Hello, The following article came my way, and seems relevant.
Cheers, Vincent Patrick ------------------ <http://www.smh.com.au/news/miranda-devine/a-tangled-web-turns-boys-into-angry-young-men/2005/12/17/1134703643627.html> The Sun-Herald (Sydney) 18 December 2005 There's a tangled web turning our boys into angry young men By Miranda Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> One glance at the latest HSC honour roll tells you that girls are still mightily outperforming boys, despite protestations of professors that it ain't so. The smiling faces in the photographs that Sydney newspapers ran on Friday of the state's top students were exclusively female. Twice as many girls (76) as boys (38) were among the 114 students proclaimed dux of their courses. Girls topped science subjects, including chemistry and physics, once considered a male domain. A couple of generations of feminism appears to have done the trick. But why did it have to be at the expense of boys? The warning bells about the crisis in boys' education have been clanging for more than a decade. A 2002 Senate inquiry found that boys were falling behind girls at an alarming rate, with serious problems in literacy and achievement levels leading to increased risk of suicide, alienation and antisocial behaviour. Yet for all the talk, little has changed. Adolescent psychiatrist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg says many boys regard school as "a psychological wasteland where they don't feel safe, valued or listened to". Now the punishment for being a boy is starting younger than ever. A preschool near Newcastle has decided to ban superhero play from January because of fears it is making the children too aggressive. Since it is almost exclusively little boys who play at Spider-Man and Batman, the Raymond Terrace Early Education Centre edict is a direct hit on boys. Batman capes, Spider-Man dolls and Ninja Turtle bags will not be tolerated, but "gentler", girly characters such as Nemo or Elmo are still acceptable. "You may as well just cut off their balls," said one father of sons. For a lot of boys, dramatic superhero play is an important part of their development. It is a way to feel powerful, to work out concepts of good and bad and learn to harness their violent impulses. It is a wondrous thing to observe, and the idea of banning it is inhuman. "What agenda is being pursued here? Is it feminism gone mad?" asks Carr-Gregg. "I would expect some boys to feel confused [about the ban]. It would introduce an element of doubt, possibly induce some shame around something that should be a perfectly normal boy thing. "Boys growing up without a male role model [will especially get] the message that the portrayal of masculinity is taboo." He says there is no scientific evidence that a superhero costume or logo on a pencil case causes any measurable change in a child's behaviour. Between ages five and six, boys start "studying for the part of what it is to be male". Between eight and 10, they start to "discard the things around them that are female. Part of the problem is that what boys are now discarding is a love of learning". The feminisation of education is not the inevitable consequence of having female teachers. In my experience, some of the best teachers of boys are women, many with sons of their own. But if you have ever seen a classroom of boys fidgeting and jiggling like baboons because they can't bear to sit still a moment longer while their female classmates sit serenely beside them, you will know the challenges. To some teachers, young boys are a smelly nuisance to be suspended and given detention at lunchtime, which only exacerbates the problem. Regardless of the social benefits of coeducational schools, who can blame parents for whisking their boys off to single-sex education if at all possible? Carr-Gregg, who sat for two years on a Federal Government advisory committee to improve boys' education, despairs at the lack of progress in schools as he travels around the country. Simple suggestions of the committee, such as removing fluorescent lighting from classrooms because it sparks the instinctive "fight or flight" response, particularly in boys, have been ignored. So has the suggestion that cushioned seats replace hard plastic ones, because boys have bony bottoms and find it hard to sit still for long without padding. Other recommendations included more explicitly structured learning with quizzes, rewards and praise. Instead, from the minute they enter the door of a learning institution, boys are made to feel ashamed and "naughty" about being themselves. The result is another generation of alienated, ever-angrier young men, and the sort of unharnessed testosterone-fuelled behaviour Sydney has been reeling from in recent weeks. The goodwill goes around Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson says the key to success for Cape York people is to "orbit" between two worlds, keeping their culture, language and ties to home, while embarking on education and careers in distant places. Orbits keep them coming back to revitalise remote communities. Naomi Hobson, 27, is one of those quiet successes. Her first orbit came at age 12, when she left tiny Coen, 600 kilometres north-west of Cairns, for Mount St Bernard boarding school in the Atherton Tablelands. At first she was homesick and struggled academically, but with hard work and the help of kind nuns, she flourished. After graduating she went home and fell pregnant, with Shonae, now nine. Single motherhood slowed her orbit but she began working for Pearson's Cape York Partnerships as a computer tutor at Coen school, while completing a multimedia certificate at Cairns TAFE. This year, she and Shonae embarked on their most ambitious orbit - to Canberra, for Hobson's first mainstream job at 108 Digital, a web production company. Shonae has settled into school and Hobson plans to keep studying. "I'm loving it - every minute of it," she said last week. "The job is just fantastic." Canberra is "pretty fast, with the traffic and responsibilities. It's not as laid-back. That's the real world". She says "family support and positive influence from our communities" is what drives Cape York orbiters "to shine and attain our dreams". This Christmas week Hobson's orbit takes her back to Coen, and Pearson's takes him back to Hopevale - because they never forget where home is. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Know an art & music fan? Make a donation in their honor this holiday season! http://us.click.yahoo.com/.6dcNC/.VHMAA/Zx0JAA/pyIolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! 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