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The Forum > Article Comments > 'Sit down, shut up': how schools are failing boys and what we can do > Comments

'Sit down, shut up': how schools are failing boys and what we can do : Comments

By Peter West, published 29/7/2016

Evidence that gender, class and race compound each other, so that girls from wealthier Anglo-Australian homes do better than working-class Anglo-Australian boys.

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At the heart of the author's article is conformity - conformity of teaching style where teaching is subverted to telling, conformity of social culture where sport is made out as a desirable aim, conformity of thought where inquiry for the sheer sake of knowledge and understanding is considered with scorn ("that's gay", and conformity of expectation - don't aim to be better or to improve - go along with the mob.

A genuine teacher is a motivator, a lover of topic, yet this ability seems to be crushed down into the assembly line rationale of "modern" education.

Is it any wonder that someone who can play with a ball is more highly regarded by much of society than someone who can play with thought, reason, and abstraction.
Posted by Ponder, Friday, 29 July 2016 9:28:41 AM
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While there's much in what you say Peter, I daresay boys who come from wealthier Anglo/celtic homes also fare better than the average working class slob?
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Friday, 29 July 2016 11:46:06 AM
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'Boys need a tough image. Boys can't do lots of stuff. You can't show emotions. They have to win. They have to have the last laugh. Those are the rules of any schoolyard.'
If these are the rules of any school yard then the failures are in school structure.
My school, a class of 48 with an approximate split of 50/50, the competition was fierce, with the top three consistently being boys.
Kids fitting the description in this article have been failed by their parents. Kids who have not learned to read, encouraged to want to know!

That said the modern 'cooperative' learning would have been death to me.
Posted by petere, Friday, 29 July 2016 12:15:15 PM
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at least the author recognises that their is a difference between boys and girls. Someone should tell Daniel Andrews.
Posted by runner, Friday, 29 July 2016 12:17:49 PM
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Daniel Andrews- what's he doing about boys and girls?

Yep, wealthier kids do fine most of the time. Check out your nearby elite school. In NSW, James Ruse High tops the state every year. Sydney Boys High also does well. And Sydney Grammar School. Check out sometime how many boys at these schools are Asian. A very high percentage. Why can't we talk more bluntly about these issues?
Posted by Waverley, Friday, 29 July 2016 1:04:21 PM
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Maybe Peter West should examine the arena of piano playing, where overwhelmingly, the participants are female and overwhelmingly, the winners are male. We are told that across the world, 80% of piano students are female and yet the males rise to the top. We have just had the International Piano competition in Sydney. Seven from thirty-two selected performers were female; in the finals, one from twelve was a young lady. Visit any eisteddfod or competition and you will see the young men excelling more as they get older. I don't understand this phenomenon but would like to.
Posted by estelles, Friday, 29 July 2016 1:37:08 PM
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I can't find results comparing boys and girls in Australian schools.

However, it wouldn't mean much anyway

The real test is an international test, and the TIMSS international test shows that Australian schools should be doing much better.

In fact, grades 1 to 4 are a waste of time for many students in Australia, and it is only towards grade 8 that they begin to learn something.

https://www.acer.edu.au/files/TIMSS-PIRLS_Australian-Highlights.pdf

Primary school teaching in Australia needs a complete overhaul, starting with teachers paid according to student performance and student satisfaction.
Posted by interactive, Friday, 29 July 2016 1:44:17 PM
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Waverley circles the wagons...
At last someone on this site has real knowledge! Maybe Waverley is actually from Waverley, in which case the real Australia stands up. Wherever the prime educational institutions, it is there where you find the Chinese.
There is a whole subject on this phenomena Waverley. Never once on this site have I seen the problems of Chinese immigration discussed intelligently.
Posted by diver dan, Friday, 29 July 2016 2:33:23 PM
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I find the editor of this site reasonably open to a reasoned debate.

I'm no expert on the Chinese and their impact in Australia but it would be good to have even a beginning introduction to:
- numbers of Chinese tourists
- Chinese students here and where they end up
- do Chinese students buy land while they are here ostensibly as students?
- in what sense can we talk of Chinese as foreigners or outsiders when there are many ethnic Chinese who have lived here for many years? Just as a boy of 15 may say "I am Greek" but his father and mother were born here as well as himself
- control of Australian resources by Chinese government-owned organisations
- is "Chinese" a description of race or nationality or culture? (Just as I wonder what is 'Jewish') . People say that if we're opposed to Chinese control of electricity supplies we are racist, but there is no one Chinese race but many races in China. We might, however, oppose foreign control of our resources

I could go on.
By all means let's have a full exploration of these issues as well as talking about boys' underachievement! But ethnicity class and gender intersect as factors in educational success.
Posted by Waverley, Friday, 29 July 2016 4:28:01 PM
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//Boys feel that on the whole school is something to be endured, rather than enjoyed.//

I rather enjoyed the learning bits. The time-wasting not so much.

//There were echoes of the principal in another school who said "A boy sits in school all day thinking of the game of footy he will play at 3.30".//

I assure you he does not. He jogs in his morning P.E. class thinking 'well, this is pointless. How is cross-country running supposed to set me up for a better future? I can't wait till next period, when I have a science lesson and will get to learn something that is actually useful and interesting.'

If I could have had extra science, maths and even English classes instead of time-wasting periods spent learning the rules of various codes of football (all as pointless and boring as each other), or how to dance the frigging foxtrot, my time at school would have been much more productive and enjoyable.

But instead we have this quaint, ill-founded belief that permeates our culture which says that people with Y chromosomes all love sport.

No, we don't. It's an inaccurate stereotype, and as such it's a poor basis for good education policy.

//Boys don't want to sit at desks and be talked at.//

I don't know that girls do either. But you're right; subjects where students are given problems to solve such as maths, science, music and art are far more engaging than subjects where the teacher sits you down and tells you what all the answers are. History and English are by far the worst in this regard.

//When asked for advice on this matter, my first suggestions are: talk less. And let the students do more. We need more adventure, more hands-on learning and maybe some creative chaos.//

I agree: I think more problem solving and more hands-on learning would help to address male underachievement in education.

Sport not so much.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Friday, 29 July 2016 5:44:05 PM
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It's often true that when we make the changes boys request (more active learning, more learning outdoors, recap of main points at lesson's conclusion, more guided group work) girls agree that this is better for them, too. Perhaps boys' complaints suggest more general criticisms of the passive modes of instruction West has highlighted.
Posted by Waverley, Saturday, 30 July 2016 10:14:13 AM
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I am fortunate in coming from a more enlightened time, when we did not keep kids at school way past a suitable age for many, just to keep the unemployment figures down. Those who were going to become carpenters, plumbers, secretaries & shop assistants went off at 15 to start learning something more useful than Shakespeare.

Those left at school after the intermediate really wanted to learn, as they planned on serious university courses. We had only 12 boys & 8 girls in 5Th year in a country town school of 350 kids. Today that school has 700+ kids, & a third of them are wasting their time & taxpayer money being there.

I am sorry for you Toni Lavis, you see I really enjoyed, as did most of us, being in the school Cadet Corps, the senior football team, the cricket team, just as much as we enjoyed the debating team, & the before & after school classes for honours candidates.

We even enjoyed learning a bit of hockey, so we could provide some sort of opposition to help train the girls hockey team.

One real advantage of the small numbers was all could participate, & you did not have to be all that good, as you played against other schools with similar numbers, who were mostly no better.

It would be really profitable for all involved, if we could get back to "schooling" only those who can actually profit from more time in school. Many could start their real education in a trade or vocation a couple or more years earlier, with advantage.
Posted by Hasbeen, Saturday, 30 July 2016 9:36:24 PM
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"Why are many boys doing relatively poorly in schools, and education overall?"

Because the system does not cater well for individual learning styles, its not about gender so much, its about the person. To state the bleeding obvious, everyone is an absolute individual. However in saying that, I understand the constraints of budgets and availability of properly trained teachers operating within intelligently constructed curriculums.

It's a bit like how we choose leaders today, it should be based on talent, NOT gender. But I often think I expect too much from my fellow humans.
Posted by Rojama, Sunday, 31 July 2016 12:19:35 PM
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Some useful points made above in this discussion.

There's something in the argument that as a boy in England put it:

"Teachers prefer girls. They work harder, look nicer, and smell better".

West could have talked about the Forest Schools Movement which takes kids outdoors to learn:

https://www.forestschools.com/what-happens-at-a-forest-school/
Posted by Waverley, Sunday, 31 July 2016 2:25:40 PM
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Actually it really is about gender. There is no doubt that girls & boys have different aptitudes. Boys are generally better at math & physics, they are similar at chemistry & girls are generally better at literary subjects.

Recognising this, the feminists who have managed to take control of western education systems have been progressively reducing the heavier content of math & physics, & introducing a literary element to the subject area.

We now have very high achievers from high school who cannot make change for a bus ticket without a calculator. At university they are finding such graduates cannot handle even moderate math concepts without a remedial course in basic real math.

The feminists have achieved their objective. More girls are entering university, but at what cost. Year 12 graduates cannot even handle the minor math required for a trade course in the electrical or building trades. This is the stuff that 15 year olds with just a junior high education had no trouble with just 25 years ago.

Yes the education system is failing boys, but this is not by accident. It is the result of a long slow & cunning process to advantage women, at male expense. Of course the feminists are too stupid to see they are disadvantaging the entire population with their trickery, just the boys even more.
Posted by Hasbeen, Sunday, 31 July 2016 4:05:28 PM
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Hasbeen

I like your second-last post. This is something I've increasingly noticed too. Education has been drawn out far too long. We seem to have accepted the dictates of ... I dunno, the usual powers that be ... that by keeping kids at school for as long as practically possible, we will end up with a better class of workforce participants - and generally happier people.

Why?? Is this trope ever properly challenged? It's become an act of sacrilege to question whether staying at school until the age of 18 is beneficial to the average human being. For centuries, kids went to school to learn the three-R basics and maybe some appreciation of culture and history, and then they left to join the workforce where they learned their trade or profession on the job.

And it doesn't stop at school. Tertiary education is now progressively extending the length of time needed to acquire basic qualifications to enter the workforce. By way of example, teacher training is soon to be extended to 5 years (in line with recently introduced EU standards) - with students having to complete a post-graduate Masters of Education, before they can start teaching. That means yet another year of tertiary study and another year of student poverty followed by more HECS debt. And for what? Does it really make them better teachers?

It's getting insane! School and academia are fine for the academically inclined - male or female - but most of us want to get our formal education out of the way, start earning a living and getting trade and professional experience on the job.

All the education studies in the world will never get students to enjoy years and years of enforced bondage to schools and tertiary institutions just to reach the holy grail of workforce entry.
Posted by Killarney, Monday, 1 August 2016 2:30:18 AM
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If that's true, it's bad news, Killarney.

It takes weeks to train police....and already 4 years to educate teachers?? Why would a smart man go into teaching? Or a clever woman either?
Posted by Waverley, Monday, 1 August 2016 10:44:47 AM
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Tell me when to stop laughing and choking at the same time. When girls classes were being mega promoted, especially under Madame von Kirner's regime, male teachers like myself warned that those policies while great and surely needed for girls were also being very biased against and hurtful towards boys. I recall my then school. An after hours class for girls. THEWY asked their female teachers to allow boys to join. Those teachers refused so the girls refused to attend. Yes the students themselves saw the stupidity in what was going on. And I could talk about the deliberate bullying of male teachers at many schools by senior females, the back stabbing, the crap ALL supported by a wretched Dept of Education. I challenge the Minister to take a bloody good look for himself BUT to question the advice he gets as well. Then, to create effective fair policy, and act upon it
Posted by Ange, Monday, 1 August 2016 11:43:09 AM
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Hmm. Yes, if we have classes to encourage girls, why not have classes to encourage boys?

I suspect the vigilantes would ride in to attack any such proposal.
Posted by Waverley, Monday, 1 August 2016 2:43:11 PM
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Yes Killarney, it really is getting ridiculous. Primary school teachers did a 2 year teachers college course, & went to work. Even some high school teachers did only a 2 year course. Of course they were better educated at school so had less to learn.

I remember one poor girl from our school who did a home economics course, sent back to our school for her practical teaching, just 20 months after she had been a student. Talk about set up for a discipline problem.

Of course most teachers were the cream of the crop. It was pretty hard to get into university in those days. You needed a scholarship, & most got there with a teachers scholarship. You needed a pretty good pass in a real exam to get one of those. To get a company scholarship in engineering for example, you needed at least 2 honours, & 3 to be sure of getting one some years.

To be sure of get the teachers scholarship you wanted it was wise to have at least one honours & 3 "A" passes, hence all but 2 of us were doing some extra hours in honours courses.

Teaching wasn't a 9 to 3 job back then either. Those who weren't running honours extra curricular courses were generally coaching sporting teams before & after school, & one math teacher did both. We had a brilliant math/science master, who worked his butt off to get some of us up to where we needed to be. I was so glad to hear he had made it to headmaster a few years later. He deserved it.
Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 2 August 2016 12:21:47 AM
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I agree Hasbeen, unfortunately though, the world around the old school structure has changed dramatically.
You describe an educational institution which was surrounded by a class structure, very English in its views and outcomes.
The recession of the eighties was a catalyst for lengthening the school term for children, effectively by one year. It came at a convenient time for politicians to dodge the fallout from rising youth unemployment, and probably appeared at the time to have merit .

But as an easy fix, it was flogged to death for what it was worth at the time, and is undoubtedly to this day, offering simple fixes for masking otherwise high youth unemployment.
What has effectively nailed this state of affairs into a concrete "forever", is welfare!
The encouragement on all fronts, is for children to remain under parental care until eighteen yo.

Where we see segments of society ignoring the pressure to remain at school is in the Aboriginal communities, where commitment to school is very low. We have a royal commission looking into the side effects of that now in the NT.

The debate we refuse to have in this country, should centre around the loss of industry to Asia, (China in particular). Chinese are not renowned for being slow on the uptake, and have capitalised magnificently on their successes; as that success flows back in our faces, as we Australians watch powerlessly their return to plunder the remaining benefits of what Australia had to offer its own youth, with a chequebook!

Effectively, and particularly for boys, the future in this Country looks bleak. Start up jobs for boys in industry have long ago migrated to Asia: now we must deal with the consequences of those flawed political decisions. There are only so many jobs for the taking in Maccas.
Posted by diver dan, Sunday, 14 August 2016 9:05:13 AM
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