An essay on progressive education.....

[Obvious Li]

Was the over exaggerated language not enough to give that away?

No. Just seeing the posts here shows that all sorts of weirdos believe all sorts of things.

You do realise ghost that he's not the first person to made such observations or identify this systemic problem right?



GAH!  I'm doing it again :(

well i for one am glad you are..hope you can get back to conscious free posting soon...cheers

[Anonymous]

Was the over exaggerated language not enough to give that away?

No. Just seeing the posts here shows that all sorts of weirdos believe all sorts of things.

You do realise ghost that he's not the first person to made such observations or identify this systemic problem right?



GAH!  I'm doing it again :(

Attacking the messenger rather than attacking the problem does solve the problem of a public school system that is not serving the needs of little boys..



Fred Reed is not the first person to address the disservice being done to boys in the public schools..



As a mother of young boy, I have read many different people write the same thing about this problem..



The gap between boys and girls socialization in elementary chool levels is greater than the gap between rich and poor..



Ignoring it this gap is unfair to boys.The Struggles of Boys

By kindergarten, boys already fare much worse on social and behavioral measures than girls. The gender gap is even larger than the class gap and some racial gaps.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/upshot/a-link-between-fidgety-boys-and-a-sputtering-economy.html?smid=fb-&_r=1">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/upsho ... d=fb-&_r=1">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/upshot/a-link-between-fidgety-boys-and-a-sputtering-economy.html?smid=fb-&_r=1

[Anonymous]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/why-our-schools-are-failing-boys-1.952880">http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/why-our-s ... s-1.952880">http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/why-our-schools-are-failing-boys-1.952880

Looking at the demographics of university-bound students today, it is hard to believe that not so long ago we were developing programs to get more girls into university.



By all indications now, that same spirit of reform and innovation is needed to push more boys into higher education — for all that may be worth.



These days I need only peek into a class and I can tell by the gender makeup whether or not it is academic or applied.



Those classes where the majority are female students are invariably academic. Those where the majority is male are not.



No surprise then that the face of university education in this country is increasingly becoming female as women have been overtaking men in both the participation rate as well as in the percentage who graduate.



According to the federal department of human resources and skills development, 18 per cent of young men 18-24 were in university in 2005-06. The equivalent figure for young women was 28 per cent.



At the same time, the high school dropout rate for male students has remained consistently higher in recent decades than that for girls, another indicator that our education system is failing our boys.



There is clearly a problem here.



Increasingly female



I am blaming "the system" for this because we shouldn't be blaming young male students for the difficulties they face in what is arguably an increasingly female-programmed educational culture.



Some, such as Michael Reist, an Ontario teacher and author of The Dysfunctional School: Uncomfortable Truths and Awkward Insights on School, Learning, and Education, blame the problem on research that suggests the brains of boys and girls are "wired" differently.



They argue that boys' brains are more able to deal with spatial problems and girls tend to be more developed in language and communication, which, if true, is certainly a concern when one looks at the way many class lessons are now organized.



"Classrooms keep getting set up more and more around the verbal and less around the kinesthetic and active," says Michael Gurian author of Boys and Girls Learn Differently. "They are increasingly becoming environments that favour the girls' brain."



And as enticing as the notion may be to some radical feminists, we simply cannot re-engineer the male brain. From a teacher's perspective, at least, boys and girls are simply different.



Boys can learn



As Gurian says, "You can't treat boys as defective, they are not defective, they are really good learners.



"But they are not going to learn well in the environments that we are putting in front of them."   Apart from being hands-on learners, boys tend to have a preference for informational text as opposed to narrative, according to some research.



In fiction, they like text that is funny and they like material with action and description. They also seem to like to solve problems.



So why do we not treat this male brain as a springboard from which we can set the groundwork for a new generation of male scientists, engineers, teachers, journalists and businessmen? As a change from our current one-size-fits-all approach.  



Today, in a desperate attempt to address the gender-learning gap, "alternate" boy strategies and "supplementary" reading material are being offered to teachers, to try to re-engage the males in our classrooms.



But as much as I try I cannot help but see the word CHARITY written in big letters in the overriding attitude of everything that has come my way.



We will not get very far if we merely give underachieving boys some alternative, not-intellectually-stimulating material and treat them as academic charity cases.



Instead, there must be genuine recognition and appreciation of boys' different learning styles, regardless of how these styles are viewed by those currently in charge.



A different path



Institutionally, this may yet play out in the new emphasis on skilled-trade education that is sweeping across the country.



In some places, it is being aggressively packaged as one possible solution to help boys succeed better in the educational system.



But we won't get the clientele that can really thrive in this program unless we treat this as a viable and respectable non-university career path, indeed one that could even exceed the material success of many in the university-bound cohort.



In today's economic climate, skilled-trade education, with its focus on hands-on informational and problem-solving skills, should no longer be seen as low-value "compromise" education.



I certainly do not see this when I encounter former students, now working as plumbers or electricians, who are making more money than their university-educated teachers.



So many of them are doing very well in the real world. We just now have to find a way of getting them to thrive in our schools.

[ghost]

Was the over exaggerated language not enough to give that away?

No. Just seeing the posts here shows that all sorts of weirdos believe all sorts of things.

You do realise ghost that he's not the first person to made such observations or identify this systemic problem right?



GAH!  I'm doing it again :(

Arguing where there's no argument? Yes, you are doing it again.



I never said I don't agree with the message that children's education is crap. In fact, I believe today's system is dangerously ridiculous. And there are no shortage of teachers who agree with me. It's not the teachers making these policies.



What I don't like is the blaming of women. Comments like feminists deliberately trying to keep boys down, women resenting men's strength, men are better/women are bitter, crap that comes out of this article.

[Obvious Li]

No. Just seeing the posts here shows that all sorts of weirdos believe all sorts of things.

You do realise ghost that he's not the first person to made such observations or identify this systemic problem right?



GAH!  I'm doing it again :(

Arguing where there's no argument? Yes, you are doing it again.



I never said I don't agree with the message that children's education is crap. In fact, I believe today's system is dangerously ridiculous. And there are no shortage of teachers who agree with me. It's not the teachers making these policies.



What I don't like is the blaming of women. Comments like feminists deliberately trying to keep boys down, women resenting men's strength, men are better/women are bitter, crap that comes out of this article.

can you point to any one of the descriptions he has used as being untrue...attended any womens studies courses lately ????

[ghost]

Arguing where there's no argument? Yes, you are doing it again.



I never said I don't agree with the message that children's education is crap. In fact, I believe today's system is dangerously ridiculous. And there are no shortage of teachers who agree with me. It's not the teachers making these policies.



What I don't like is the blaming of women. Comments like feminists deliberately trying to keep boys down, women resenting men's strength, men are better/women are bitter, crap that comes out of this article.

can you point to any one of the descriptions he has used as being untrue...attended any womens studies courses lately ????

Yes, I have actually. And don't worry, your paranoia is unfounded.



All those descriptions are untrue. Women's studies is about empowerment and equality, not about destroying those precious male egos. But of course men like yourself always think everything is about them.

[Obvious Li]

Arguing where there's no argument? Yes, you are doing it again.



I never said I don't agree with the message that children's education is crap. In fact, I believe today's system is dangerously ridiculous. And there are no shortage of teachers who agree with me. It's not the teachers making these policies.



What I don't like is the blaming of women. Comments like feminists deliberately trying to keep boys down, women resenting men's strength, men are better/women are bitter, crap that comes out of this article.

can you point to any one of the descriptions he has used as being untrue...attended any womens studies courses lately ????

Yes, I have actually. And don't worry, your paranoia is unfounded.



All those descriptions are untrue. Women's studies is about empowerment and equality, not about destroying those precious male egos. But of course men like yourself always think everything is about them.

sounds like you got pretty high marks in those classes......congratulations it shows......your teachers would be so proud :ugeek: ..........

[RW]

Yes, I have actually. And don't worry, your paranoia is unfounded.



All those descriptions are untrue. Women's studies is about empowerment and equality, not about destroying those precious male egos. But of course men like yourself always think everything is about them.

You clearly weren't in the class I was in because it was nothing resembling empowerment.  It was all about how no matter what you do you are going to fucked because you have a vagina.  If you stay home and make babies and clean house, you are pandering to a man made gender stereotype.  If you go to work, you will never be able to meet your potential because there will always be a man on top of you.  You will never be him or even make as much as the guy working half as hard sitting next to you.  It was about how we are living in a man's world and have to break free from the chains of the patriarchy, which only serves to bring us down.



Empowerment my ass.

[RW]

No. Just seeing the posts here shows that all sorts of weirdos believe all sorts of things.

You do realise ghost that he's not the first person to made such observations or identify this systemic problem right?



GAH!  I'm doing it again :(

Arguing where there's no argument? Yes, you are doing it again.



I never said I don't agree with the message that children's education is crap. In fact, I believe today's system is dangerously ridiculous. And there are no shortage of teachers who agree with me. It's not the teachers making these policies.



What I don't like is the blaming of women. Comments like feminists deliberately trying to keep boys down, women resenting men's strength, men are better/women are bitter, crap that comes out of this article.

It's clear that it speaks to feminism and feminists not some slam on every day women.

[Romero]

Right, because most woman aren't feminists. They're mostly masculinists I guess.

[Anonymous]

Arguing where there's no argument? Yes, you are doing it again.



I never said I don't agree with the message that children's education is crap. In fact, I believe today's system is dangerously ridiculous. And there are no shortage of teachers who agree with me. It's not the teachers making these policies.



What I don't like is the blaming of women. Comments like feminists deliberately trying to keep boys down, women resenting men's strength, men are better/women are bitter, crap that comes out of this article.

can you point to any one of the descriptions he has used as being untrue...attended any womens studies courses lately ????

Yes, I have actually. And don't worry, your paranoia is unfounded.



All those descriptions are untrue. Women's studies is about empowerment and equality, not about destroying those precious male egos. But of course men like yourself always think everything is about them.

Haha, too fucking funny.     Yeah, just like Asian American studies at any uni in California is not about we are victims and whitey is our oppressor.

[RW]

Right, because most woman aren't feminists. They're mostly masculinists I guess.

Maybe by the definition of what feminism once was.  In my late teens I thought of myself as a feminist and then I realised what it meant to be one and I didn't want to be a part of it any more.  It looked more like over compensation than equality to me and I dropped it as a means of identifying myself.



I'm a woman who believes in equality but I'm not a feminist.

[Anonymous]

Right, because most woman aren't feminists. They're mostly masculinists I guess.

Maybe by the definition of what feminism once was.  In my late teens I thought of myself as a feminist and then I realised what it meant to be one and I didn't want to be a part of it any more.  It looked more like over compensation than equality to me and I dropped it as a means of identifying myself.



I'm a woman who believes in equality but I'm not a feminist.

That is exactly how I feel about the Asian empowerment crybaby clowns.

[ghost]

sounds like you got pretty high marks in those classes......congratulations it shows......your teachers would be so proud :ugeek: ..........

I also got high marks with my MA in Creative Writing...earns me a six figure income. I'm sure you've got opinions on that too.

[ghost]

Right, because most woman aren't feminists. They're mostly masculinists I guess.

Maybe by the definition of what feminism once was.  In my late teens I thought of myself as a feminist and then I realised what it meant to be one and I didn't want to be a part of it any more.  It looked more like over compensation than equality to me and I dropped it as a means of identifying myself.



I'm a woman who believes in equality but I'm not a feminist.

I often say that too. I think the problem is there are too many different levels of feminism. It's gotten so bad that the lines are all blurred.