company but with a different division than mine. I’m pissed. This is not the first time that division has lured a good young job applicant from me. And I believe we do the more interesting work. It must be me. I scare them. :bawling:

Sorry to hear that. I'm sure it's not because you're too scary. Maybe these youngsters just don't know a good division when they see it. :D

[Virgil]

Arrgh. I have no time to respond. Like I said, teachers refuse to change. As if the current system is any good. :brickwall :brickwall Go on with your monopoly. Only the kids suffer.

[Petrarch's Love]

No... teachers are not against change. What they are against is the continual cycle of change for the sake of change without allowing for appropriate training or for time to analyze whether the new idea/course of study/methods actually work. Nearly every two years the big urban school districts throw out the old books, standards, curriculum, etc... and on the first day of school throw an entire new curriculum upon the teachers. The reality is that teaching must be learned as well as math or reading. Given an entire new curriculum and books and teaching methods the first time through each given lesson is a learning process for us as well. We find out what works and what doesn't work and we fine tune things so that the next time we teach it will run smoother. But there rarely is a "next time"... and many teachers begin to suspect that the continual rewriting of curriculum has little to do with what is best for the children and far more to do with keeping PhDs. in curriculum design and text-book writers employed. As the art teacher I am fortunate in that for the most part they really don't give a rat's *** about what I teach. As a result I have been able to build up a body of lessons that work and fine tune them while jettisoning those that don't work.

Yes. Even if a person's willing to overlook the pretty low salary, the amount of bureaucratic meddling, testing, and constant shifting theories that teachers have to keep up with is enough to send a lot of potential teachers running the other direction as hard as they can. I can't imagine as a teacher finally hitting on a system that's working for me and then finding out that some theorist has decided to mandate that I should use some completely different system that may not work well for me and my class situation and may not even be very well proven in any classroom. I would be all in favor of slashing a huge number of those "academic" (and I use the term loosely when it comes to a lot of these educational theorists) bureaucrats and others and figure out a good solid system that allows teachers to develop a curriculum that works and stick to it rather than treating the education system like a giant erratic social experiment.


Certainly, I bring current technologies (where available) and current concerns into the lesson... but the reality is that studies have found that a strict, conservative approach to education... utilizing phonics (sounding words out), rote memorization, drills, etc... are far more effective... especially with urban children. As a conservative, you might be surprised that the educational leader, E. D. Hirsch has built an educational theory in which he recognizes that the "liberal" goal of equal education and equal opportunity for all is best served by a "conservative" approach to education, rather than by a "liberal" or "progressive" approach. If you are really interested check out Hirsch's book, The Schools We Need, And Why We Don't Have Them or his web site:

That makes a fair amount of sense. While I can certainly see integrating technology in teaching from the point of view of making sure that students are current with their ability to utilize computers etc., I doubt that the human mind has actually changed all that much. Things that worked for learning times tables a generation ago should probably still work now.

http://coreknowledge.org/CK/index.htm

[LitNetIsGreat]

Arrgh. I have no time to respond. Like I said, teachers refuse to change. As if the current system is any good. :brickwall :brickwall Go on with your monopoly. Only the kids suffer.

Teachers refuse to change!!! :crash: So you are blaming us poor foot soliders now? That's the cheap way out my friend...

[Petrarch's Love]

Arrgh. I have no time to respond. Like I said, teachers refuse to change. As if the current system is any good. :brickwall :brickwall Go on with your monopoly. Only the kids suffer.

For heaven's sake, Virg. I get the impression you haven't been reading what I'm posting. Or at least not very carefully. I did not say I am against all change or that I think the current education system is a shining beacon of strength. I would be happy to hear a suggestion of reform that sounds like it would work. It isn't as though there are only two options to have more of the same or to radically undermine our entire universal education system by paying out to private parties. We really aren't talking about a "socialist"/"capatalist" dichotomy. We're talking about what kind of system will best serve our goals for educating our children. Whether that is comprised of "socialist" or "capatalist" elements or based on another kind of factor altogether doesn't really matter to me as long as it works.

My argument was not that we have a perfect system now but that I think a lot more kids at the bottom would be really let go in a worse way than they are now in a privatized system. I think that this is a fairly reasonable and important objection to make to the approach to reform that you outline, and I think it's an objection that needs to be answered before we go full steam ahead with such an approach. I really want to know. Do you:

A) Recognize that this would be the dynamic and think that letting go of a universal system is worth it for the better education the top kids might get out of the competitive system? I haven't been facetious when I've suggested that perhaps you're OK with letting things fall into a two tier system. That radical a shift isn't something I personally favor, but I do recognize that there might be some very real benefits to that and I at least see how someone with different opinions might reasonably argue in favor of such a system. What is not reasonable is to say that competition is going to make everything great without even recognizing that there may be a cost to this competition in the form of losing a universal system.

B) Have some sort of suggestion for how we could get private competition involved and somehow still maintain a universal system. As I've said before, I'm certainly open to listening to logical arguments that can show how this might work well for everyone rather than leading to the exclusion of many kids from the "good" private schools (whether private is always better or not is another issue). I don't see how this would happen--indeed it sounds pretty much impossible to me--but I'm always open to the possibility that there are approaches to this I haven't yet entertained.

C) I really would be very interested in hearing about other countries that have maintained a universal system while providing a significantly better system than that in the US and what their model is. If Virg. or anyone else on this thread has more knowledge than I of such models I would be very interested to know of other potentially successful reform options that might not have the sort of cost to universal education that I'm identifying as potentially problematic with the voucher/charter approach.

[stlukesguild]

PetrarchsLove- No, I'm not. I'm assuming that schools will be able to cherry pick and there will be a two tier separation. Sure, there will be places willing to pick up the money for the not so good kids, but what's to guarantee they'll give them any kind of reasonable education. Even if they wanted to, it seems unlikely that they'll be able to provide the same level of education as the places that have the top kids given that their classes are full of, not only the slower learners, but all the trouble makers and kids who are full of attitude, uninterested etc.

This is exactly what is happening. I can tell you from experience as I am working in Ohio which is currently the leader in the charter school experiment. The best private schools gladly take the vouchers from the best students leaving the rest to be taught by the public schools. As you note, the public schools have no choice in the matter. They must teach any and all students by law. If we assume that their role would be replaced by private schools as well... schools willing to take on the challenge for the money we must recognize that teaching students with physical, emotional, and cognitive disabilities as well as severe behavioral issues is far more expensive. The class sizes need to be reduced, or teacher's aids employed to assist. Special aids and tools need to be purchased to deal with the limitations of a blind or deaf or functionally limited (retarded) child... a child with Asberger's, Autism, Terret's... or one diagnosed with severe behavioral or emotional issues... to say nothing of those who just don't care or try. How do those schools compete when the money coming in is the same as that of the schools who have been able to cherry-pick their students? The reality is they cut corners: unqualified or unlicensed teachers, over-crowded classrooms, buildings that do not pass the building codes. This is exactly what has been happening in the charter schools here that drew upon the urban students with false promises to the parents... and it has been allowed to happen because in many cases the parent of these students are not highly educated themselves, and the charter schools have been given a free reign without needing to meet the standards required of the public schools which the best private schools regularly exceed.

PL- The bottom line is that if you have a public education system then you can control whether all kids receive an education and have universal standards for teachers (which not only encompasses things like pay, but also the teachers' level of credential and education etc.), while under a competitive "capitalist" (if you will) system some of the people are going to lose out in terms of getting the top notch education slots. We're fine as a society with saying that if a kid just can't cut it for whatever reason then he won't get into university. Are we fine with saying if he can't cut it he won't get into high school?... I don't have a problem with you backing an argument in favor of "capitalist" competition among schools, but you need to at least recognize what the cost of such a system will be as well as the benefit. It may be that you're alright with saying that we don't want to be "socialist" so we don't care if education isn't universal and there's a divide between the high and the low. Historically, of course, universal education hasn't been the norm. Lots of people just went without education, often even basic education, or were simply poorly educated in the past because they weren't required to go and/or schools weren't required to take them.

This is exactly what is ignored by all the politicians and pundits when they rant on about the "decline" in American schools. The reality is that this "decline" is largely an illusion. Not too long ago... my own parent's generation... public school was not a universal right. My father only made it through the eighth grade. At that point he was no longer considered educable and so he was sent to work. This was not uncommon. The majority did not have a high-school diploma... let alone college. And let's not talk about the minorities: Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc...

Historically, the US government was adamantly against universal public education. Thomas Jefferson's modest suggestion that the country provide universal education for all children to an equivalent of the 4th grade, followed by guaranteed education to Latin School (middle school) for the top ranked student in each town who was unable to pay his own way, followed by guaranteed Greek school (high-school) education for each top student in need in the Latin Schools was met with absolute derision. The poor, after all, had no need for education. The French Revolution changed the thinking in Europe... especially in the German States... where it was recognized that a universal education would provide for the ability of all citizens to earn a living wage thus assuring that the disparities which had resulted in France would be avoided. There have been many in the US over the course of history who were of an opposite belief that the best way to maintain the status quo is to keep the poor where they belong. I greatly suspect there are still those who believe this, but I'll avoid getting into politics.

The two-tier system worked fine in my father's generation for the very reason that good paying jobs in agriculture and industry were plentiful. My father earned more working in heavy industry than did most college professors and most "white collar" workers. Having worked the job myself some summers paying my way through school I can tell you that the workers earned every penny. But the situation has changed. We are no longer in the post WWII world in which the US industries are the only game in town. There are no longer limitless high-paying job as available for those who don't make the grade in school. The two-tier system is no longer acceptable not merely upon ethical grounds... but for the security of the nation. Universal education at a minimum standard is a must if we are to continue to compete.

PL- Have some sort of suggestion for how we could get private competition involved and somehow still maintain a universal system. As I've said before, I'm certainly open to listening to logical arguments that can show how this might work well for everyone rather than leading to the exclusion of many kids from the "good" private schools (whether private is always better or not is another issue). I don't see how this would happen--indeed it sounds pretty much impossible to me--but I'm always open to the possibility that there are approaches to this I haven't yet entertained.

The only suggestion I have heard which makes sense (although it would need to be tried) is the idea that the amount of the vouchers be based upon the difficulty in educating a given child. A child with learning, or emotional, or behavioral disabilities would essentially be worth quite a bit ore to the school... thus spurring competition to meet that student's needs. Currently the opposite is true in that the more difficult students equal a far smaller profit margin... or even an actual loss. Of course one can immediately envision the abuses to this system as well. The reality is that any number of ideas would work... if the implementation weren't so imperfect.

I really would be very interested in hearing about other countries that have maintained a universal system while providing a significantly better system than that in the US and what their model is

Most of the more successful systems seem to have the advantage of avoiding many of the problems associated with an open and multi-cultural nation such as the US: racial tension, lack of a common heritage, extremes of poverty, gangs, respect for adults and authority, respect for education.

It is intriguing that this discussion initially began with Virgil drawing attention to certain aspects of education that have been thought to penalize boys. These aspects of education... the avoidance of competition and embrace of the "feel good" environment where there is no failure are part of the tradition of Liberal or Progressive education dating back to Rousseau. And they have been recognized as miserable failures for generations.

Building student "self esteem" has been a favorite concept of progressive education for ages. Unfortunately it ignores most facts: American students have plenty of self esteem. They think far more highly of themselves than students from almost anywhere else. The problem is that this self esteem is often disproportionate, misplaced, or undeserved. In one study example students taking a math test were asked before testing began how well they knew their subject and how well they thought they would do. The American students invariably stated that they knew their subject very well and would do extremely well while students from Korea, Japan, and Germany... all who actually did far better on the test... were far more honest about what they felt they didn't know.

This sense of false self esteem is in part the result of continual efforts of progressive educators to promote "feel good strategies" in which no one ever makes a mistake, gets something wrong, or fails. T-ball replaces baseball so that the kid who can't hit a pitched ball can still get a hit. Teachers are prodded to offer positive comments even on wrong answers or poor tests. Words like "don't" or "no" are to be avoided... even red ink should be avoided when marking wrong answers as they may demoralize the child. Absolute bunk... and the result is a false sense of accomplishment that has nothing to do with the realities all students will eventually face in the adult world where competition rules and corporations and employers don't give a rat's as@ about your fragile sense of self esteem.

Unfortunately, the abandonment of public education and the move to home-schooling or private schooling will only intensify the problem of the gap between the rich and the poor. Of course this solution is favored by many conservatives because it affords them an escape from the unpopular ideas presented in public schools (evolution, multiculturalism, religious tolerance). Public education also represents a huge potential for profit for those establishing large private schools. It is also political suicide. No politician wishes to get involved in such a way that any failings may come back to bite them.

E.D. Hirsch in The Schools We Need (and why we don't have them) argued that "liberal" and "progressive" theories of education simply do not work and that we must stop pushing them simply because we are afraid that the alternative would mean that the conservatives were right all along. Hirsch was a great champion of a liberal idea of public education... the notion that all children should be given an equal access to the quality education needed to succeed in our society. Hirsch, however, noticed that many of the liberal/progressive educational strategies (such as the "feel-good/no losers" approach) actually had the exact opposite effect... especially in the poor schools which needed education the most. Hirsch discovered that the Italian politician and theorist, Antonio Gramsci (imprisoned by Mussolini) had recognized the problem of progressive education as early as the 1930s:

"The new concept of Schooling is in its Romantic phase (ala Rousseau) in which the replacement of "mechanical" by "natural" methods has become unhealthily exaggerated... Previously pupils at least acquired a certain baggage of concrete facts. Now there will no longer be any baggage to put in order... The most paradoxical aspect of it all is that this new aspect of school is being advocated as being democratic, while in fact it is destined not merely to perpetuate social differences, but crystallize them in Chinese complexities."

The "romantic" progressive concepts of schooling avoid the learning of "facts" because it is feared these will perpetuate stereotypes... the notion that one writer, one artist, one historical personage is more important than another. This is then combined with the lack of any real federal or national standards resulting in a system in which almost every school has its own curriculum... makes its own choices about what books to read and what facts to present and when to present them. When this is combined with No Child Left Behind which led to schools focusing almost exclusively upon teaching strategies for taking tests, the result is an absolute mess in which we cannot be certain that a child in this school at this age will be expected to have mastered the same knowledge and skills as a student in another school just around the block... let alone across the country.

Hirsch recognized that in order to succeed in education and in our society one must accumulate a certain agreed upon body of knowledge. One cannot master reading... let alone "higher order thinking skills" such as analysis, comparison, synthesis, etc... without a body of concrete facts. Progressive educators argue that a curriculum based upon such facts is inherently bound to be racist, sexist, nationalistic. The problem is that the alternative handicaps those very students it claims to assist. The reality is that public education is not the end-all/be-all. Once a student has mastered certain facts, reading, math, etc... he or she is certainly free to branch out and explore other alternative ideas and voices... and certainly higher education should be expected to offer just that. At present, however, higher education needs to begin at a remedial level... teaching many of the basic skills and body of knowledge that should have been mastered in elementary and secondary school.

[Dinkleberry2010]

I do not pretend to know what the percentage is of incoming students into colleges and universities in the U.S. who are required to take remedial and developmental courses before they take the basic required courses. But I know that in a certain community college near where I live, more than twenty-five percent of incoming students were required to take remedial courses before they took Composition I which is the first basic course all students must take. To me, this is an astounding fact. 25%! Fully a fourth of incoming students had to take remedial courses before they even took the basic composition course. To me this shows that something is drastically wrong in the high schools in this area in the general field of English.

[stlukesguild]

I do not pretend to know what the percentage is of incoming students into colleges and universities in the U.S. who are required to take remedial and developmental courses before they take the basic required courses. But I know that in a certain community college near where I live, more than twenty-five percent of incoming students were required to take remedial courses before they took Composition I which is the first basic course all students must take. To me, this is an astounding fact. 25%! Fully a fourth of incoming students had to take remedial courses before they even took the basic composition course. To me this shows that something is drastically wrong in the high schools in this area in the general field of English.

I would not be surprised if the percentage in need of remedial courses was even higher... outside of the best or most demanding universities. I paid part of my way through college by tutoring such students in literature, basic study skills, and art history. Doing post graduate work in education... even taking courses simply to keep my license current I have been confronted with college admissions personnel who have informed me that I must take placement exams in order to assure that I can handle the course work.

There is no doubt that there are problems in education. Neither is there any doubt that there are even incompetent teachers... but to blame the whole of the failings of the contemporary schools upon the teachers... or upon the unions (which is just a roundabout way of blaming the teachers) is, as Neely suggested, like blaming the foot-soldiers. It is akin to blaming the assembly-line workers for the problems of the auto industry while ignoring the decisions made by the administration. Teachers can only work with what we have... with the curriculum that we have been told to teach... with the focus that the principals and other administrators have called for us to focus upon based upon their intuitions as to what will be on the stare standardized tests. A huge problem is the refusal of the Federal Government to establish clear national standards... not the vague nonsense written in indecipherable "educationese" that we currently deal with. We need something akin to E.D. Hisrch's core knowledge: a set of facts and skills that students are expected to master at a given grade level. As it stands now school administrators put forth the majority of their effort in attempts to cheat the tests by training students how to take the test and how to answer certain forms of questions rather than teaching them a clear set body of knowledge and then testing their mastery of the same with tests that are directly correlated to what they have been taught.

Even some of the better schools fail to meet standards that should be taught in the preparation of any student for college. My daughter, who eventually graduated summa cum laude from college found that she struggled he first year with literature because she had never been taught how to write an essay. She had written numerous book reports, but had no experience with a writing genre that I remember having been taught in middle school. She had no concept of a thesis and how to write supporting topic sentences, etc... certainly, one could blame the teacher or the school... but ultimately this was a failing on the part of those who establish the curriculum.

[Scheherazade]

Even some of the better schools fail to meet standards that should be taught in the preparation of any student for college. My daughter, who eventually graduated summa cum laude from college found that she struggled he first year with literature because she had never been taught how to write an essay. She had written numerous book reports, but had no experience with a writing genre that I remember having been taught in middle school. She had no concept of a thesis and how to write supporting topic sentences, etc... certainly, one could blame the teacher or the school... but ultimately this was a failing on the part of those who establish the curriculum.I think the problem partially lies here and is part of my research as well. Most learners gain qualifications from one institution and proceed to a "higher" one only to realise that they are not equipped enough to deal with the requirements of the next one. "Remedial" courses are mostly needed because of the gap between highschool and College curricula and expected learning outcomes.

Ideally, I would like to see an optional prep class/year for students who would like to pursue higher academic studies (because imposing such a class on students who have no intention of going to university etc is unfair).

This year one of my students dropped out of College because she could not deal with the pressure/studies and it really broke my heart. She is a very talented and intelligent person; she started the College with the false assurance of the certificates given to her previous year but those do not prepare you for College level studies.

[Virgil]

Urrgh, there is so much here it will take me all evening to respond to everything. Let me quickly respond to these two and then I'll see what feasible to respond to the longer comments.


Teachers refuse to change!!! :crash: So you are blaming us poor foot soliders now? That's the cheap way out my friend...
Neely, my comments strictly pertain to the inadequacies in the US educational system. I have no idea how your system works or what it's needs and deficiencies are. And just to be clearer, it's not so much the teachers but the system and the atherosclerosis within the institution.


I think the problem partially lies here and is part of my research as well. Most learners gain qualifications from one institution and proceed to a "higher" one only to realise that they are not equipped enough to deal with the requirements of the next one. "Remedial" courses are mostly needed because of the gap between highschool and College curricula and expected learning outcomes.

Ideally, I would like to see an optional prep class/year for students who would like to pursue higher academic studies (because imposing such a class on students who have no intention of going to university etc is unfair).

This year one of my students dropped out of College because she could not deal with the pressure/studies and it really broke my heart. She is a very talented and intelligent person; she started the College with the false assurance of the certificates given to her previous year but those do not prepare you for College level studies.

Not sure if you caught it Scher, but the way it works here is that students graduate high school and then go to college only to find they must take remedial courses in college that basically reteach high school because they are not at a college level in skill. Those courses don't count toward graduation, but at least they offer a chance to build up what should have been learned in high school. This just goes to show how much of a failure our lower educational system is. I bet 25% is on the low side. I think more than a quarter of people entering college need to take some remedial class. And yet, there is an institutional resistence to change. Amazing.

[Scheherazade]

The same thing happens here too, Virgil. Even those students who get good grades at pre-College level, still struggle when they get to College because of the gap between the two curricula, which is why I often think a prep year or a separate course can help.

And we have similar classes exist here too; the kind they can take while still studying at the College but, in my opinion, those courses do not prepare them for the academic studies.

[Dinkleberry2010]

But that is my question: Why do more than a fourth of people entering college need to take some remedial class?

I was an average student in high school. I made average grades in most subjects. There was a seven-year gap between my high school graduation and my entering college. But I did not need to take any remedial or developmental course or class. I started right into the basic composition courses and the other basic required courses in college. And I passed those courses.

I am of average intelligence.

I simply do not understand why a fourth of people entering college need to take remedial classes.

[Virgil]

I tried to approach my rebuttal by replying directly, but that’s just not feasible. I’ll just list the themes that have cropped up and address that. I’ll look for a representative statement by one of you guys as a wall to bounce my thoughts off. (Lousy metaphor. I should say it’s a papier-mâché wall and my thoughts will perforate right through. :p)

One of the main arguments is that private schools will only accept certain students – the pick and choose argument.

AS I noted in the earlier post, Virgil, the idea sounds good on paper, but the result has repeatedly been that the schools exercise their option to refuse the more "difficult" students. This means that they refuse to accept students who have physical or cognitive (learning) disabilities, as well as students who have a history of discipline problems.
First of all, just like one can stop healthcare insurance companies from denying coverage with those with pre-existing conditions with a stroke of a legislative pen, so too one can stop voucher schools from denying anyone. Personally I think that would be a mistake. Schools would crop up to address the various types of students. This would be specialization and each school would find methods to address special issues, whether it be discipline problems or medical or problem learners or outstanding students. Specialization is a good thing. Right now good students are being dragged down with the bad and the mediocre students are not being taught in the optimum method for their abilities. Is it a surprised that the military turns hoodlums into people with skills? The military are gearing their teaching approach, a holistic approach, which satisfies certain individuals mind sets.

Another argument is that a two tiered system would be formed.

I'm assuming that schools will be able to cherry pick and there will be a two tier separation.
First of all, if it leads to specialized schools, as I preferred to call it, I think that’s a good thing. But there isn’t a two tier system now? Just look. We in NY have the super schools, not sure what else to call them, that only accept high performing students right now. And they are part of the school system. But even within any school you have (at least you did when I went to school) the better students segregated together and the not as good students. You had students that were college bound and that were hand skills bound. You have students like my sister that were allowed to skip a grade and those who weren’t. In NY State there are even two types of high school diplomas, a regents diploma and regular diploma, the regents being that you had passed specialized tests. And students who were regents diploma oriented were placed in the harder classes (chemistry and physics) and others weren’t. There is a two tier system now in the very school systems you defend.

Then there is the argument that poor kids will be funneled into the worse schools.

The reality is that the charter schools up until the present have largely been little more than a drain upon the resources of the poorer school districts offering false hopes and little in way of results. A student would be far better off attending school in any wealthy suburban district (but such is based upon residency) than attending an urban charter school.
That’s exactly right. The current system screws the poorer kids because they are locked into the neighborhood school. A voucher would allow that parent to send their kid anywhere. Compare a Catholic school kid from a poor neighborhood and a public school kid from that same poor neighborhood. Just compare how many ultimately graduate colleges.

Then there is the teachers are not against change theme:

No... teachers are not against change. What they are against is the continual cycle of change for the sake of change without allowing for appropriate training or for time to analyze whether the new idea/course of study/methods actually work.
I nearly laughed myself off the chair when I read that, but perhaps you’re right. I should draw the distinction between the teacher’s union and the educational bureaucracy as opposed to individual teachers. Though frankly whenever I have this discussion with any teacher they all defend the same status quo as the union, as you and Petrarch are currently doing.

All I can say is that no matter what comes up as an institutional change, the teacher’s union and the bureaucracy are always against it and have to accept it kicking and screaming, whether it be chartered schools, a school voucher experiment (yes even against experimenting with the idea), merit pay, firing poor performing teachers, No Child Left Behind standards, you name they are against it.

Conservative approaches to learning have worked best:

but the reality is that studies have found that a strict, conservative approach to education... utilizing phonics (sounding words out), rote memorization, drills, etc... are far more effective... especially with urban children. As a conservative, you might be surprised that the educational leader, E. D. Hirsch has built an educational theory in which he recognizes that the "liberal" goal of equal education and equal opportunity for all is best served by a "conservative" approach to education
Of course I’m aware. 90% of all things conservative turn out to be best. :D This should have been a no brainer. It always amazed me that kids were supposed to learn math and grammar by osmosis, rather than constant exercise and homework. How this hippie mentality was ever given credence amazes me. As if regimented and disciplined exercises stunts creativity. What nonsense.
Teacher’s unions:

Without the union teachers would still be paid salaries equal to a McDonald's worker. The Union was behind setting standards for teacher certification including the appropriate college degrees. The school administrations are simply very good... especially during contract negotiations... at playing politics and at portraying the teacher's union as the great roadblock to progress. The manner in which the school administrations treat non-union employees
Nonsense. Engineers, scientists, business people, doctors, lawyers, none of them have unions, and they all do better than teachers. You teachers complain about low salaries, so what have the unions actually done for you? Anyway, that’s a separate argument, and we don’t need to get into that.

And where do the teacher’s unions get the authority to restrict institutional change? The union workers at a car factory don’t tell management what car to design and build. They are only involved in pay and safety and working conditions. Who made the teacher’s unions in charge of anything other than pay and working conditions?

Standards:

B) Have some sort of suggestion for how we could get private competition involved and somehow still maintain a universal system. As I've said before, I'm certainly open to listening to logical arguments that can show how this might work well for everyone rather than leading to the exclusion of many kids from the "good" private schools (whether private is always better or not is another issue). I don't see how this would happen--indeed it sounds pretty much impossible to me--but I'm always open to the possibility that there are approaches to this I haven't yet entertained.
Very easily. It’s done right now. It’s called college entrance exams and if students can’t pass them when they graduate high school, then they have no business getting a high school degree. It’s called establishing standards and all students from every school must be able to pass them. If we need inspectors going around the schools to verify the school’s level of competency, just like we have inspectors going around restaurants, then so be it. Private schools exist right now and they meet and exceed standards.

And finally the moral argument:

I said in my post that I fully understand why parents would want to take their kids to a better school.
That is absolutely right. I find it immoral to deny a parent from freely choosing to send their child to whatever school they wish. It doesn’t even matter which system is better. It is downright immoral to deny a parent the freedom to send their kid where they want. What is this, the Soviet Union? A parent is told that since you live here you have to send your kid to this school and if you object shove your objection up your behind. This should be unconstitutional. What kind of freedom is it when you have to accept the quality of your child’s education and have no recourse?

I probably skipped a lot. If anyone wants me to address something specific, address it to me.


The same thing happens here too, Virgil. Even those students who get good grades at pre-College level, still struggle when they get to College because of the gap between the two curricula, which is why I often think a prep year or a separate course can help.

And we have similar classes exist here too; the kind they can take while still studying at the College but, in my opinion, those courses do not prepare them for the academic studies.
In effect, that's what those students do, take a year of remedial. they do it at the college rather than the high school. I couldn't tell you if there is a difference. Intuitively I think i would prefer it at the college (though I know college professors hate it) because it makes the students feel liked they've moved up.


But that is my question: Why do more than a fourth of people entering college need to take some remedial class?

I was an average student in high school. I made average grades in most subjects. There was a seven-year gap between my high school graduation and my entering college. But I did not need to take any remedial or developmental course or class. I started right into the basic composition courses and the other basic required courses in college. And I passed those courses.

I am of average intelligence.

I simply do not understand why a fourth of people entering college need to take remedial classes.
It's amazing. I couldn't tell you either.

[Petrarch's Love]

I tried to approach my rebuttal by replying directly, but that’s just not feasible. I’ll just list the themes that have cropped up and address that. I’ll look for a representative statement by one of you guys as a wall to bounce my thoughts off. (Lousy metaphor. I should say it’s a papier-mâché wall and my thoughts will perforate right through. )

:lol:

One of the main arguments is that private schools will only accept certain students – the pick and choose argument.


First of all, just like one can stop healthcare insurance companies from denying coverage with those with pre-existing conditions with a stroke of a legislative pen, so too one can stop voucher schools from denying anyone. Personally I think that would be a mistake.

To begin with, the analogy is not complete. Though is sounds like the new regulations may say insurance companies can't deny people for pre-existing conditions, from what I gather they say nothing about the amount insurance companies can charge people, so it seems likely they'll still be able to exclude most of the people they don't want by driving up cost sufficiently. Naturally, in the case of a voucher system, it would be much easier to attach strings to groups we're giving money to and tell them they have to accept all students etc. There are two reasons I don't think this would work:

1) There's no way the very best schools are going to actually be able to take all the students who want to get into them. This means that either a) They will just go ahead and take the best students anyway and flout the regulations citing the huge number of applicants. b) There will either be some sort of quota system to ensure a certain number of high and low students or they'll simply go back to saying that you have to take all the people in your given area (which is how this zoning requirement cropped up to begin with...it's intended to ensure a mix of students in the schools). This would essentially be turning the private schools back into public ones and get rid of the supposed benefit of competition.

2)Are you ready for this?...I agree with you. I don't think we should be meddling inordinately with private enterprise beyond the sort of trust busting and financial regulations that we've seen work in the past. Private schools should be able to choose who they want in or out. (Incidentally, though I'm for health care reform, I don't like the idea of the government meddling around with private insurance too much either. I think it will either lead to the insurance companies leaching public funds and laughing all the way to the bank, or a compromise to private industry. I'm much more in favor of creating a public option to compete with the abusive practices of many insurance companies, which would either drive them out of business or get them to up their game to continue to take peoples' money). That's why I don't think we should be giving government money to private schools unless we're really sure we're going to like what they do with it. Yes, we could say we're going to let this be a system like the university system in which the government will give people money to take to the school of their choice, but then we'll have to accept the fact that, like the university system, some people will get into top schools, some will get into OK schools, and some will then be left with only the least desirable schools to choose from.

As a side note, I think there's a big problem right now with the government money we're giving to college education. For some reason there seems to have been a real relaxation of what constitutes an accredited university and now there are a big number of schools from "The University of Phoenix" to much less reputable copy cats that are taking millions in government grants and loans. The problem with this is that many of these "colleges" purport to offer students a useful education, but in reality offer a pretty poor level of education. People come in hopeful that this is a way up, and come out with degrees that are more or less worthless in terms of either being respected by employers or, more importantly, having given the student the kind of skills employers are looking for. The student is also often left with a huge pile of debt to the government for loans taken out. These "colleges" are making huge profits off the fact that our government is willing to give the money and people from a poor or uneducated background who are not too savvy are willing to sign on without really knowing whether they're getting what they hope for. I don't know why the government's giving out this money so freely instead of restricting their funding to more reputable and strictly accredited schools, but it's the sort of dynamic I see happening if we were suddenly saying that government money for primary and secondary education could go to any private group. There would be plenty of sharks out there just waiting to snap up the public money without actually fulfilling any of the promises they make to gullible and hopeful parents.


Schools would crop up to address the various types of students. This would be specialization and each school would find methods to address special issues, whether it be discipline problems or medical or problem learners or outstanding students. Specialization is a good thing. Right now good students are being dragged down with the bad and the mediocre students are not being taught in the optimum method for their abilities.

I agree with you about the good students being dragged down with the bad and, as I've said many times, I can certainly see that a two tier system might help some of these students, and can see the appeal and value of an argument that suggests we should favor a system that will help these good students.

If we did decide that what we wanted a two tier system there's actually no reason to go through the whole complicated business of paying money out to private schools etc. We can just create different levels of schools that sort students according to performance and test scores within our own system and I guarantee you that the public schools with the top students will immediately begin to outperform current public schools with a mixed population of students. I would be in favor of this before I'd be in favor of the voucher route. If we're coming to the conclusion that our system is failing because it is attempting to be too equal in its treatment of students, then a hierarchical public structure would at least be a more straightforward way of managing things than this whole backdoor brain drain to private schools using vouchers. Also, since it would be consciously thought out move, it would possibly at least involve the attempt at a methodical anc controlled creation of vocational style schools such as the two tier system they used to have in England (though as our friends across the pond have confirmed, there were certainly a lot of issues with that system).

I am not as sanguine as you that with a privatized system there would be schools just jumping on the chance to address special issues for students who are slow learners, have learning disabilities, and/or have discipline issues. The last, in particular, I don't see anyone particularly caring about. First, as St. Lukes' has pointed out, it takes more money to deal with the disabled and troubled students, and there would be less money to go around for them if they're all lumped together in one group. In the second place, while specialization sounds like a good thing, I just don't trust that the majority of people are going to be so good hearted that they'll go out of their way to develop specialized programs for the bottom group of kids--especially the kids who are resistant, have major attitude problems, and tend to spit in the face of authority anyway. What will be the motivation for someone to go into teaching at a school that they know is full of nothing but kids who have been rejected by the "good" voucher schools, when they could just go teach the other group? What will be the motivation of a school to invest time and energy into this lower group when they have the same funding as the other schools but more costs for dealing with the problem group? How is a public system left with nothing but the kids the private schools don't want supposed to compete?


Is it a surprised that the military turns hoodlums into people with skills? The military are gearing their teaching approach, a holistic approach, which satisfies certain individuals mind sets.

I'll start by saying that I have a lot of respect for the training our military gives to young men and women, and I've certainly known many people who have had their life turned around by military training. Though it isn't the route for me personally, it is one I have recommended before to young people who I think could really benefit from it. I'll also say up front that I agree with you that specialized individual training could be a good idea, and there may be some approaches to that kind of learning that the public education system could pick up from organizations like the military and elsewhere.

It isn't fair, however, to compare the military system to the education system. To begin with, unless there's a draft on, which there isn't right now, people voluntarily sign up for the military (and in the case of the draft, obviously they have no choice since it's that or face the steep charges and consequences of being a draft dodger). In the second place, not everyone gets to enlist in the military. Unlike schools who must take everyone, the military can refuse to take people upfront because of things like certain criminal records and heavy drug use, or even things like medical condition, height, weight, etc. that may make that person unfit for active duty. Thus, a certain percentage of people (even in the case of a draft) don't make it through the recruiting office. Teachers are not looking at a group of people who already are there because the want to get in and they aren't then able to weed out the ones they don't think are going to be fit for active academic activity from the get go. Then, the military washes out a few more in boot camp. There obviously is no classroom equivalent to boot camp. Finally, once these people get into the military, their CO has control over every aspect of their lives. If they don't shape up, they can be tossed in the brig, made to do unpleasant tasks, have their leave and other privileges revoked, or be literally told to ship out. The military can do all sorts of things to a person to get that person to cooperate or can tell that person to get out altogether.

A teacher has none of this power or control. The teacher cannot refuse to teach the most problematic students or those who are less academically "fit" than others, and the teacher is very limited in terms of the kinds of punishments that can be in place. A teacher can try to lead by example, encourage the right behavior etc., but there is no way that anything a teacher does or says can actually stop a student from partying all night when they're home or from them doing drugs, getting into criminal activity or, even if they're not getting into this sort of thing, simply being lazy and blowing off school. And it may not be just because these are bad kids. In poor areas the reasons kids aren't performing well may have nothing to do with the teacher at all as much as it does with a bad home life, living in an area filled with crime, being on the edge--or over the edge--in terms of having a place to live and food to eat and other problems that are making that student pay more attention to issues of basic survival than to academic subjects. This again is different from the military system in which everyone of the same rank, regardless of previous background, is housed and fed in the same conditions and given the same pay and opportunities.


That’s exactly right. The current system screws the poorer kids because they are locked into the neighborhood school. A voucher would allow that parent to send their kid anywhere. Compare a Catholic school kid from a poor neighborhood and a public school kid from that same poor neighborhood. Just compare how many ultimately graduate colleges.

Again, yes, I agree that a voucher system might help the good kids from poor areas to get a better opportunity. I am not arguing that it is not the case that kids who go to the best private schools tend to do better. I am arguing that the reason they do better is not because private schools are innately better institutions but because they have the discretion to chose the better students. I have said all along that if you think it is worth it to get the good kids out of the poor neighborhoods in this way then that is fine and, I as I just mentioned above, there's no reason we couldn't do this within our own public system if we decided to sort kids in schools by ability rather than location. You just then need to consider what may happen to the kids who are not accepted by the good schools.

This brings us back to the question of how we deal with the top schools rejecting a certain number of students. You've already said that you think it would be a mistake to make private schools take all kids, and I agreed. So, let's say that a parent decides he wants to take his kid to a certain school and that school rejects his kid because the kid can't cut it. Now the kid's either back in the public system, which has now been drained of all the top kids and can't possibly compete with the private system, or some private school comes along that is willing to take the less desirable students, but may be primarily interested in scooping up the government check and providing a so-so education for this kid that is still inferior to the one at the top private school. This looks to me like a quick way to lose a certain percent of the bottom students. If that's a loss you're willing to take, then so be it.


Very easily. It’s done right now. It’s called college entrance exams and if students can’t pass them when they graduate high school, then they have no business getting a high school degree. It’s called establishing standards and all students from every school must be able to pass them. If we need inspectors going around the schools to verify the school’s level of competency, just like we have inspectors going around restaurants, then so be it. Private schools exist right now and they meet and exceed standards.

:confused: I don't get it. Not all people pass the college entrance exams. How is this answering my question as to how we would attempt to maintain a universal system? This would appear to argue that we should not maintain a universal system. A high school exit exam is another exclusionary measure. What you seem to be saying here is that we should give up on universal education and simply weed out a certain percentage of students with an exam. This might certainly solve a lot of problems, but I find it an odd statement from someone who started this thread with a concern that we're failing the bottom 20% of boys. This bottom 20% (of both boys and girls) is most likely to become the drop out figures for those who can't cut the mustard on the exam. Depending on what the exam would entail, it might mean a larger figure than even 20% can't get a high school degree. Again, we're willing to say that a certain percentage of people can't get into college or get a college degree. Are we willing to extend this attitude to high school education or below?


That is absolutely right. I find it immoral to deny a parent from freely choosing to send their child to whatever school they wish. It doesn’t even matter which system is better. It is downright immoral to deny a parent the freedom to send their kid where they want. What is this, the Soviet Union? A parent is told that since you live here you have to send your kid to this school and if you object shove your objection up your behind. This should be unconstitutional. What kind of freedom is it when you have to accept the quality of your child’s education and have no recourse?

Are you serious? Parents have the freedom to send their kids where they want if they're willing/able to pay the price. People can pay to put their kid in a private school, home school the kid etc. If they aren’t able or willing to do this then the state provides its option. If they are in the state run option then they are expected to go to the schools that the state designates.

You are partially right in that yes, we have a mandatory education policy in this country saying that all people of a certain age must go to school: this has been generally accepted as a degree of “socialism” that we seem to have felt was in our nation’s interest. This does mean that parents who are unable or unwilling to put in the time to do the home school option or pay the money for the private school option are, effectively, stuck with whatever the public option has to offer. So, the very first thing we could do if we seriously didn’t want a system that smacked in any way of socialism, if we wanted to give parents the most possible choice in a completely free market is to simply take away the mandatory education policy. Education has not been mandatory historically, nor is it universally mandatory in many parts of the world today. So, let’s say we’re so sick of the state system that we decide that we don’t want the state meddling and telling us where, how or if our kids should be educated. Now parents are not forced to put their kids in public schools they don’t like. They have unlimited choice to send their kids wherever they want, or to not send their kids to school at all. If we took this all the way, we could just say that the state’s out of it altogether. This would let the “customers” take their own money and make whatever choice they want for their kids. Or, if we didn’t want to actually bow out entirely we could have, as you’ve suggested, a non-mandatory system that functions much like our college system in that the state would provide some grants or loans to help people who want an education for their kids and have kids who are able to get into desirable schools. In either of these scenarios you’ll end up with a certain percentage of parents very happy with the choices they have and a certain percentage of people with little or no education at all. Perhaps you agree with this? Perhaps you don't think education should be mandatory? I think it's very much in our nation's interest to have compulsory education which insures that every child gets at least some sort of minimal education, but perhaps you disagree and think it would be better to let some go in favor of giving people greater freedom of choice.

However, at the moment we’ve decided as a society that, for a number of reasons, it is in our interests to require that every child be educated. So, if we want to keep education mandatory for all and preserve a publicly funded system for those who can’t/won’t take a private option, then we need to think about your “customer” analogy for a minute. In business the customer is the person who pays. Individual parents are not actually the people who are paying in this situation. The government is paying out of a public fund that the individual parent has contributed to along with a lot of other individual parents and community members. As the system stands now, we’re saying as a society that it’s in our interests to require every person to have an education so we’re going to use our pooled public money to provide an education system for those who can’t afford it and anyone else who would rather take that option than take their kids to a private school. We can change our minds as a group about how we want to organize that system, what sort of curriculum it should involve, how we deal with poor neighborhoods etc., and I think all these concerns and more should be addressed.

When you say that some parents should be able to take public money and go spend it in another system, however, then you’re no longer talking about a pool of money going to provide a public education option. You’re talking about public money going to private enterprise and you’re directly undermining the dynamic of the state offering its own option distinct from that offered by private schools. If we use your “customer” analogy: yes, it may be better for parent X to be able to take a part of this pooled money and go to a top private school. What about parent Y, however, whose kid couldn’t get into that good private school and is now left behind in a school that is bound to fail because it’s full of all the failing students. Parent X may be a satisfied customer, but parent Y is not, and parent Y has just as much at stake in the shared funds as parent X. If you truly want parents to be like customers then you need to just make them customers spending their own money in a non mandatory free-market system as I’ve outlined above. I don’t have any interest in legislating what people do with their own money, apart from what we all pay in taxes for programs the majority of the nation have agreed are important for the public good. If, however, we’re talking about spending public money for a universal program that the public wants then we need to think about spending in a way that is best, not for specific individual parents, but for the group as a whole. I would never for a minute claim that there isn’t a lot of inequality in the current system due to the conditions in impoverished areas. You’re right that there are deep problems with the system we have now. However, there will also be deep problems with a privatization move which will take the form of some kids missing out on any hope at all of getting a decent education. The voucher approach isn’t a reform of the public system. It’s giving up on the public system altogether and throwing out the baby with the bathwater.


E.D. Hirsch in The Schools We Need (and why we don't have them) argued that "liberal" and "progressive" theories of education simply do not work and that we must stop pushing them simply because we are afraid that the alternative would mean that the conservatives were right all along. Hirsch was a great champion of a liberal idea of public education... the notion that all children should be given an equal access to the quality education needed to succeed in our society. Hirsch, however, noticed that many of the liberal/progressive educational strategies (such as the "feel-good/no losers" approach) actually had the exact opposite effect... especially in the poor schools which needed education the most. Hirsch discovered that the Italian politician and theorist, Antonio Gramsci (imprisoned by Mussolini) had recognized the problem of progressive education as early as the 1930s:

"The new concept of Schooling is in its Romantic phase (ala Rousseau) in which the replacement of "mechanical" by "natural" methods has become unhealthily exaggerated... Previously pupils at least acquired a certain baggage of concrete facts. Now there will no longer be any baggage to put in order... The most paradoxical aspect of it all is that this new aspect of school is being advocated as being democratic, while in fact it is destined not merely to perpetuate social differences, but crystallize them in Chinese complexities."

The "romantic" progressive concepts of schooling avoid the learning of "facts" because it is feared these will perpetuate stereotypes... the notion that one writer, one artist, one historical personage is more important than another. This is then combined with the lack of any real federal or national standards resulting in a system in which almost every school has its own curriculum... makes its own choices about what books to read and what facts to present and when to present them. When this is combined with No Child Left Behind which led to schools focusing almost exclusively upon teaching strategies for taking tests, the result is an absolute mess in which we cannot be certain that a child in this school at this age will be expected to have mastered the same knowledge and skills as a student in another school just around the block... let alone across the country.

Hirsch recognized that in order to succeed in education and in our society one must accumulate a certain agreed upon body of knowledge. One cannot master reading... let alone "higher order thinking skills" such as analysis, comparison, synthesis, etc... without a body of concrete facts. Progressive educators argue that a curriculum based upon such facts is inherently bound to be racist, sexist, nationalistic. The problem is that the alternative handicaps those very students it claims to assist. The reality is that public education is not the end-all/be-all. Once a student has mastered certain facts, reading, math, etc... he or she is certainly free to branch out and explore other alternative ideas and voices... and certainly higher education should be expected to offer just that. At present, however, higher education needs to begin at a remedial level... teaching many of the basic skills and body of knowledge that should have been mastered in elementary and secondary school.

I have long agreed with this. I have no idea why there's this perceived link between analytical skills and "progressive" teaching and fact based skills and "conservative teaching." Factual learning and analysis are simply two different steps in the learning process and have nothing whatever to do with a political agenda either way. I can only guess that it is because some of the more “progressive” thinking about, for example, the role of minorities and women in history has come up more recently as a result of critical and analytic thinking at the academic level, and so people simply associate these things with being tied to “analytical” thinking and the older perception of history they’re rejecting as being tied to the sort of “fact based” learning they did in school. :confused: In any case, it’s simply common sense at any level of education that you cannot get to a critical, analytical or higher conceptual level in a subject without first having a certain foundation of facts that you can criticize, analyze and conceptualize. Trying to introduce facts and analysis together for the first time just doesn’t work for people, and I was aware, even at the time, that this was often a problem in parts of the curriculum in my own education that were trying too hard to be “critical” or “complex.” This is something that is true of any level of teaching. For example, I’m teaching a group of masters students this term, who are all obviously bright people and knowledgeable in their own fields, but whom I can’t expect to provide a cogent analysis of the literature of the Elizabethan age without me first informing them about a lot of facts concerning the time period and the poetry of that period. Children, who have no factual treasury to draw on at all going into school, obviously need to build up a lot of factual knowledge before they’ll be able to analyze that knowledge. Naturally subjects like history must be simplified to a certain extent in order to be taught factually, but this has always been true and has nothing to do with conservatism and progressivism. The content of what is included in the streamlined view of history and the facts we teach might shape the things children learn in a certain way. If we want to add or take away certain figures, events, movements etc. from the fact based curriculum because we think it offers a more representative view of history, then that’s fine, but to expect students to take in an enormous amount of information that no one could remember or keep track of if presented with it for the first time and then to have an opinion about it is ridiculous.

[stlukesguild]

First of all... one can stop voucher schools from denying anyone. Personally I think that would be a mistake. Schools would crop up to address the various types of students. This would be specialization and each school would find methods to address special issues, whether it be discipline problems or medical or problem learners or outstanding students. Specialization is a good thing. Right now good students are being dragged down with the bad and the mediocre students are not being taught in the optimum method for their abilities.

Yes... we can deny schools the right to deny anyone admission... but I doubt this would work. The better schools will obviously not have the ability to take every student whose parents wish them to attend any more than Harvard or Yale have the ability to accept every applicant. Nor will they wish to do so. Ultimately, they recognize that the students who are dragging down the behavior and the scores in the public scores will effect the same thing in the private schools. One might also note that to establish a requirement that a private school takes every student essentially forces the private school to act as a public school.

Now you assume that some motivated entrepreneurs will likely step in and focus upon the different learning styles... and certainly this exists at the top end of the spectrum. We have schools that are single sex, schools that offer a Catholic or Lutheran or Jewish education, schools that focus upon preparation for careers in the arts, medicine, science, etc... But schools that will focus on the worst performing students... students with severe discipline problems... students with severe learning problems or physical disabilities. You assume to much. It would take true altruism rather than the entrepreneurial spirit to take of such a daunting task. Teaching such students, as I stated earlier, is far more expensive. We also must face the fact that the Egalitarian assumption that with the proper environment every student can perform equally well is a pipe dream. Some children are far more able to function in school than others... far more able to succeed in the demands of school than others. Do you seriously imagine that someone is going to take on the task of teaching the most difficult children knowing full well that their profit margin will be far less than if they decided to teach the better students... that their scores will never match those of the better schools... that they will be hard-pressed to find good teachers willing to go to work each and every day knowing that they must face the worst of the worst in education... not without a real incentive... which leads to an even lesser profit margin?

Now... if you are OK with the division in private schools between the schools that teach only the best and brightest, schools focused on the middle group, and schools focused upon the most difficult students... then maybe you would agree that it is the very notion of a universal education that is at fault? The idea of the universal education is Egalitarian idealism at its finest... but it is clearly not working. Not every child is equally intelligent, equally intelligent in the same areas, equally motivated, equally equipped to function in the traditional classroom. But this is what public education has attempted to achieve... and been mandated to do by the government. In the past, students were tracked by ability and placed appropriately. This is what the specialization of private schools would amount to. But the reality is that public schools could achieve at the same level if they were playing by the same rules. If we had public schools that focused solely upon those students with the greatest abilities we would rapidly discover that the scores in those schools would rival those of the better private schools. Such is already the reality in specialized public schools that focus upon the arts, or Early College. One of the advantages of implementing this multi-tiered system in the public schools is that teachers can be placed where they are most effective and most needed and rotated around so that we are not faced with the impossibility of filling the positions of teachers in the most difficult schools. But whether we accept this division by abilities in the public or private schools we must face the reality that scores will not ever be a universal. The least motivated and most difficult students as a whole are not going to rival the scores of the best and the brightest

Is it a surprised that the military turns hoodlums into people with skills? The military are gearing their teaching approach, a holistic approach, which satisfies certain individuals mind sets.

Actually, the military no longer attempts anything like this. A criminal background, physical disabilities, weight, height, intelligence are all taken into account and can lead to rejection. Once the military has taken on the "education" of an individual they have them 25-7. They have an endless array of disciplinary options none of which are available to teachers. Believe it or not, Virgil, the public schools must legally provide education to juveniles awaiting trial for rape, murder, or what have you. There is actually a black community leader here who has suggested that such an approach may be the best way to "save" the urban students... through pulling them out of the grossly dysfunctional communities and families, and controlling the whole of their education. Of course we tried the same years ago with the Native Americans and the results were questionable.

First of all, if it leads to specialized schools, as I preferred to call it, I think that’s a good thing. But there isn’t a two tier system now? Just look. We in NY have the super schools, not sure what else to call them, that only accept high performing students right now. And they are part of the school system. But even within any school you have (at least you did when I went to school) the better students segregated together and the not as good students.

Again... if this is how we wish to approach education then let's be honest about it and employ this method across the whole. Let's not pretend... as school administrators do... that they can't understand how the students in these schools of cherry-picked students can achieve so much better than the rest and why the rest can't match their performance. Let's not pretend that performance will ever be equal across the whole. There are undoubtedly advantages to such a system in that we can move the best and the brightest... our greatest asset... along faster and further. At the same time we can focus upon real life and work skills for those in the lower performing groups recognizing that we cannot simply write them off in a post-industrial society and assume they are going to be able to function.

In NY State there are even two types of high school diplomas, a regents diploma and regular diploma, the regents being that you had passed specialized tests.

Actually... I believe that is the reality nationally. There is the diploma that says essentially you attended school through the 12th grade and passed, and there is another that says you attended school through the 12th grade and passed... and actually learned something... at least by the state standardized tests.

There is a two tier system now in the very school systems you defend.

No... there's not a two-tiered system. Rather, with the exception of special education (and not even there in all instances) all the students are placed together resulting in a situation in which the behavior of the worst disrupts all, the brightest are not pushed to their full potential, the slowest do not receive the added help they need, and the middle group misses out on the possibility that they might achieve better, and often fall into copying the behaviors of the worst. If this is unacceptable then why assume that it is the fault of the teachers and the unions when it is education as dictated by the government, the state curriculum planners, and administrators? One thing every teacher in the urban public schools recognize is that any good teacher in those systems could walk into any school in the nation and teach those students. I assure you that the reverse is not true. Few teachers in the elite private schools or suburban schools would last a week in my building... and we have had any number of visiting teachers admit as much.

That’s exactly right. The current system screws the poorer kids because they are locked into the neighborhood school. A voucher would allow that parent to send their kid anywhere. Compare a Catholic school kid from a poor neighborhood and a public school kid from that same poor neighborhood. Just compare how many ultimately graduate colleges.

Actually, it is only the Catholic Schools with rigid admissions and rules that surpass the average urban public school. One of the best here has the option of Saturday detentions and after that the student's parent must sit with him or her all day in class... or shell out the money to hire a private paid teacher's aid. After that? They're gone... kicked out. However the Catholic schools that have begun to accept the more difficult students in order to shore up declining numbers of parishioners are finding that they are faced with the same problems as the public schools... including falling scores and graduation rates.

All I can say is that no matter what comes up as an institutional change, the teacher’s union and the bureaucracy are always against it and have to accept it kicking and screaming, whether it be chartered schools, a school voucher experiment (yes even against experimenting with the idea), merit pay, firing poor performing teachers, No Child Left Behind standards, you name they are against it.

Of course the teacher's union is against vouchers and charter schools as you would undoubtedly be against competition for your job that is not played out upon an equal grounds. The reality is that the administration is just as against charter schools and vouchers... but they love to play politics during any negotiations to make the unions appear as the great Satan in order to push through their latest untested theories.

The reality is that studies have found that a strict, conservative approach to education... utilizing phonics (sounding words out), rote memorization, drills, etc... are far more effective... especially with urban children. As a conservative, you might be surprised that the educational leader, E. D. Hirsch has built an educational theory in which he recognizes that the "liberal" goal of equal education and equal opportunity for all is best served by a "conservative" approach to education

Of course I’m aware. 90% of all things conservative turn out to be best. This should have been a no brainer. It always amazed me that kids were supposed to learn math and grammar by osmosis, rather than constant exercise and homework. How this hippie mentality was ever given credence amazes me. As if regimented and disciplined exercises stunts creativity.

I'll not get into the political debate, but I will agree that the value of a conservative or traditional approach to education would seem to be a "no brainer". The problem is that teachers recognized this for years which is why they fought against "whole language" and learning by osmosis and the elimination of the memorization of facts and emphasis upon "higher order thinking skills" that are an impossibility without having first mastered the essential facts. But teachers don't make these decisions. This is done at the administrative level... which certainly has more than its fair share of hippie idealists... and when it is proven that it doesn't work they are the one's who refuse to change or acknowledge the failure... except on the part of the teachers. One of the current changes implemented from above has been the implementation of K-8 schools, eliminating middle schools. This has failed miserably as it exposes the younger children to the profanity, sexual behavior, violence, and disrespect of the older children. There is no teacher who will tell you it is a success... but the administration refuses to admit the failure... because there are some advantages from clustering the middle school students with the elementary students in terms of how the State Standardized Tests are scored... and the tests are everything.

Without the union teachers would still be paid salaries equal to a McDonald's worker. The Union was behind setting standards for teacher certification including the appropriate college degrees. The school administrations are simply very good... especially during contract negotiations... at playing politics and at portraying the teacher's union as the great roadblock to progress. The manner in which the school administrations treat non-union employees.

Nonsense. Engineers, scientists, business people, doctors, lawyers, none of them have unions, and they all do better than teachers. You teachers complain about low salaries, so what have the unions actually done for you? Anyway, that’s a separate argument, and we don’t need to get into that.

Prior to the unions teacher's salaries were embarrassingly low... and this was acceptable because it was imagined to be largely "womens' work". Neither were there any benefits in terms of health care, sick leave, or retirement. Nor were there any standards as to what experience and education was required of a teacher. We see the results of you idealized notion of the utopia that private enterprise would bring to education. Teachers in the private schools and charter schools earn 50-75% of what the public school teachers earn, they lack the health and retirement benefits, and any form of job protection. Neither do they need to meet the requirements of the public school teachers as far as background checks and license. The private schools often employ graduate students or students just out of schools. Salary comparisons with Doctors and Lawyers and business people (a great many of whom earn less than teachers) is ingenuous at best. A more apt comparison would be with college professors where we would discover that those in the greatest demand certainly earn well more than the average public school teacher... but the majority of the visiting, associate, and assistant professors often earn less, have fewer benefits, and no job security.

And where do the teacher’s unions get the authority to restrict institutional change? The union workers at a car factory don’t tell management what car to design and build. They are only involved in pay and safety and working conditions. Who made the teacher’s unions in charge of anything other than pay and working conditions?

It is assumed that if the classroom teacher is required to have a degree in education... and often a Masters Degree... and considering that he or she is the one in the class on an everyday basis dealing with students and parents then it might be in the interest of those in charge to listen to the input of these teachers before institution the latest untested theory developed by a PhD who has never stepped foot in a classroom. It might also be assumed that if the teachers are not to have any say in the institutional changes then it should be fully the responsibility of the administration for any failures of the schools barring teacher incompetence or refusal to follow the curriculum. But this is not the case. We have new programs, new strategies, new curriculum, etc... continually thrown at us... and when it doesn't work as expected the administration are on the TV blaming the teachers or the union.

And finally the moral argument:

PetrachsLove- I said in my post that I fully understand why parents would want to take their kids to a better school.

That is absolutely right. I find it immoral to deny a parent from freely choosing to send their child to whatever school they wish. It doesn’t even matter which system is better. It is downright immoral to deny a parent the freedom to send their kid where they want. What is this, the Soviet Union? A parent is told that since you live here you have to send your kid to this school and if you object shove your objection up your behind. This should be unconstitutional. What kind of freedom is it when you have to accept the quality of your child’s education and have no recourse?

Any parent in the US has the option to send his or her child to a private school or to a school in a neighboring district... if he or she has the money and the school elects to accept that child. Of course no private school and no public school in which the student is not a resident is obliged to accept every student. Which brings us back to the reality of what to do with those lowest students? Those who are the most difficult and clearly the least "profitable"?

[LitNetIsGreat]

Which brings us back to the reality of what to do with those lowest students? Those who are the most difficult and clearly the least "profitable"?


Well, that is the ultimate question really isn’t it? What do we do with them or what can we do with them? Ultimately I think very little within the current parameters. I’m certainly not in favour of privatisation, even placing profitability with students in the same sentence doesn’t sit well with me, but the present system’s lowest schools at present (certainly in the UK) are just factories for failure and apathy. For many people it is, as you say a no brainer – a return to basic solid tried and tested methods and structured discipline, simply as – but this is not happening. Instead, as ever, teachers are forced to run around with the latest pet theory or initiatives which seem to change with alarming regularity. What’s more these little initiatives just do not address the very basic issues with which teachers in these schools are met with on a daily basis – most of them are worse than a bad joke.

However, as usual it’s a Friday night, I've got a banging headache for the weekly round of abuse and frustrations I've had to endure, I can’t think properly, I’m very tired and any thoughts I do have in this area are centred on how I can personally jump ship. I’m not fiddling while the boat sinks for much longer. :sick:

[Paulclem]

Well, that is the ultimate question really isn’t it? What do we do with them or what can we do with them? Ultimately I think very little within the current parameters. I’m certainly not in favour of privatisation, even placing profitability with students in the same sentence doesn’t sit well with me, but the present system’s lowest schools at present (certainly in the UK) are just factories for failure and apathy. For many people it is, as you say a no brainer – a return to basic solid tried and tested methods and structured discipline, simply as – but this is not happening. Instead, as ever, teachers are forced to run around with the latest pet theory or initiatives which seem to change with alarming regularity. What’s more these little initiatives just do not address the very basic issues with which teachers in these schools are met with on a daily basis – most of them are worse than a bad joke.

However, as usual it’s a Friday night, I've got a banging headache for the weekly round of abuse and frustrations I've had to endure, I can’t think properly, I’m very tired and any thoughts I do have in this area are centred on how I can personally jump ship. I’m not fiddling while the boat sinks for much longer. :sick:

Hi Neely - difficult week. You have my sympathies.:thumbs_up

There are lots of transferrable skills in teaching.You don't need to limit yourself to teaching related work. A friend of mine - who is very successful - started as a teacher, but quickly left. He pointed out that the usual teaching process of plan, deliver (or sell/ organise etc...) evaluate, improve, deliver - is a very useful tool in any industry. In my role as a Manager it applies even more to everything - training, admin, managing people etc.

The only problem is that it's not the best time to change.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Oh thanks for your kind thoughts, really I am fine, I just have a black hour now and again (usually collected to the end of the week). I've got a few ideas, I'll probably seek to move schools later in the year as a first step.

[Nikhar]

Sorry for such a useless post...

But guys...you had time to write soooooo much!