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The Forum > Article Comments > What a performance about paying teachers! > Comments

What a performance about paying teachers! : Comments

By Ian Keese, published 23/4/2007

The millions of dollars, spent on politically correct pseudo-issues, could have been spent on improving the education of students.

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CJ Morgan,
I will say something positive about the male gender and education. Men built every school I am aware of, and they have funded most schools also, as men pay about 70% of personal income tax.

I will say something positive about boys. They grow up to be men.

But what I do know about education leads me to believe that males now have very little future in education. There are too many teachers like Liz, who don’t like men in the education system.

So that is why I am interested in Liz’s ideas on how she would design and also fund the education system to improve student performance, (although she hasn’t actually given much tangible information regards this as yet).

Ian K,
I think you will find that boys will not be able to adequately find their identity at a school, if there are very few male teachers at the school.

I have had experience in developing training programs for young men doing apprenticeships, and I think too many of them have rejected their schools. This will be a problem in the future, as many companies now expect their tradesmen to have associate diplomas, (and degrees if possible). Just having a certificate is no longer sufficient. Also to compete with other countries for trade, tradesmen will have to have more and more skills, and to get those skills, they will have to go back to school and to higher education.

Schools are becoming too anti-male, and the lower retention rates, and the disengagement, and the rejection of the education system by so many boys will become a real problem for this country
Posted by HRS, Monday, 30 April 2007 11:57:53 PM
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HRS I don't think that the retention rate for boys is falling. There are more boys completing year 12 than there were 30 years ago. However there are also more girls completing year 12 than 30 years ago. Today you probably find that more girls finish year 12 than boys. Is that a problem?

Boys who don't complete school have more opportunities than girls who don't finish school. Boys may start apprenticeships and leave school before completing year 12 but unless a girl wants to work in a factory, hairdressing or sex industry she must complete year 12.

As Ian K said, teenage boys test their boundaries and authority and as a result of testing authority they may be wasting their time, other students time, endangering other students and be asked to leave the school. Often that defiant behaviour mirrors their parent's attitudes or their father's youthful behaviours. Sometimes the youth's wilful behaviours come from nowhere.

And through the whole workforce I observe that women always have more formal educational qualifications for a position than the men they compete against.
Posted by billie, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 10:40:47 AM
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Further to comments above about positive comments about boys - my Mum is a teacher, and over the many years of her talking about various students, only two have stuck in my mind where she has gone well above and beyond - and they were both for boys.

1) A student of hers developed a brain tumor and had to have a major and dangerous operation. Prior to the operation, when he was at home, my mum brought this boy gifts to perk him up (I remember a cricket magazine) and his homework to catch up on so he didn't get too far behind, and we as a family went around to his parent's house, on the weekend, to chat to him and his family. She still occasionally keeps in touch with this boy's family, who she did not have a prior relationship with until he became ill.

2) A young boy (about seven-ish) came into her class - he was very disruptive and erratic, and it took a long time to figure what was going on. Turns out this kid had an awful life, sexually abused by an uncle, mother suicided, now living in foster care. My mum went along as a witness at a court hearing, and kept in touch with the boy later, even giving him her home number in case he needed someone to talk to after he left her school.

Now, both of these were extraordinary circumstances, but surely they demonstrate that teachers (and yes, my Mum is a good 'Leading' Teacher, but certainly not so above and beyond to be unusual) really do CARE for their students, and are not going "ooh boys are icky".

Truly, I believe that the best way to get more people GOING into and STAYING in teaching is to massively up the base pay. Sure, put performance targets in there as well, but don't try and screw over people who are already doing a pretty damn good job and being paid below market rates to do really important work.
Posted by Laurie, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 12:59:56 PM
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Billie,
I have already heard your comments about boys from different teachers in the past (and almost word for word).

All your comments about boys have been typically negative and denigrating of boys, (eg. wasting their time, other students time, endangering other students and be asked to leave the school, defiant behaviour, wilful behaviours etc).

You have said nothing positive about boys, and if you are a teacher, you will likely get negative results from the boys in return.

I also think that you do not want boys in the education system, as you choose to talk negatively of boys. Liz is a teacher, and it seems that she does not want men in the education system. That is my concern regards the feminisation of the education system. It eventually becomes an incestuous and gender-prejudiced system.

Like Liz, you also have not given any tangible or constructive ideas on how to improve student performance. You have simply maligned and denigrated boys. Congratulations.

Laurie,
If teachers have to be paid more money to attract better teachers into the system, then it means that the teachers currently in the system may not be suitable.

So teachers currently in the system could be paid more money, but the teachers currently in the system would also have to re-apply for their jobs before they get any extra money.

Teachers are there to teach, and considering the decline in boy student performance, then a teacher’s attitudes towards boy students (or the male gender) would have to be a primary criteria in deciding whether or not a teacher is reemployed at a higher wage, or reemployed at all.
Posted by HRS, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 4:40:18 PM
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OK, I get it now. Someone's just a tad obsessed about gender and/or feminism, and has been steering the thread in that direction at every opportunity. Now that I I've read back through the thread, it seems pretty obvious that HRS has some kind of bee in his or her bonnet.

Sorry HRS, I thought this was a discussion about better ways of rewarding our teachers for the excellent work that they do. I think I might leave you to it - whatever it is that you're trying to say.
Posted by CJ Morgan, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 7:46:23 PM
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HRS

I haven't said half the things you've said I've said.

I realise I'm creating a tremendous inconvenience to you by not saying these things you would like me to have said, and therefore denying you an opportunity to participate in a 'meaningful' debate, in which you can lecture us dastardly female teachers' on the errors of our ways.

A solutionl could be to create a fictitious character on OLO. Then you can argue your arguments with a more obliging 'poster'.
Posted by Liz, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 8:01:14 PM
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