Lovely article Peter. Your last paragraph is really important.

"First, catch boys doing something good, and praise them. I’ve seen schools that do this. Second, widen the range of behaviour that we reward: academic success, helping others, a range of sports. Third, look at who gets punished at school. Can we get more from boys by offering praise and rewards? Finally, while we make boys listen to us as teachers and parents, we have to return the favour, and listen to them."

This approach is shown to work well in raising children. If schools are properly resourced they could potentially, with this approach, foster individuality and reward a variety of natural and hard-earned 'gifts'.

In countries like America and Australia, sporting achievement is recognised and rewarded over academic achievement particularly as witnessed in all-boy schools. During the all important formative years it would greatly help boys to receive praise for efforts and achievements in service to others, education, science (etal) drama, music etc.

Good role models are important at home and at school, especially while the wider media focus is on sport and celebrity and fostering unhealthy perceptions of what it means to be masculine.

This reminds me of the situation in a highly feminist school (public) where an arts teacher was continuously telling the girls in the class that she didn’t want any boys in the class. Meanwhile, the arts teacher was mainly teaching the girls about male artists, such as the Impressionists and Picasso.

There are plenty of role models for boys, but unfortunately I don’t think there is much interest in the highly feminist education system.

Dr West is seeing things as either/or and he doesn't need to. Being a footy player and a good student aren't mutually exclusive categories. We need boys who aren't the stereotypical footy yobbo, but aren't afraid of those who are. Boys who are strong enough to stop the tools from getting everything they want, without becoming like them. We just need boys and adult role models who are strong in a variety of ways.

'catch boys doing something good'

You sound like that would be a hard thing to do, or it's not something you often see. 'catch them'?

pft role models. I've never had one and I turned out alright. Unless you count Luke SkyWalker. But he was a terrorist.

I remember in yr 3 I had the good fortune of being in the class of the only male teacher in the school. For 20 mins at the start of each day, all the guys in the class would jump on him and try to wrestle him to the ground. He was a huge guy and sometimes had 6 of us hanging off him. Then when we had run out of energy, the lessons began. We respected that guy more than any of the snarly uptight women teachers. Strange thing is the girls also looved him, looking back, it might have even been in a psuedo-sexual way. Pining for the alpha male. Some mothers were concerned about this guy because the girls hovered around him during lunch times and he helped them do cartwheels and gymnastics and the girls were wearing skirts.

He probably wouldn't last 2 mins in a primary school these days.

benk,

'Being a footy player and a good student aren't mutually exclusive categories. '
Yeah I get sick of that too. I also get sick of people thinking models are dumb. Any chick getting paid squillions and getting free coke all day is no dope.

< Boys look for good role models... >

Do they?

If they really do, then they'd see them. Good role models ARE out there, albeit with generally much lower profiles than the dodgy ones.

I'd put it to you Dr West that many, perhaps most, boys are not interested in good roles models but are very interested in bad role models, or role models that are renowned for playing up and defying conventional authority.

I think that this desire to run against the grain is innate in the human psyche or in the male human psyche at least.

So, it isn't really going to help if we try to deliver better role models, is it?

Let's face it, if boys predominantly had an innate desire to follow good academic, scientific or political role models rather than sporting heroes and the like, the whole world would be a much much better place, with all the enormous problems that now confront us having been overcome long ago.

Ludwig,
Males built the schools.

Nearly every text book has been written by a male.

Almost every discovery was discovered by a male.

Not hard for a teacher to find a role model for boys, but try and find a teacher prepared to do it, and it would be easier to find the Holy Grail (and many people have been looking for that for centuries).

vanna, I think you'll find that most decent roles models don't whinge about feminised school systems.

They harden up and deal with it.

I would make the point that it's much more difficult for male teachers to work these days than female ones, so Houellebecq makes a reasonable point there.
I don't blame this on 'feminised' schools though, which seems like a copout to me. I'd say that this is the result of a number of factors, the first being that today people are more likely to complain about sexual abuse and the media is more likely to report it. Combine this with a cotton-wool pampering attitude from parents and the result is helicopter parenting and hysteria, meaning that an accusation from a female student toward a male teacher is likely to stick, regardless of whether or not the teacher is in the wrong.

This is indeed tragic, but whinging about feminised systems or trying to pretend that women are just as likely to commit sexual assault just distracts people from the real issues.

Regarding the students, ultimately, I come back to personal responsibility.

Some kids will grow up. Some won't. That comes down to them and the efforts by their parents.

turnrightthanleft
In our feminist education system, there is the almost universal belief that if boys are encouraged, it will have a detrimental effect on girls.

I personally have not found any teacher who does not have that belief, and every teacher I know of is quite prepared to have boy's marks bottom out completely, or has no interest in improving boys marks.

There have been no exceptions.

The NSW Department of Education had a report prepared on the problems with boys' education - it was pulped before release because of fears it might lessen the advantages girls now enjoy.

For many years Education was accused of sexism as it was shown by outcomes to produce more favourable results for boys. The same analysis will produce one conclusion; education is still sexist and is designed to favour girls.

The staffing structure of schools is now dominated by females, how many are given specialist training in how to understand the way boys operate and to work with it.

An anecdote that bears resemblance to truth, and seen particularly in schools, is girls talk to think whilst boys think to talk. Silence does not mean lack of engagement, watch the boy at the back of class who seems to be doodling – when he looks up and wants eye engagement he is more than likely to give a 2 sentence synopsis of the lesson having thought long about it. Is this a lesser form of learning to those who speak volumes? And how much of this is a matter of the skills of the teacher in engendering engagement?

I have listened to teachers complain that whilst having boys outdoors doing adventure activities they could not shut them up yet whilst in class could not get them to say a word. My comment was, ‘so what have you learned from this observation’?

Much of what is claimed to be success or failure is about what is chosen as being such. I wonder what would happen if an old fashioned exam only approach was used to compare achievements against the outcomes of current HSC process – one fraught with subjective assessments.

Perhaps a myth to explode is that there are no differences between the genders in how they do things such as learn.

TLTR, go back to an exam based assessment system, & the boys will fly to the top again.

While we have an immoral teacher assessment of their pupils, based on bias, & the results of home produced assignments, often done by parents, we will have to continue to water down the demands our unis put on students, who just don't have the basics for hard knowledge based subjects.

This has led to a whole generation of teachers who could not now pass the math & physics exams we did for matriculation, in the 50s, 60s, & to some extent in the 70s.

WE are headed for the roll of poor white trash of Asia, & it's this garbage education system, devised & run by women, for women that is leading the rout.

How satisfying is it for those who stand to gain from a continuation of the war between the sexes to find a new term that sounds scientific and medicalises a new disorder for boys?

Reach for the Dymo labelling machine, lump all boys into the one negative category together, there is now 'proof' through a scientific sounding label that there is no need whatsoever to understand their individual needs because through a process of begging the question, we now have all of the 'evidence' needed to patronise boys as truly defective girls. It really makes you wonder what Darwin was thinking of that he didn't realise that human males alone carried a defective gene that makes it a miracle that any have survived to this day. Human males are crippled because their emotional IQ is zilch, they cannot communicate their emotions.

It is rubbish of course. As any mother of a son will - make that should - quickly point out, boys certainly start off loving and affectionate. So the problem is what do we do to them that causes them to retreat into themselves? It doesn't look as though they are forever rewarded and advantaged by a 'patriarchy', but there is a more than fair chance that the bile aimed at the gender and the lack of recognition and reward in the education system are setting them back.

It is not necessary to howtow to feminist ideology to get the wretched lot of boys noticed. Really, is anyone silly enough to believe that boys get their definition of masculinity from a video game, that they are now thought to be incapable of discriminating between fantasy and reality? All that stuff about bays and fashion, is he kidding?

If there is a problem with masculinity it is tat it is so regularly trashed and the denial of any positive features is taught in schools. Now there is a problem.

A clearly written article on a very important topic, although not saying anything really new to my ears.

Framing the problem, as some people do, in terms of some sort of male-vs.-female war will not achieve anything worthwhile. Better to focus on points like the one made buy Paul@Bathurst about learning styles. That is crucial: in some ways boys tend to learn differently from girls. But note that we are discussing differences between "average" boys on the one hand and "average" girls on the other. There will always be some boys who learn similarly to most girls, and vice versa.

Another important thing is the ratio between male and female staff in schools. Men have left the teaching profession in droves over the last twenty years, and one of the biggest reasons is that they felt they were increasingly regarded as potential child abusers by parents, administrators, even female teachers. Somehow more men must be attracted back into the profession. Their presence certainly encourages boys to engage more heartily with school.

Pelican's plea for more recognition and encouragement for boys in the arts should be played at high volume. As a school music teacher I go to great lengths to do this, and given some patience it pays off as boys' participation increases in lessons and in extra activities like choral and solo singing, instrumental ensembles etc

I laughed when I saw that this article was based upon a lecture given at Kings School. This poncy, elitist, 'rich-man's children only' school has 'perfect' role models unlike schools in the Western Suburbs.

There's not much equality in education, is there?

http://dangerouscreation.co

I'm just so fed up with this role model crap. We don't have any ! All we get to see is sport & crap music being shoved down our throats. There's no role model in that. If we really, really want our kids to become intelligent adults then we should send them to schools overseas.
We've got 40 years of evidence that our education system is not worth the name.
Get intelligent teachers & you'll have intelligent young people within two semesters.

It was a rubbish article.

Boys are doing abysmally and all this so called 'expert' on boys education can do is say we should catch them doing something right.

For the first 100 years or so of mass education, before the misandrist revolution, boys regularly outperformed girls in pretty much everything. It was considered girls were less intelligent than boys. Then feminists completed their long march through the institutions and suddenly boys were being comprehensively outperformed by girls in all areas.

This wasn't the result of some accelerated counter-Darwinian evolution by boys. The fact was that educationalists wanted girls to do better and to do this they wanted boys to do worse. They did this by moving the goalposts. For example, feminists didn't like the fact that boys are naturally better at maths and physics. So they simply changed the curriculum to make what were hard sciences more like social sciences and hence more attractive to girls.

Other education reforms have also hurt boys: the lack of discipline in schools; the endless talk/discussions and group work; the anti-male bias of the curriculum and of many teachers.

Wenk, you are absolutely right. Before we took the anti-male turn we used to see boys as being full of energy but needing guidance. Sport was seen as providing an outlet for that energy while discipline in schools was seen as necessary for guiding that energy into productive pursuits. The history of the world bears this out. Even a prominent feminist has said if it were up to women we'd still be loving in caves. This is true. It was men who put men on the moon. If it were up to women we'd still be empathising with one another in our caves.

When feminists like Dr West see themselves as advocates for boys, is it any wonder boys have no chance at school?

TRTL, I like your 'harden up and deal with it' advice. I'll remember it next time I hear about glass ceilings, pay disparity, housework, sexual objectification of women and the other ad nauseum rubbish that feminsts bleat on about.

Silence is what we get from Nina, Helen etal. All the indocrinated feminists who bleat on about equality and sexism and disadvantage.

What a big bunch of hypocrits.

Who do not their beliefs or what they beleive to be real, challanged.

Ahhh...Dane...behind every man is the GREAT woman!

What always amazes me about these little gender squabbles we have on this forum is the contributors going on about how badly off boys (and ultimately, men) in our society are.

All these boys in the education system do have mothers I imagine?
Most mothers can and do move heaven and earth to ensure their sons get a fair education.
I don't imagine any 'feminist educator' would be able to talk these female mothers into allowing their sons to have an inferior education to their daughters?

I agree it is sad that male teachers are now few in number in most schools. All kids should have a variety of people teaching them at school.

But do we want to go back to the 'good old days' when many boys went to boys only schools (usually private schools), where many boys had a very traumatic education to say the least?

I don't believe that there is this big, bad feminist scheme out there trying to undermine the education of our boys.
That notion is more than a little paranoid I reckon!

I think the issue in education is not so much a feminIST education system, but more of a feminINE system. I will step into the dangerous territory of generalisations here, but that's unavoidable.

I spent the last five years teaching in an English department dominated, not surprisingly, by women. For most of that time, I was outnumbered 33 to 1. What resulted was a curriculum that was strikingly feminine and, as such, inaccessible to many boys. Themes, issues and texts appealed to girls but alienated many boys. It was my job to work with this curriculum but to make it more accessible and appealing to all.

My hidden weapon in this battle was my Y chromosome. Unlike my colleagues, I know what it is like to be a boy in the English classroom. Admittedly, I have the corresponding difficulty of NOT knowing what it is like to be a girl. But, with a heavily feminised curriculum, I somehow managed to achieve balance. My girls achieved (and, in my new workplace, continue to achieve) strong results, and I had many parents letting me know that the year their sons had me as a teacher was the first they enjoyed English, or the first that they understood Shakespeare, or - most importantly - the first that they passed English. I don't think I did anything special except showing the boys that you don't have to be a ladyboy to write well, or present a good speech, or enjoy Shakespeare.

I don't mean to blow my own horn here - again, I stress that my gender was enough to achieve that balance. And I don't want to suggest that we should 'de-feminise' the curriculum - that would just reverse the imbalance. What I suggest is that boys need more exposure to men in academic - and particularly humanities - subjects at school. While I doubt that many boys aspire to be like me, I at least offer them an achievable example of success and happiness in life. I can't do it alone, though!

Ah Suzie,

the All men are liars blog has an interesting bit on Steve Biddup/
http://blogs.smh.com.au/executive-style/allmenareliars/2010/10/08/masks.html

<Chapter one of the "new" Manhood - like the old Manhood is titled "The Problem", which Biddulph says "can be put very simply".

"Most men don't have a life. What we call our life is mostly just a big act, a mask that we clamp on to our faces each morning and don't take off until we fall asleep at night," he writes.>

That is a good point Otokonoko. For some time there has been commentary on the difficulty of attracting men to the teaching profession - the pay rates have improved but do not compare with jobs in IT, Medicine, Law or Engineering in a time when most people still aspire to own a house and not be forever indebted to the bank.

It is a shame these discussions revert to form on OLO without stepping back and identifying if there is a problem, the nature of the problem and why, then come up with possible solutions.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s without role models other than my parents and some good teachers and turned out okay but the media was less influential and the notion of celebrity was not as pervasive.

We should be looking at how some family structures have changed and the fact many children are now institutionalised from a young age. What are the impacts and how can we offset them - a big ask but there is never just one reason or just one influence. The world is more complicated than just finger pointing at one aspect in a myriad of changes over the last 50 years.

Otokonoko
“or - most importantly - the first that they passed English.”

A question as to how these boys were allowed to continue on if they didn’t pass English?

In my time at primary school, if a student did not pass English, they would not be allowed to continue on, but had to repeat the grade. AND, if there were a large number of students not passing, there would be a major investigation of that school.

It does appear that the abysmal declines in our education systems are being covered up, but this decline is occasionally highlighted in such things as the Master’s Report in QLD Education.

For example: -

“In the final year of primary school in Queensland, the gap between the highest- and lowest-achieving 20 per cent of students represents about three to four years of school.

The gap between the top and bottom five per cent of children is equivalent to between six and seven years of school – in other words, equivalent to the total length of time these children have been in school.”

http://education.qld.gov.au/mastersreview/preliminary.html

What was also noted in that report was the almost total decline in maths and science, areas where boys are most often interested, with the majority of primary school teachers only spending a small % of their time teaching maths and science.

The feminist corruption of our education systems has resulted in an education system now heading downwards in almost every area, and a systems that attempts to cover up as mich as possible. This not only has had a major effect on boys education, but a major effect on our skills base and productivity levels

Excellent points Vanna, I agree, more male teachers are needed within the education system to benefit children and for a number of other reasons.

Those literacy and numeracy tests in primary school arrive too late [year 5 or 6 by memory] and to encourage children to learn their basics thoroughly, rewards such as exercising prior to the subject or after the subject outside, in addition to other 'little rewards' such as a change of environment apart from the classroom, given within a school term, to all who work through and pass science maths and english is a suggestion.

My Year 6 teacher from Victoria [the 70's] arrived at school dressed in her short tartan skirt, navy jumper and boots, swinging her long auburn hair [prettiest blue eyes I've ever seen in my life], kindly and respectfully [yet firmly] stating that if we all scored well in our maths and english tests we would be rewarded throughout each term by doing extra sport and rec activities outside in addition to learning other subjects under the oak trees on hot days.

Her approach worked a treat and there would not be one adult now who could ever forget the best primary school teacher amongst those hard cruel nuns we had, in primary school, who used a cane and feather duster in year 4 learning our times tables on a 44 degree hot day, rarely let out of the classroom for a sip of water.

Good point, vanna. I agree that passing English should be necessary for progression. Some time between my schooling days and my entering the teaching profession, there seems to have emerged a policy of putting kids through to save their self-esteem. I don't think it works. A kid who just needed another shot at Year 2 is pushed through into Year 3, where s/he faces harder work. If the kid couldn't cope with Year 2, how is s/he going to cope with Year 3? The kids fall further behind until we have kids in Year 10 whose diagnostic tests reveal that they read and write at a Year 1 or 2 level.

We used to run remedial programs, where students essentially did catch-up English in Year 8, with the intention of bringing them up to speed by the end of the year. We had some success, but the introduction of the Essential Learnings put an end to that - it was mandated that we had to impose a "one size fits all" curriculum across the year level. I don't have a problem with that - provided that we are allowed to keep kids back until they achieve these allegedly "essential" learnings.

As for the literacy and numeracy testing (conducted in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9), I think they represent a squandered opportunity. I am lucky enough to occupy a position in my school where I am able to decide just what will be done with the data from the tests. Where many schools focus simply on improving results on the tests, my school focuses instead on using the tests to highlight weaknesses in our curriculum and rectifying those problems. By doing that, I think our results naturally improve not as a superficial and inflated statistic, but as a true indicator of our students' achievements and abilities.

In case you couldn't tell, I'm very proud of my school and the opportunities it gives kids. There's a long way to go, but at least some schools in Queensland are making the most of a flawed system.

Keep up your fantastic work Otokonoko; a brilliant mind and may I say [after having read most of your posts on OLO] you are a broadminded and non-judgemental person for a teacher [some in my family and their friends] - am trying to say here that you think outside the square/the norm.

Your students are exceptionally lucky to have had you as their teacher!

we are unique,Otokonoko
I think that a major problem has emerged, in that so many of the schools say they provide "excellent" education, when in reality they don’t.

This now extends right up to universities, where 30% of foreign students applying for permanent residency could not pass the immigration department's standard test for English. That is after they had completed a degree through an Australian university.

The lack of standard testing has lead to an overall decline in the quality of education. However standard tests have been opposed by the teachers union.

In the area of male teachers, there should be more, but I don't believe too many men would want to be in a system where there is no performance pay. Nearly every industry has bonuses or performance pay except education, and I can’t imagine too many men wanting to be in a system that does not reward hard work. However performance pay has been opposed by the teachers union.

In the area of role models for boys, they are very easy to find, but too many teachers are unwilling to point them out, because they believe it could disadvantage girls. And the teachers union of course has opposed programs to improve boy's education.

The teachers union has also opposed every single state and federal government that have been elected by the public for many years.

Time is fast running out for Australia. Other countries are fast catching up to Australia in education, if not going well ahead of Australia.

Eg. only 3% of QLD students received the top marks in a science test. 40% of Honk Kong students (almost half) received top marks in the same test.

In future years we will not be able to compete with Hong Kong and many other countries. All we can do is sell them coal.

Boys are not "in trouble" except insofar as the State refuses to acknowledge that boys are different to girls and they have a right to express that difference.

I have previously related my experience in the Qld Education system when a teacher decided that my boy must have ADHD because he wasn't sufficiently engaged by her inferior pedagoguery and so "misbehaved". she made him sit in the back of the class. She must have thought all the other boys had ADHD too, because there wasn't a boy seated in the front half of her classroom. She wanted him medicated to compensate for her lack of ability (and I suspect a dislike of males) and it took all my efforts to ensure that didn't happen. The next year he had a young male teacher who was very interested in boys' education and his results soared. It took an exceptional teacher to make the standard curriculum accessible to boys. He is one of only 3 male teachers in a school of nearly 800 students. The other two are the sports teacher and one of the deputy heads, neither of which have significant classroom duties. there are also 2 or 3 male grounds staff and no females. the school is plastered with the ubiquitous "girls can do anything" stickers, but there is a strange absence of any kind of positive message for boys, just lots of prohibition notices directed at such heinous crimes as running in the playground and climbing the trees in the playground.

We live in a society in which any traditional "female" traits are praised and encouraged, but traditional "male" traits are demonised, except for the one that says "respect women", which is enforced willy-nilly, with no concomitant demand that men be respected.

The simple fact is that the plight of boys is but a symptom of a far larger problem, which is that the feminist-inspired "social construction" of our society is ignoring the needs of half of the community. Orwell pointed out what happens when the pigs get control of the farm...

The fact is the school system encourages conformity to whatever the agreed flavour of the day doctrine whether it be gender policy or education style.

There is some merit to single gender schools and some disadvantages. The advantage is that some of that boy behaviour is more accepted and not judged alongside girls who are by nature different. The disadvantage of course is that in real life girls and boys have to interact, the problem is in catering to one particular gender over another.

Mixed schools but with gender differentiated classes might be the solution so there is interaction in some fields such as drama and during playtime. Some food for thought in any case.

Victoria Point SHS (on Brisbane's southern bayside) offered gender-differentiated classes - they may still do so. It received a lot of attention and, from what I can tell, worked quite well. From my understanding, the main subjects - English, Maths, Junior Science and the Junior Humanities, PE, etc. were split by gender, while in senior some of the subjects offered combined classes. This enabled boys to do those less-popular subjects (catering and textiles, for example) and girls to do the same (think metalwork, etc). Lunchtimes were opportunities for socialisation, as were the subjects where boys and girls worked together. I think it was (is?) a great idea.

Sorry folks,

Some split classes work, others make no difference. Nothing works as well as financial rewards. Teacher's pay has to be connected to student outcomes and performance.

Never has it ever been known that something progressively gets better and better unless the people involved were gaining financially from it.

So ultimately teachers have to be paid according to results.

A teachers job is to teach, and if student marks continue to stagnate or get worse, teachers get no more pay rises.

One of my sons recently completed his Dip Ed as a mature age student. He was the only male in his year (he chose primary teaching), and all his lecturers were female.

To my horror, he was subjected to outrageous sexism by one of his lecturers. Things became so bad that he eventually lodged a formal complaint, supported by many of his female peers.

There were times when he came very close to throwing it all in. He persisted, with help and encouragement from his family and other students in his classes.

This young man had for the previous 2 years run a refuge for abused and disabled youth. Among other duties, he supervised meetings between the kids and their abusive parents. He'd also spent 12 months working for the UN in refugee camps in Tanzania, teaching kids to play sport. He's been around, he's seen, lived with and dealt with extreme circumstances. But the personal sexist attacks by his lecturer almost brought him undone.

He's now a much loved teacher, in a staff room that apart from him, is entirely female.

As a feminist mother, I was disgusted and outraged by the treatment he received at uni. I was also very saddened to discover that the equality we'd fought for in the eighties had become so distorted.

It was never our intention that things should become so skewed. Many of us had young sons - and we wanted only the best for them. Any "feminist" who gains satisfaction of any kind from seeing boys and men disadvantaged and/or badly treated is not, in my view, a true feminist.

Briar rose,

The treatment of your son is not uncommon. Similar treatment is carried out on boy students right down into primary school.

There was a federal inquiry undertaken into boy’s education in 2004. The inquiry was quite large and involved numerous studies. http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/edt/eofb/report.htm

I remember speaking to a number of teachers some years later, and found not one teacher was aware that the inqury had taken place, and not one teacher was aware of the recommendations of the inquiry.

However, all teachers wanted more pay of course, and all teachers wanted more “government spending” (or taxpayer funding).

In reality they had minimal interest in education or in Australia, and were simply using the taxpayer for money.

briar rose, "It was never our intention that things should become so skewed."

Amen to that. It is common though.

Not so long ago while I was on the school council of a state primary school, a young male teacher arrived (shock!). He, his attractive wife and baby were instant hits with all of the students. In a year, this teacher performed a miracle, he managed to form and coach a cricket team where there had not been one for years, few of the boys had ever held a bat and parents had donated the gear. The team went on to win the zone and district competitions, an incredible feat. The educational spin-off from the growing successes of this team during the year was amazing as even boys who were not directly involved were keen to go to school and study.

Sadly, this young male teacher and his family were soon gone. He was frozen out and his ideas were blocked by the all-female administration. The shabby treatment meted out to the cricket team was an example, his idea of a cricket ball signed by the team for display among the trophies of years ago was refused. There was to be no mention of the team at the end of year 'speech night' and no printed plastic covered certificate as a memento for the players (his skilled wife was to make them herself). The only grudging acknowledgement of the team's success was that they were permitted to stand briefly as part of a morning parade while he mentioned their success from the back of the room. On the same parade it was overshadowed by the complete fuss made by the principal about a girl who had been nominated to sing at some minor event locally.

There is a reason why some State schools lose boys (and some girls) to private schools at year 5, or as early as the private schools will take them. There needs to be a changing of the guard.

Boys ARE different to girls.

Discipline has gone out the window.

Respect for others appears to have, disappeared.

Some of my work colleagues (women) think it is fun and great to get "plastered" on the weekend - and on weeknights. What hope do these children have when their greatest role models (parents) behave like this.

When my son was in grade 6, a male teacher pointed out 3 boys(one being my son) who he "thought" would be the ones to "drop out of school". All because these boys were "active boys with enquiring minds.

All three have great jobs - one is an optomitrist.

My son now has a son. They discipline him when necessary, but above all they praise him when he learns something new. He is beginning life with great role models - his parents. I am so proud of my son and daughter-in-law.

Ahhh...we are unique...behind every man is the GREAT woman!

Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao?