What is your opinion on this overly PC and gynocentric training guide for modern schools?

Question

Is one of the key reasons why by average boys are falling behind in school for the last decade, to do with gynocentric (heavily female orientated) teaching styles and a constraining PC loaded system? Where everybody has to conform to this unhealthy and psychologically constricting institution and be ‘sensitive’ and ‘tolerant’ at all times to others, no matter how much anger and frustration is building up inside, they have to pretend to be happy.

http://www.campbell-kibler.com/Pizza.pdf

I’m not another right-wing nut job, who is against anything remotely liberal. I’m a centre-left libertarian who believes in the rights of the individual over all else. In this case however, by average scientists have studied and in many cases reported that there is some difference by average when it comes how boys and girls operate at developmental levels. With boys performing better with the old school ‘classic’ education, while girls by average as you can see perform best with today’s current progressive education. Either way the individual is paramount, but this system isn’t just the two way binary gender system, this is painting everyone with the same brush, a feminine brush. And expecting everybody to conform. Why not just suite the education to the needs of the individual? As opposed to the collective worker hive institution that dominates modern education.

What do you think of this style of education?

Answer 1

i'm not an education expert, but i think we need to have an approach that focuses on boys AND girls equally. their learning styles are generally different.

and until recently, boys and girls were painted with the same masculine brush. girls were expected to learn in the same system as boys (or in many cases, not expected or allowed to learn at all). this recent trend is an attempt to even out the disparate treatment--but perhaps has swung too far the opposite direction. still, it's good to see the system has recognized the value of educating girls as well as boys.

do you support gender-segregated education--probably the best way to ensure that the education is tailored to each gender but not necessarily practical or reasonable.

Answer 2

I work at an educational setting-there are as many educational training guides as there are schools-this is just one so I wouldn't take it too seriously. Just like the rest of society our educational system has and is sexist-boys and girls have been taught using all sorts of stupid assumptions about how boys learn/how girls learn and most of them have a mixture of truth in them-but are not always effective and some don't work at all. Unless training methods are researched over time-everything we do in educational and training environments are guesses. Some students may learn in spite of their learning environment- but others may not.

As we're all individuals-it makes sense that many of us will learn in different ways. The best idea that has actually been researched of late has been the idea of creating diverse learning environments-where many different types of training is used that will affect and help the majority of learners effectively learn.

I disagree that educational systems are set up for boys or girls to fail-I think they're set up for both boys AND girls to fail. I was told I would not graduate from grade school since I was "too" active and noisy-girls weren't suppose to be that way. Anyone who doesn't fit the mold of their present educational system will have a difficult time learning-but you can learn in spite of incompetence. I did-I'm going for my third degree-so I made it out of grade school. But not all are so lucky. I think your assumptions that educational systems are all "PC and gynocentric" is a load of you-know-what.

Answer 3

I think the reason kids (all of them) are doing worse in school these days is because they don't learn what they need to know. They're learning about quadratic equations instead of how to balance a checkbook; they're learning about every possible perspective on the Boston Tea Party instead of current events; and some university professors are averse to dissenting opinions. If there's anything education needs more of, it's practicality.

A system tailored to the needs of every individual would be ideal, but notoriously difficult to implement.

Answer 4

dont be paranoid and stop this stuff about gynocentric. if youve lost your chance at it bring up your kids with home education and then write a paper and eventually introduce the system into the world if you dare

Answer 5

I think it's interesting that TItle IX is used to make extra sports teams but not extra student government positions.  I also think it's interesting they don't have a pamphlet for helping boys learn English...traditionally they do poorer in that so why don't we focus energy there?

Answer 6

I think a lot of it is common sense actually. I like the bits about making sure quieter students speak up (often girls). At my school it always seemed that boys were disrupting the class and the quieter girls (like myself) and boys never really had much input. I was incredibly shy and hated drawing attention to myself in a large class, but I would've appreciated the chance to work in a smaller group and to discuss work with a teacher outside of a large class. I really don't see what there is to be offended about. Yes, individual learning styles should be taken into account, but the link does mention that various methods of teaching should be used.

Answer 7

This is one guide out 1.5 million (exaggerated of course) out there.     If you care to look you will find plenty of others with different viewpoints.

Answer 8

I think it's proven itself to be a miserable failure.  Go back to expecting results from all students and you will get them.  Enough of this "well, he/she tried, so we'll give him credit and pass them because they made an effort".  That's bull.  We have kids graduating from high school that can't add without a calculator, don't know how to spell, can't comprehend reading material more than a paragraph long, and have no clue about grammar and punctuation.  Add that to the "text message" trend and we are setting ourselves up for a generation of dumbed down adults who can't write laws, don't know how to manage anything with firmness, and won't have a clue how to run companies...or the country, for that matter.

Answer 9

I think it's terrible because that is the system that I went through. I found it so utterly impossible to cope with. There were so many group projects when I wanted to earn my marks alone. So many questions asking, "what did you think about this?" The first response I think of that is... "how is that important?!" I never saw marks as something that was worth achieving because they do little to prove my worth as a capable student. Everything was so stifling. By grade 6, my mantra was "**** it all!"

In high school, I received a pin for being on the honour roll and  

a plak(?) for high marks in biology. I threw them in the trash as soon as I got home because academic achievement had become so worthless to me.

Answer 10

You are quite correct (Notice all the thumbs down that the "you can't criticise WOMEN" types are going to give) in your view that we do in fact, live in an utterly feminised society & culture.

Of course, it affects schooling, from shifting teaching methods to girl friendly ones, and to all sorts of girls and women ONLY programs all over education.

You ever see a Title IX case used to actually grant men any equality ? Uh huh.  

'Stop feminising our schools - our boys are suffering'

by JILL PARKIN Last updated at 22:47 31 January 2007

Well, I'm sorry, but in the real world life is full of winners and losers. And right now, the losers are a generation of boys who have been betrayed by an education system that no longer recognises crucial differences between the sexes.

The simple truth is that by the time our boys have done 12 or even 14 years in the feminised environment of today's schools, they all ask: "What's the point?"

If boys are not getting into university, or not applying in the first place, it's because they've been turned off learning. They've been given a message that it's not for them.

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Lots more good information to be found just by Googling

"feminised schools".