On the bright side, we can hope that the parents of some of these boys will wise up and start homeschooling.

The solution is simple: We need male teachers and administrators at all levels of school. Guys understand boys, whereas too many women obviously do not.

School administrators also obviously had their lunch money taken from them every day of their existence, and so now the kids under their tutelege must be prevented from realizing any willpower of their own.

There are seriously screwed-up people running schools today.

By the way - during play, no kid can learn about mercy without a show of force. During play, kids work out what horrid behavior looks like without a helicopter overhead to make sure everything is "fair".

And girls playing with baby dolls, obviously fantasize about being mothers. But at such a young age? Why, those miserable tramps! Clearly girls that age are fantasizing about giving it up so that they can have babies.

Girls who play with dolls obviously want to have sex so that they can become mothers. I figure that makes about as much sense as worrying about boys who play with toy guns.

Really 7 years old and suspended! Man in my day it took a whole lot to get a kid suspended. Ya, a kid might get detention or something. Actually even for me the time I got suspended in Elementary school it was only when I did some reallly bad (young and stupid with a lighter) I was not suspended from school. I was regulated to another room to think about what I had done for a couple of days. So an in school suspension.

Even more surprising is what kids are getting suspended for. Basically playing cops and robbers aka being boys. What the fuck would happen if a kid used the good old rubber band and folded paper and actually shot somebody?

"Boys" are blank slates like anyone else. They can be socialized to be anything society requires.

Girls who play with dolls obviously want to have sex so that they can become mothers.

So? That's a good thing. All those Julias and their offspring become reliable voters for the democrats.

The only suspensions I ever remember from elementary school were for administrative reasons not having to do with the kid's behavior, e.g., zone boundary disputes and incomplete vaccination records. I do recall one girl in the fifth grade getting suspended for a few days because an in-school TB test came up positive (turned out it was a false). Generally behavior problems were solved with the administration of a paddling and/or detention. Given the choice, boys would nearly always take the paddling because once it wsa done it was over. If you got detention, your parents found out.

Countless boys my age grew up with toy guns and wildly few of them are killers.

Not only did we play with toy guns, but more than a few of them were fully automatic. I seem to recall more than a few grenades being launched.

The solution is simple: We need male teachers and administrators at all levels of school.

But, but, any man who want to work with kids must be a molester

7th grade, Mrs. Beaver's class. Dawn Halovich, one of the tough girls in school, lit a cigarette IN CLASS. Mrs. Beaver walked over and slapped it out of her face, resulting in a girl \ woman fight that spilled out the hallway and down to the principal's office, screaming and slapping.

We never saw either of them again.

Amy, I think Aldous just forgot to put the /sarcasm tag at the end of his post. Especially if his name is a reference to this.

"Ugh. We are not "blank slates," any of us."

I assumed Aldous was being sarcastic, pointing out the mindset that seems to drive school administrators' actions.

Which only highlights the insanity, and I'm hardly the first to say it -- a little boy being punished for chewing his pastry into the shape of a gun isn't being punished under a zero-tolerance policy. He didn't have a gun; nobody could even argue that he did. He was being punished for having the wrong thoughts, for not being the blank slate the textbooks said he should be. And when reality doesn't conform to stupid people's expectations, stupid people have to punish somebody.

Damn! While I was typing, Rex Little said it better!

I've said it before, but I am truly scared for my grandson and what his school experience will be - he starts kindergarten Sept. 9th. At my house we play with guns and knives - all plastic of course, at least for now. He's in jiu jitsu and is allowed to be a boy and do boy things. He wrestles around with everyone, including his little brother. I'm afraid that things do not bode well for him.

The solution is simple: We need male teachers and administrators at all levels of school.

But, but, any man who want to work with kids must be a molester

So I must be a molester. Damn, I never knew. Never felt the urge to molest them. But I have had the urge to throttle a few of them.

As to needing more male teachers. I would say yes and no. I teach boys and they do boy things. I as a man do understand and give some tolerances to what they are doing. Yes, sof the boys do learn a bit differently. Problem is sometimes you want that boy to just sit the fuck down, shut the hell up, and listen. All it takes is one lone boy or girl to disrupt a class. Cause as a teacher having an eager student who is listening and behaving is a joy. Problem is most often they are girls.

What is needed is teachers who can handle both sexes and other styles of teaching. Thing is with the feminization of the education work force it has become one way and one way only with regards education of students. That way has been skewed by the abundance of women teachers who hold certain ideals about behavior and so on. A shake up is needed, not setting things in concrete.

"The solution is simple: We need male teachers and administrators at all levels of school. Guys understand boys, whereas too many women obviously do not"

Once upon a time, women flocked to the Wild West to teach in one-room schoolhouses:

http://chrisenss.com/history-of-the-old-west/

How come these women could understand and handle all those rowdy young cowboys? I suggest it's because people's minds back then weren't poisoned with politically correct idiocies regarding the raising & education of children.

You don't even have to go that far back, Martin. In the 1950's and 60's, all my elementary school teachers were women (so was the principal), as were over half in junior high and high school. I don't recall boys being stifled or picked on (except by other boys, of course).

John Paulson: "What the fuck would happen if a kid used the good old rubber band and folded paper and actually shot somebody?"

Answer: Jail!

Eric; that is one funny story - something that I would have liked to have seen. My school days were quite boring, none of us dared to misbehave, the nuns were tough. They let us be boys, but within certain limits.

Just in the past few weeks, my wife and I made the decision to home school.

File it under "Things I never, ever thought I'd do."

Why don't we just increase public schoolteacher pay to $200k plus benefits, outlaw the unions, and then let the market drive highly-qualified people in and these boneheads out?

Cheaper in the long run, I'd bet.

"How come these women could understand and handle all those rowdy young cowboys? I suggest it's because people's minds back then weren't poisoned with politically correct idiocies regarding the raising & education of children."

Good point. I only recall one teacher in elementary school who had an issue with boys, and the parents got all over the school's case about it. On the other hand, every school I ever went to had at least a few male faculty around. Nowdays, in many schools, the only adult male who ever sets foot in the building is the janitor.

"I seem to recall more than a few grenades being launched."

Grenades, hell. I still remember my friend Greg's mom telling us, "Greg has to come in for dinner now, so you boys pick up all your atomic bombs from off the sidewalk!"

On the other hand, every school I ever went to had at least a few male faculty around.

Agree that it is good for all involved to have more male teachers, but let me tell you, no male teacher I've met had anything on the nuns in my elementary school when it came to discipline and focused learning!

Laughing at the "pick up your atomic bombs," comment!

I had fully taken the society-makes-us thing until I had kids. Mind, I'm a gal who has no use for shoes except to - get this - cover my feet. Until I got sandals a couple years ago (same pair) my husband owned more shoes than me, etc. So, it seemed like it was obvious that I had simply missed the society indoctrination that made most of the rest of the girls/women so... girly.

Then, I had a son. We had lots of basic toddler toys - very little gender-specific anything at the age of shape sorters and rattles. But at 12 months he (and every other boy under age 5) were ENTHRALLED by construction vehicles. Never saw a girl there, but when there was construction on the block, there was always 2-6 boys sitting there watching the dump trucks, excavators, etc.

So, now that experience has shown me that I am simply an outlier on the spectrum of girls, I accept that there are basic "girl" and "boy" behaviors. BUT, I also realize that not ALL girls or ALL boys fall into that. The comment John Paulson made earlier is apt. The eager, listening, and behaving child is a joy and usually a girl. I think that's why I've gotten gobs of praise for my son's behavior when I know there are girls behaving similarly in his classes whose parents aren't getting gushing reports (just nice ones). It's just much more unusual for a boy.

Put those things together - typical boy interests but more "female" focus and it seems, to me, that there are several facets at play here - and we've only touched on one. There's also the academic trickle-down (hardly any play time even in KG), with more focused teaching and less exploring at younger grades, that is also hostile toward (most) boys.

Why don't we just increase public schoolteacher pay to $200k plus benefits, outlaw the unions, and then let the market drive highly-qualified people in and these boneheads out? -- Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at August 20, 2013 12:57 PM

Actually dissolve the Dept of Education. Then dump the responsibility on the states. Then let the states give a tax credit for the schools if they want to shrink the school system, and privatize it.

Too bad we can't go to the South Korea's system. The parents actually help choose their child's teacher.

Could you imagine a system that had parents responsible for picking teachers? Or even picking schools?

How about a privatized system that the only state requirement was that your child attend school?

I have been thinking, and saying, that "zero tolerance" is a stupid idea implemented with "zero discretion" by idiots.

Until recently, I believed, and so stated, that it was lawsuits, insurance, and other legal fiascos driving these idiocies.

A few days ago, I stumbled on more info - seems "zero tolerance" is a subset of "gun-free zone" and if a school gets Federal funding this asininity is required or the money stops.

WTF?

sara: "I've said it before, but I am truly scared for my grandson and what his school experience will be... I'm afraid that things do not bode well for him."

Then please, please, please encourage his mom and dad to not send him there. The idea of implementing a home based education seems daunting, but I can tell you from experience that it's easier than most people think. Though we only had high school educations, my wife and I taught our daughters until they were 15 and 16, and then we all went to college. I don't regret one minute of the experience. Though we lived in poverty during several of those years I've often heard my daughters tell other people that they had a wonderful childhood. We had little money but we had a lot more time for fun than families whose children were institutionalized five days a week. I now have eight grandchildren whose educations will be home based.

AB: "Just in the past few weeks, my wife and I made the decision to home school... File it under 'Things I never, ever thought I'd do.'"

You'll never regret a minute of it.

"Mind, I'm a gal who has no use for shoes except to - get this - cover my feet. "

That's always the problem with statistics. They tell us what the average behavior of a group is, and they are very good at predicting the future overall behavior of the group. (Hence, my often-repeated "When it comes to the average beavior of large groups, Skinner rules".) However, within the group there can be a lot of individual variation, and often the stats are not useful at all in predicting the behavior of an individual.

Over the years I've developed emphathy for women who are outliers on what you might call the boy-girl behavior spectrum. I work with a lot of women who have some traits that would be considered more typically male, and one thing I've learned is that many of them were social outcasts when they were young.

"I have been thinking, and saying, that "zero tolerance" is a stupid idea implemented with "zero discretion" by idiots. "

It's worse than that. "Zero tolerance" has become an all-purpose explanation/excuse for absolutely anything; saying it ends the discussion, so that no actual rationale is needed. You can say "Because we have a zero tolerance policy, no student may use any word beginning with the letter 'T'", and it make as much sense as any other use of the phrase.

"Until I got sandals a couple years ago (same pair) my husband owned more shoes than me, etc"

Shannon you are officially a monster.

"Until I got sandals a couple years ago (same pair) my husband owned more shoes than me, etc"
________________________________

What I don't get about most women(?) and shoes is: IF they MUST have so many, especially with heels, but can't afford them, why don't they just get them from Goodwill? Most people wouldn't notice the difference, I'm guessing. My problem is, I wear out my practical, flat sandals fast (over two summers or so) and I can never find ones like that at Goodwill. I only buy clothes when I must.