Am I missing something in the debate but hasn't the very type of educational programs Peter West argues for, boys only classes etc, been instumental in developing the very culture where male suicides, violence and so on are at apparently high levels. Also the arguments for more male involvement is rendered difficult by the very long hours required for them to work in todays economic climate and the lack of male role models in families is caused by this, as well as the large number of men who do not live up to their responsibilities and leave mothers to raise children on their own without paying child support. These problems, at a school level can be adressed by the very programs belittled by Peter. Group work, mixed classes, a currirulum that takes into account the world where citizens accept responsibility for their actions and not fob them off to partners and schools.

Academic folk are too academic. i went to a boy's primary school. I fought my way through girl/boy high school - I was into other students, teachers (especially the hardline authoritarian ones) i was naughty but nasty. I hold the record for the number of cuts with the cane (we had a class contest). I was loathed by the good girls and hated by the nasty ones. I was a social retard in mixed company but comfortable at the local (spent many a time standing on the dunny seats to avoid Constable Care). During my thirteen years on a meatworks factory floor, I often wished that I had had a little more female influence in my formative years. I especially wished I had had more social interaction with girls during the my early years of marriage and courtship. Thank goodness my wife is a feminist and understands the conditioning that can happen to most young men in a male-dominated society.

Most feminists are good folk - one, a huge Greek love, used to lift a bin of beef entrails that, because of my small frame, I couldn't manage. Saved me back and me job. That despite the possibility of her getting the sack for lifting over the female limit, or falling from favor with her sexist co-workers. What a great role model for a young man was she. We live and work together, so lets get the young ones used to it early on in life and reconsider sexist and gendered notions like "male role models". Women can do anything -thus it follows that the girls can teach children anything.

mitt, any backing for your comment

"as well as the large number of men who do not live up to their responsibilities and leave mothers to raise children on their own without paying child support."

There are certainly some fathers like this. I have yet to see any serious research into the proportion who have abandoned their responsibilities vs the ones who have been forced out though.

I'm one of the ones who is being squeezed out of my kids life by a mum focussed on pursuing her own lifestyle interests and agenda's.

I pay child support although I resent having to do so when I would prefer to be doing more parenting of my son. There are a lot of guys out there crying out for a fair go in the residency stakes (the push for a starting point of 50/50). We want our kids, for a variety of reasons some mothers choose to use the system to have most of the residency.

I started with shared parenting from seperation, I bought a house close to my kids school specifically to make that work better and now I find myself living about 150km from where my child will be going to school. Mum's right to move away is protected, my right to be an involved parent is not.

In the end the harm to my child from the ongoing conflict (and the mothers choice to involve the child in the conflict) has forced me to give into demands for changes in residency which are tearing me apart.

I thought this article relevant in the discussion of children’s education, and the notion or myth that there is something intrinsically “wrong with boys”

From “New teaching technique goes to top of the class” at http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=162492005

“The results, published yesterday, revealed that, by primary seven, pupils were more than three years ahead of their peers in reading and almost two years ahead in spelling. The study also found that boys outperformed girls in reading and spelling…Dr Watson and Prof Johnston plan to conduct a further study to find out why boys seem to benefit more than girls. “

Now the next sentence probably provides the answer:- “The synthetic phonics method involves learning by interaction, with the pupils being able to touch individual letters to form words. “

So there was nothing origionally wrong with boys and their ability to learn reading or spelling, there was originally a problem with the way they were being taught, with boys responding much better to a “hands on” or more “dynamic” type of teaching

The failure of boys in schools can be blamed on a number of things. Yes, education is part of the answer. And lay off the feminists - aren't men strong enough to not blame their problems on women?

Let's have a look instead at the culture Australia promotes. Who are our children's heroes? Nine times out of ten, boys look to sporting heroes to model themselves on. As an ex-high school teacher the biggest problem I could see for boys was the simple fact that if you are a boy, it is not cool to be clever. Intelligent boys would purposefully mask their intelligence and fudge their grades to achieve average results in order to cease drawing antagonism from their peers. Boys need better role models, and Australia really needs to decide on if it wants to be a smart country, or if it's happy to disappear into mediocrity. We need to promote someone more inspirational for our boys to model themselves on.

Siouxj73,
I would agree that the education techniques for boys and girls definitely need to be reviewed, as available evidence now points to the fact that males and females tend to think differently, with boys being more spatially orientated. This is probably the reason why the “hands on” reading and spelling technique used in Scotland worked so well for boys (and incidentally dispelled the myth that boys can't read)

However positive male role models for boys would also be important, but there is a problem. How can boys get satisfactory male role models in primary school when 4 out of 5 teachers are female, and that type of ratio seems to be occurring in high schools also. The media of course doesn’t help much in providing positive role models for boys, as it normally advertises or portrays males as being dumb, incompetent, foolish etc, or only being suitable as entertainers or football players.

Various feminists have also done their best to denigrate males as much as possible, and being a feminist means that you are pro-female, but not necessarily pro-male.

So what do you recommend to actually
1.get an education system that is conducive for boys and they way of thinking,
2.provide positive male role models for boys
3.remove any pro-female teachers, that are not pro-male also.