"Don't teach boys to be like girls" - really interesting article

[zog]

here

I agree with every word. Sue Palmer talks so much sense - can't she be Minister for Education??

Girls are also mentioned:

?Not letting boys be boys is not only detrimental to them but also to girls, many of whom become overcompliant with what is considered ?good' behaviour and could do with a shove outdoors to take more risks,? she says. ?I certainly wish that had happened to me.?

i do think that lack of freedom is an important point - i think kids need to experience things - good and bad and they are memories for better or worse

when your child is 87 rocking in a chair, do you want them to only be able to say "when i was a kid we had something called a playstaion and a game called san andreas"

i would rather my kid say " iclimbed a tree and nearly kiled misel on many an occasion

while i do think there are huge differances between boys and girls (anyone who says there's not is kidding themselves) i'm not sure it's fair to say only boys are sufffering from the lack of activity and competition in some schools these days.

when i was in school i attended an all girls primary and there were stupid rules like not being allowed to run in the playground as it was unsafe... it drove us mad and as young kids we found it impossible not to break into a run and let off steam.

playing with my friends involved just as much climbing trees and playing sports as it did playing with dolls.

yes boys are a bit more rough and tumble than girls but i think girls suffer jjust as much from the lack of excercise and competition these days

Gizmo, I don't think anything was meant personally. You have noted that Northerner agrees with you but not that AtheneNoctua didn't and nor did Custardo (I don't think)

Of course some people have competitive boys but some people have competitive girls.

I just don't think it's about gender and I think the article is insidiously anti-woman as SheherezadetheGoat said.

But Lol at the numbers of people betting their anjos and fanjos on various facts.

leave my anjo out of this

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Insidiously anti-woman? Really?

Why does wanting state education to cater fully for all the children who pass through it mean that Sue Palmer is anti-woman?

Surely any child, girl or boy, should be encouraged to take risks, climb trees, be active? And if not, why not?

1st rule of fight club?

by the way.... agree whole heartedly with her last paragraph about forcing kids to read and write at 5 years of age being 'state sponsered child abuse'

i learned to read at 8 years of age and had read the hobbit by the age of 9.... i was the best at english for my entire school career. forcing children to read and write at such a young age serves no purpose whatsoever except to confuse and frighten them. in germany the first time i waas introduced to letters was at the age of 6, and i was at the younger end of the class so most would have been 7, all schooling up til then had been arts and crafts, sports and play.

dd's playschool has even stopped doing the alphabet and numbers at the parents request, parents wanted it to remain a playschool not a playschool. if only we could convince the primary school to slow down as well it would be better for all the kids involved

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The title, "don't teach boys to be like girls".

OK, what are girls "like"? Subtext is they are passive, submissive, not competitive.

And whatever it is girls are like, boys shouldn't be like them.

Oh and "geniuses are much more likely to be male" - and that's not a social construct at all?

The rest of the article is ok (fair enough points about bringing formal education in too soon) but it's fundamentally anti-women. I have no sympathy with the point about the "feminisation" of education. I live in an entirely masculine world of work so if another area is slightly feminised, then thank bloody god.

My ds broke his wrist last year falling 5 foot from a climbing frame. His teacher actually asked him why his was climbing.

I split my wrist open while I was at school - playing ball too near the school and put my hand through a window by accident. Same response.

This happens to girls and boys (and btw, I am the archetypal sports-hating girl but I'm bloody competitive on the things I'm good at).

looks around hopefully for a roast potato making competition and jeers at all opposition

I don't think it is saying boys shouldn't be like girls cause girls are bad, it's recognising boys are different to girls in teh whole and learn in a whole different way.

My son hates carpet time, struggles to form letters correctly and has the concentration span of a nat so is not as advanced at his reading as school say he should be.

Why is he deemed to be 'failing'

He is bright, he loves to do things, make things, talk about things and has the most fantastic imagination. He lves numbers and sums in his head he thrives at. Give him a pen and ask him to write down his answer or read a sum and he retreats.

MargoandJerry - that's a rather competitive attitude, isn't it?

Surely you should be helping the opposition to feel better about themselves

Anyway, point well made - I am probably oversensitive about it. It's sad the article does have a distinctly anti-female lean, because I think the point about providing appropriate teaching for children (of any gender)who are risk takers, active and competitive is a good one.

at that teacher northener. how very bizarre

i do understand the article's point about boys behaviour being quite terrifying if you're not used to it, but i've got to say i find little girls alot scarier to deal with personally. boys just tear the room apart..... girls interrogate you!

can understand how a young teacher who's never had much contact with young boys would feel when they start fighting and smashing the room up though, but surely that should be dealt with during a teachers training... isn't something remiss in the way we educate teachers if they enter the classroom so completely unprepared for the way young kids behave?

I don't like the line that it is all the fault of those pesky women's libbers who have done down the boys. Stupid argument. CHILDREN need more opportunities to run about. There is no sense in saying 'all boys are definitely like this' or 'all girls are definitely like this' - each individual is different and there are plenty of active girls and passive boys. And most of them will be active at some points and passive at others.

Fine, loosen up on playfighting and give all children more opportunities to run around, but don't make lazy, untrue generalisations that determine how you treat every individual, whatever their character. That's just going back to the old days of 'cooking is for girls, woodwork for boys'.

Btw, horrible comment at the bottom of that article from some idiot who claims women teachers go into the job as some kind of feminist conspiracy. A key reason for fewer male primary school teachers because, in general, men tend to go for better paid jobs.

And what's this claim that schools don't allow children to compete? How many schools, exactly, ban competitive sports and don't have winners and losers on sports day? Bet it's either a myth or a very small number.

Our school is the only one I know of in our area (10 other primaries I can think of) who have a competitive sports day.

I have a nasty feeling that it is editorial slant from the Times team, to be frank, who are running an increasingly blatant 'back to the fifties' approach to their social/lifestyle commentating.

Very, very depressing from a paper that has been regular reading matter for me for years

edam right again.

My sister was actually very upset by her sons' (state primary) school sports day which was hyper competitive because it brought back lots of bad memories for her

Her boys are actually okish at sport so didn't mind it but one boy was crying because he came last at everything.

As I've said, I think people are competitive at what they are good at, regardless of gender. For some of us that's maths and for some of us that's sport.

I do see that those who are good at sport need some competition to showcase their skills but it has to be done sensitively (and frequently isn't). Other subjects don't find it necessary to humiliate the bad ones quite so completely - I don't recall there being a school maths competition where we all competed to work out sums and the good ones were allowed to choose the teams and the bad ones were made to struggle publicly over long division with parents looking on...

as dd is only 10 mo and i am not from the uk i am not up to date on the school systems here i find the more i hear about the soft mushy schooling in some places a little worrying

sports day here (infants) was competitive.

I think the article is spot on too. I would stretch it further to comment that young children in particular need to be running about and playing more rather than being shackled to desks. Boys in particular need more practical application. My DP couldn't concentrate at school, after a brief spell in the army he went back to A levels as an adult and went on to do an MA in Physics, he was intelligent but a really energetic boy that was bored by school. I have just decided to send my dd to a school that allows kids to climb trees,has underground dens, takes them swimming and has plenty of activities. They reckon it gives them an outlet and improves behaviour. I think the current education system only focusses on a limited skill set.. literacy and is ignoring other skills that children need to develop like creativity and verbal skills as well as physical.