HRS: "Could you also nominate one single teacher that has every said anything positive about the male gender, or ever said anything positive about boys as a group."

I'll nominate my partner, who has taught for more than 20 years at primary and secondary levels in the NSW public system. She rather likes men (me in particular) and often has good things to say about the boys she teaches.

CJ

I also don't have problems with boys.

I find that when there are issues with boys, it's usually some brawl out in the playground. And that's not directed at teachers'. We just have to break it up so they don't kill each other.

Sometimes the girls can get quite nasty, particularly towards other girls and female teachers.

HRS:

My two sons' teachers, male and female, were with one exception, "good enough", and often better. The exception was male. That person evidently expected my younger son to be as compliant, considerate and positively helpful as my older son. His feelings toward #2 were very plain to me, and very disappointing.

That is water under the bridge; while I wish it hadn't happened that way, while I don't consider any attributable outcome of #2's experience with teacher X to be the best of all possible worlds, #2 and I have moved on from that time and place.

I am hoping the teacher has done likewise, to the benefit of other students who are "marching to the beat of a distant drummer".

Liz,

The statistic you have requested comes from here

http://www.dest.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/E635D70E-EB9D-4168-A382-3A2D093CEB34/4589/educating_boys.pdf

In 2002, there were 9739 male trainee teachers from a total of 43185, which is about 22.5 %.

The PDF file also contains statistics such as

“While girls’ performance in literacy results has remained relatively stable over the past 25 years, overall, boys’ results have fallen to a significant degree.

In NSW, the difference between boys’ and girls’ average Tertiary Entrance Score rose from 0.6 marks in 1981 to 19.4 marks in 1996.”

I don’t think such statistics indicate that boys are doing “well”, and I don’t think such statistics warrant an increase in performance pay for teachers.

I think your suggestion that it is socio-economic background or “parents” that is causing a decline in boys education seems to come from some handbook, as I have heard it repeatedly from teachers. However it is rather suspect, because the majority of boys and girls go to co-ed schools and would be coming from the same socio-economic background, and boys and girls come from the same parents. There is not one set of parents for girls, and another set for boys.

I have noticed that if a student does well, a teacher will normally attribute this to themselves, but if a student does badly, then of course this is attributed to the student’s parents (and never the other way around).

But you still have not said how women are going to change the education system (as you seem to have seem to have some type of problem with men, and believe "men" are the cause of problems in the education system), so I’m still waiting to hear that.

CJ Morgan
I wouldn’t mind hearing what good things at least one teacher has to say about boys or men.

I’m a male, and I get rather insulted whenever I hear a teacher say that boys are erratic, lazy, immature etc, which are the only type of comments I personally have ever heard a teacher say about boys.

HRS - we live in a small town, so I tend to know who the kids are, so she'll say something like 'Freddy's a brilliant little artist', or 'Johnny really comes out of himself when he's onstage' or whatever, when we bump into them and/or their families, or they come into our business. As for men, in addition to me, she seems to be somewhat enthusiastic about such blokes as Johnny Depp, George Clooney and certain tennis players, undoubtedly among many others :)

I have a solution for you HRS - as you seem to know more about teaching than teachers do, why don't you get yourself a teaching qualification and become part of the solution to the problems you perceive? We certainly need more male teachers, particularly those with definite ideas about how to improve, assess and reward performance in teaching.

I intended withdrawing from the debate when it moved of the original topic but I do want to support Liz, Chris and CJ Morgan in trying to convince HRS that things are not as simple as he/she appears to think.

Could I put it as a series of propositions, which to me seem quite reasonable:

(1) While there is almost infinite variation in the individual characteristics of males and females, boys as a GROUP and girls as a GROUP have different characteristics and drives. Neither groups’ characteristics are better or worse, and the best outcomes are achieved when one is balanced by the other.

(2) Sitting 30 adolescents at desks in a small room for over five hours a day is a very ARTIFICIAL environment, which both boys and girls have to adapt to. Adolescent boys find this difficult, but this resistance is an ESSENTIAL part of them finding their self identity.

(3) Good teaching is about seeing the potential of each student, irrespective of their gender, and developing his or her talents. Male AND female teachers are equally devoted to this process.

(4) Teaching is, fortunately, a caring profession carried out by humans. As humans there are a range of abilities among them, and there is no end of things that can be done better, but I am proud to be associated with the great majority of them.

Ian Keese