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I've been noticing lately that Schools are punishing worse for roughhousing in schoolgrounds or fist fighting (The old fashioned way) and I honestly think it's dissappointing that they expect guys to act more "girly" (I know I generalized there.) Because my teacher in Gr. 7 told me about when he was a kid and teen that if he got in a fight the schools didn't do much and instead of parents suing the ass off eachother his dad just said "You gonna do better next time."
I mean how many times after a fist fight do guys make-up and settle disputes? Pretty much all the time. As for the rough-housing thing... You got me we're boys what did you expect?
Not punishing for roughhousing and fist fighting is an open invitation for bullying and physical intimidation. Your assertion that guys usually make up and settle their disputes is simply your own recollection and not based on any empirical evidence.
It's ridiculous to expect boys to act like girls. Let boys be boys before their emotions get bottled up too long and they explode.
When I was in the 8th grade, another boy who had been annoying me went one step too far by trying to push my face into the water fountain. I punched him in the stomach and sent him flying into the lockers. He never bothered me again -- problem solved! Not everyone requires hand-holding during the process of growing up.
A better lesson to be learned is how to settle things like you will have to as an adult. If someone picks on me over and over, I'm not going to haul off and smack him. Schools are trying to teach the civilized skills that will work over and over, instead of the blow your top and react with your hands method.
It's ridiculous to expect boys to act like girls. Let boys be boys before their emotions get bottled up too long and they explode.
I can't believe that you are serious. That child in this day and age might just have likely come back to school the next day with a gun to take out you and any other people who might have been on their "list".
Children who go to school have a right to live and work in a safe school environment. In the adult world this is called assault. If you assault someone in the adult world you will be charged as such by the Police.
Most school districts have discipline policies that match the community at large. Anyone who is advocating having fist-fights in schools, should also advocate the same for the general public. This isn't the New Mexico Territory in 1870 anymore.
IMO, what you say makes no sense. Schools are there to teach children, not to allow them to beat each other up. Environments like you propose are just breeding grounds for another Columbine (situations with which I have intimate experience).
I don't agree with allowing fist-fighting in schools - but I DO believe schools, as they exist, are not boy-friendly at all. Having unschooled with my sons, I see how much big-muscle movement they *need* on a daily basis - actually, my younger more than my older son.
It's not healthy for ANY kids to sit as long as they're expected to sit in school, but most boys have a bigger need to MOVE. If your child was sitting for 6 - 7 hours in front of a TV, people would complain that they would become obese - but sitting that long in a schoolroom? Is seen as fine.
Add to the already restrictive nature of schools the trend toward shorter or no recess, and we're setting up boys to fail. And guess what? They are! And it's usually seen as the child's fault.
The style of teaching is often not boy-friendly - many boys are right-brained, visual learners and the emphasis in schools is on reading, reading, reading to get information. Boys are usually later readers, but in school, they're not allowed to learn in their own way, in their own time. They're labeled and medicated - when, if given enough physical opportunities before classes, they'd be fine with short bouts of sitting still.
I think the anti-boyness of schools (and anti-freedom, and anti-real-life application) contributed to Columbine more than any fistfights would have. I do not have intimate experience with situations like that, but I have boys, and I'm around free, unschooled boys frequently.
Last edited by CharlotteGal; 05-12-2010 at 12:47 PM..
As to boy action or girl action friendly at least at elementary, who could disagree.
Unfortunately your friend politicians including the late Teddy Kennedy and The living GWB, implemented a plan that requires every student in every grade that is evaluated to be 100% proficient in reading and Math, by 2014, or the school and school district will suffer horrible consequences.
Districts have gradually increased the amount of sitting and stuffing to try to reach goals which 70 years of educational research on the normal curve have shown are simply impossible without a very unusual population. And I have a school that did do that twice, but now their population is getting more normal, and I doubt that they will make it again.
But I do have experience in both scenarios; having a boy child, schools, and a Columbine type incident that I will not mention but which is very famous around the world.
It's ridiculous to expect boys to act like girls. Let boys be boys before their emotions get bottled up too long and they explode.
When I was in the 8th grade, another boy who had been annoying me went one step too far by trying to push my face into the water fountain. I punched him in the stomach and sent him flying into the lockers. He never bothered me again -- problem solved! Not everyone requires hand-holding during the process of growing up.
A boy in the middle school of the district I used to teach at died when he was pushed in a "boys will be boys" way and his head got cracked open on the water fountain.
Everyone, including the two of his friends who were doing the pushing, wishes we had taken a harder stance on rough housing in the hallways.
I don't agree with allowing fist-fighting in schools - but I DO believe schools, as they exist, are not boy-friendly at all. Having unschooled with my sons, I see how much big-muscle movement they *need* on a daily basis - actually, my younger more than my older son.
It's not healthy for ANY kids to sit as long as they're expected to sit in school, but most boys have a bigger need to MOVE. If your child was sitting for 6 - 7 hours in front of a TV, people would complain that they would become obese - but sitting that long in a schoolroom? Is seen as fine.
Add to the already restrictive nature of schools the trend toward shorter or no recess, and we're setting up boys to fail. And guess what? They are! And it's usually seen as the child's fault.
The style of teaching is often not boy-friendly - many boys are right-brained, visual learners and the emphasis in schools is on reading, reading, reading to get information. Boys are usually later readers, but in school, they're not allowed to learn in their own way, in their own time. They're labeled and medicated - when, if given enough physical opportunities before classes, they'd be fine with short bouts of sitting still.
I think the anti-boyness of schools (and anti-freedom, and anti-real-life application) contributed to Columbine more than any fistfights would have. I do not have intimate experience with situations like that, but I have boys, and I'm around free, unschooled boys frequently.
Oh please. You are making gross generalizations that are easily disproven by the fact that there are just as many boys as girls in gifted programs like mine. Thats like complaining that schools are not girl friendly because they have to take math every year. NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT GENDER.
The variety from individual to individual will always trump stereotypes. You just happen to have CHILDREN who benefit from more exercise. I am sure there are plenty of girls who have the same problem.
A boy in the middle school of the district I used to teach at died when he was pushed in a "boys will be boys" way and his head got cracked open on the water fountain.
Everyone, including the two of his friends who were doing the pushing, wishes we had taken a harder stance on rough housing in the hallways.
I mean in the playground not in schools themselves.
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