Discrimination, Cradle to Grave
Glenn Sacks writes about gender issues from the male perspective.
I bring it up because one of my major issues is discrimination against boys, from elementary school through college. I have a nine-year-old boy myself - the living embodiment of Calvin, from the comic strip, down to hair and stuffed alter egoes. He's a little handful - intensely curious, active, loves nothing more than to be doing things with his hands - in short, utterly typical. Yet schools today are not only not ideal for this type of child - they're hostile:
Michelle Ventimiglia, director of a Los Angeles day care center, says "our schools simply aren't made for boys. I see this every September when my students go into elementary school. Our schools are made for children who can sit still with their hands folded, who aren't distracted by a bug on the wall, who keep quiet and do what you tell them to do even if it is boring. Most girls do fine in this environment, but many boys don't.
"Children need physically connected activities, particularly boys. They learn best by doing. An early elementary school student can learn a ton of math and geometry skills, as well as problem solving and social skills, from LEGOs, building blocks, and wood working projects. Cooking projects are also very useful.
"Boys love these types of hands-on lessons and activities, but too often teachers find it easier to simply give them worksheets instead. And now, with so much time being devoted to testing and preparing for testing, teachers' repertoires are even more limited, which is bad for children, particularly boys."
And heaven forbid they cut up - or, in today's uber-PC environment, work off a little energy with a contact sport or a game of Cops and Robbers. Make the universal "gun" shape with your thumb and index finger, the boy can count on a suspension as often as not.
This scene is heartbreakingly familiar:
Of course, as parents we suffer along with our children, and as our boys are punished we are punished, too. Every day as I pick my son up from school I hope for a good behavior report that can be celebrated with ice cream or a trip to the park. More often I face what I call the "boy parent dilemma"--when my son is "bad" do I punish him because he can't fit into a structure that clearly isn't suited to little boys? Or do I withhold punishment or censure and in so doing undercut the teacher's authority?
I've agonized over this question again and again, but I always decide that it is my duty to support the teacher. But I'll never forget the sadness of my little son who sobs quietly in the back seat after school because I punished him for his bad behavior report. Why did I punish him? Because I simply couldn't think of anything else to do.
I've been there, over and over. And I'm about done with it.
Why is it this way? Because the academic educational establishment is no better. Sacks again writes, this time about why so few men are attending college these days:
One day, after an hour or so discussing tale after tale where Ms. Smith concluded that the men involved were always wrong or evil or cruel or stupid and the women were always right and good and kind and smart, Ms. Smith began softly describing a soothing tale of a father and his daughter setting off through the woods to go to the big city. "The father....and his daughter....rode together... as they went through the beautiful Spanish countryside," Ms. Smith said softly. I sat back and closed my eyes. "They...were on their way to the big city....the daughter had never seen the city before.....she was happy that her father was taking her..." I imagined a special, loving, father-daughter bond. "…and then.....he rapes her."
Jolted, I sat up. A male in the back of the classroom pushed his heavy book off of the table and it made a loud, crashing sound. An accident? Or the only protest he could make?
I did sometimes protest in Ms. Smith's class and others, but a 6'2" male confronting a female educator about her bigotry, however politely, is quickly perceived as a sexist bully. In addition, tension and arguing make the days and semesters long and hard, and there were times when it was easier to tune out, as so many other males had done.
More - much more - later.
Posted by Mitch at
November 16, 2002 10:02 PM
