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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:I think the gap in k-12 education outcomes for boys vs. girls is really interesting and it's one of the main things I'd hoped this thread would discuss when FAU put it together. What was your education like, guys? Did you feel you were disciplined more than the girls? Were there any things you were told "boy's aren't good at" (as opposed to "this isn't for boys")? Girls get told they're not good at things like math and science, both individually and categorically, and it's been shown to depress testing ability. Did you feel any pressure to be anti-intellectual or to care more about sports than books? Was curiosity rewarded ("boys are so smart!") or punished ("curiosity's for fags!")? I don't remember much about elementary school (I was bad at math and preferred English, but I don't believe I was pushed into either of them), but when I hit intermediate school... I got into trouble a lot. I spent a large amount of 5th grade either in in-school suspension or at home because I got suspended. A lot of this was, I believe, because I didn't know what to do with my emotions. I felt anger and I just reacted. If somebody said something mean about me or my one friend, I'd just see red and smack them. The principal and vice-principal would always tell me that I needed to control my emotions and that I needed to not hit people, and I knew both of those things, but I hadn't been taught how to actually deal with these negative feelings or what to do with my anger. I had calmed down a bit when I hit middle school (though there were still a few incidents), but then I started to get bullied in my gym class. I was really bad at sports and kinda feminine (and, as I discovered in 6th grade, also gay), so I'd get teased by both the boys and the girls. Name-calling, having my shorts pulled down (to "make sure I wasn't wearing girl's panties"), rougher-than-average handling during sports, etc. It got to the point where I got special permission to sit out of class. I had gained a special rapport with my school counselor due to these incidents, so at the very least I had some in-school support. I was in her office so much that people in the front offices knew me by name and greeted me when they saw me in the hall. I had some major depression hit me in the same years, and my teachers would always get mad at me because I wasn't participating or saying anything. High school was better because I had found more friends as well as clubs that I enjoyed (in middle school it tended to be you were either a sports dude or a band dude, of which I was neither).
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Jan 2, 2017 18:27
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 15:51 |
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There's a difference between acceptable roughhousing among friends and the expectation that every boy around you will want to engage in roughhousing. There's also the problem that anybody who says they don't want to will probably be called a loser or pussy and that objecting after being hit or hurt will likely get you the response "Hey man, it's just a little roughhousing, don't be so serious." I work with kids, and a lot of them like playing a little rough, but that doesn't mean I expect every single kid to be okay with that kind of play. I think a problem arises when somebody actually does get hurt but it gets brushed off as "boys will be boys."
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Jan 2, 2017 19:04
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