> Sam pledged fealty to the idea of men’s rights because, as he said, his former administrator had privileged girls’ words and experiences over boys’, and that’s how all of his troubles had started in the first place.
Father of boys and girls here. Both sexes are just as violent, boys more so on the body, and girls more so on the mind.
It was fascinating to hear my 7 year old daughter grasp for words to make me angry: ‘when you and mom divorce, I’m going with mom.’ I just raised an eyebrow and ignored. Boy’s will just throw things.
It's good that I never had kids. I have a short but largely deadpan temper. I would probably have "keep at it, and you'll get what you want, and good riddance" ... and maybe how her college fund is buying bpme a newmachine"
You can’t ensure anything. I just find it so fascinating that humans naturally acquire skills to battle others in mental and physical ways when under duress.
These types of outbursts also happen in the very elderly as they near death or have dementia, and are more likely to happen when people are very hungry or uncomfortable. Just knowing that is normal helps frame a response.
Our job as parents could therefore be described as helping create an environment where it is easy to do good and hard to do bad. I.e. get enough sleep with strict bed-times when kids naturally would sleep 10-12 hours each day, good nutrition with strict ‘if you don’t eat veggies, there is no dessert’, good activity levels with strict ‘you have to be physically active at least as long as you want to be mentally active/passive on an entertainment device’ (and for some religious households like ours, intentional daily and vocal ‘prays/acts of thanksgiving’ to help frame the mind towards gratitude for mental well being ~i.e. our children in this context have shared with the family at least one thing they are thankful for each day since they could vocalize.)
Unfortunately I've heard this story more than once now. School faculty are terrified of public scandals and many of them are checked out of their jobs. So they tend to take the path of least resistance (blame the boy just in case, to avoid ending up on the news).
The solution is probably some variation of "pay teachers more."
I don't think "pay teachers more" is sufficient. It's one part of the solution, but the other part is "be at least a little bit hesitant to fire junior teachers". When I was in high school, pretty much all of my teachers under 40 were constantly on the verge of not having a job (due to constant budgetary inadequacies); they'd be repeatedly pink-slipped only to barely manage to keep their jobs another year. Naturally, the more "experienced" teachers with more tenure were less fearful of this.
Never mind that the younger teachers were almost always leaps and bounds more engaging, while the older teachers were far less engaging. Everyone liked the younger teachers more than the older teachers - everyone except the teachers' union, that is (this is, naturally, why I came out of high school believing labor unions to be outright detrimental to worker welfare, and why I still tend to be skeptical of them).
Naturally, in an environment where you're doing everything you can to not get laid off, you're going to end up being a lot more risk-averse (lest that layoff spontaneously turns into outright at-fault termination).
As a teacher's son, you've made a bunch of fairly ageist generalizations that are not true. There are plenty of shitty old and young teachers, and plenty of amazing old and young teachers.
My only reference point is my own middle and high school experience (plus perhaps those of my classmates). From that reference point, on average, the younger teachers did a better job of actually engaging me and my classmates while simultaneously getting shafted by the school district. There were of course outliers (one or two older teachers were fantastic, and I recall at least one younger teacher who was sub-par), but "plenty" wouldn't be the quantization I'd use in either case.
It's a bit rich to accuse me of ageism when the exact problem I'm pointing out - of younger teachers getting the short end of the stick despite their skill - is literally ageism manifest.
Hasn’t it always been like this? When I was at middle school, the Teachers used to lock the classrooms during lunch time, and I had some tennis balls in my desk so I asked my teacher for the key. She gave me the key and said “just get your things and don’t forget to lock the door, so not let anyone else in the room”. When I left the room one of the girls from the class tried to enter. I stood in the doorway because she refused to let me out and tried to push past me. I told her to ask the teacher for the key because she told me not to let anyone in. She tried to shove me, but I didn’t budge. She then went to the teacher and told the teacher I kicked her. I then got told off, sent to the principal, and my parents called, and forced to write a written apology to the girl for kicking her. The only person who believed my version of the events was my dad. This would be like 20 years ago now.
I would say believing girls/women is more common now.
Reminds me of the time me and my friend were sent to the principal's office for talking about Nerf guns. Because obviously 2 second graders were plotting to shoot up the school. Or the time a girl said I threw something at her when I said she couldn't have it.
Note that I don't think this was something about girls lying, I think everyone lied equally at that age or maybe even boys lied more. But the way school administrators deal with these issues is insane and certainly seems to damage kids far more than whatever they fear will happen if kids are allowed to have a little freedom. I can say with high certainty that the number of times I was sent to the principal's office as a kid for things I didn't do was the primary cause of my constant trouble making behavior for most of elementary and middle school
> I think everyone lied equally at that age or maybe even boys lied more.
I definitely was no saint at school. Not sure many people can say they were.
> I don't think this was something about girls lying
Me either, but I do feel when something happens between a male and female, unless there is enough witnesses, side is always taken with the girl it seems, unless the witness is friends with the boy, then they aren't deemed reliable.
Another time at school I was playing basket ball with a couple of friends. There was an Indian girl walking by and the ball almost hit her, I pointed at her and said watch out and the ball just missed her, I laughed at the fact she just narrowly escaped being hit with the basket ball, but she thought I was laughing at her nose piecing for some reason. (I don't understand where this confusion came from, I couldn't even see she had a nose piecing until later when I was standing next to her) but again I was forced to apologize for laughing at her culture or something like that.
If all children initially lie equally, and girls are invariably believed over boys, wouldn't all parties rapidly learn this? We should expect girls to lie much more if this is the case, because they know they can get away with it.
One time me and some girl were grouped together for a few minutes for a French exercise in high school. I was known for constantly being tardy to class. After we finished the exercise, that girl said that I wouldn't be tardy if I was hit more as a child.
That was upsetting. I don't remember being angry or yelling (but I could be wrong?). But I was sad and probably non-communicative with her for the rest of the class time.
The teacher took me out of the classroom and scolded me for behaving the way that I was and that I have to talk to her and that I was bad. I kinda just took it with a blank face. I didn't tell the teacher what the girl said, probably because I didn't really understand why I was upset.
School administrators are more alike than they are different. The proclivities of boys haven't changed much since I was one. I can't find anyone who will listen to me about the impending consequences of boys who were raised in a system with these and other biases.
Every system is perfectly designed to produce the result that it produces. So the question we might want to ask our selves is, "what is the system producing"?
Pretty much any mens group where some form of behavioural issue facing men is discussed loops back to the effect of school and other childhood factors extensively.
I wonder how common this dynamic is now.