Schools becoming male unfriendly?

[tuvarkz]

Thoughts?

EDIT: Title has a typo, not sure how to fix it.

Edit: Fixed that for ya.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Balcerzak

[MercyWalk]

Having attended an all boys high school, the zero tolerance rule was stupid and teachers realized that a teenage male full of hormones is gonna do stupid shit, even with frequent fist fights, the principal would give them a stern, calm talk and tell the guys to apologize and help sort the differences out rather than give them suspensions which were practically holidays. I suppose they have become desensitized to that kind of stuff though, as prior to my cohort beginning it's first year, the school had a history of violence/drugs, stuff you would find in a low socio-economic place. Although now it's definitely a better place once they started using new methods of mediation and punishment were introduced.

Changing up the texts/reading material didn't work particularly well, in the end all we'd do is rely on one guy (this was on a rotation) to make notes on the chapter, movie scene or what have you and we'd pass them around, of course there were some guys who would do it properly but the majority still wouldn't have bothered even if the texts were to be seen as appealing, hardly anybody wanted to analyze the metaphors in a poem or examine the road to maturity in a biography about some sports star.

I did attend an all genders primary school though, and I don't know if this has always been the case but they implemented a hands off rule which was incredibly annoying, I remember we couldn't even shake hands or hug in front of some teachers because they took it so seriously, and the hands off rule did lead to a lot of games being dropped during lunch, such as football.

I can't speak for US schools but no, I don't think Australian schools are in a state of "feeling centered"/competition free/sedentary, it's just that certain rules such as the zero tolerance rule are stupid.

[Alertcircuit]

I think the blame falls less on the schools and more on gender stereotypes and discipline. Women have hormones too, but at least most of them usually keep it under control. If boys are doing a bunch of stupid stuff, the schools shouldn't have to readjust their whole system to cater to disruptive behavior.

[Azura]

An interesting thing to keep in mind is that in early 20th century and before, girls were considered unsuited for academics (too much reading could make them sterile...), and I doubt that school back then were less academic, swordfight-hating, and disciplinary than modern schools.

Boys and girls have different behavior for many reasons, and one one the reasons why young girls generally are calm and well-adjusted is because that is what girls are brought up to be, while the boys are free to be wild and unorganized because boys will be boys. /rant

Also wow, zero tolerance sounds stupid as fuck, I'm glad I live in a country where that isn't a thing.

Edited May 23, 2014 by Azura

[harrpie]

The zero tolerance could be a due to the fact that 90% of elementary school teachers are female. Many people are bias unconsciously usually to the same gender. so that could be the reason why many teachers are harsh towards male students.

[eclipse]

FIRST THINGS FIRST: Check the source. These are the guys who made it, and this is the guy it's named after. Taking a gander at their teaching staff, this doesn't look encouraging - teaching requires more than knowing the subject.

NEXT: The video itself, courtesy of this lady, who coincidentally has a book out with the same name. Things I see include a bar graph with no reference (~45 seconds in), NAME THAT STUDY (~1:30), that axiom applies to everyone (~1:47), I sure as hell didn't see that in my time during school (~2:10). . .this is getting painful.

Screw it, this YT commenter said it best:

Not all girls like ~emotional stuff and not all boys like violence. Some girls like horror stories and soccer, some boys like dolls and playing inside. Some girls have bad grades, some boys are top of class students. Don't generalize it!

The problem it's not that schools aren't "boy friendly", the problem is that schools aren't "individuality friendly". We're told from the start that girls like pink, boys like blue and stuff like that... Every child has to be dealt with in a different way. They deserve to be listened and understood, but "grown ups" just assume they know what's wrong and try to fix something that might not even be wrong.

Ask the kids how they feel!

Also, the fantasy section of my local public library is testament that fantasy has a nontrivial male audience.

[NobodiePichu]

its not a problem of either gender getting more attention as the role model, cause in my opinion boys and girls act pretty much the damn same a lot of the time they just express themselves differently cause society bias blah bla blah, its just that the education system is BS and society has little discipline anymore cause yay good health care.