Boys Gone Wild

Lagkiller · 2013-07-31T05:18:08+00:00

About 23 years ago, I found myself in school with a teacher who had a notorious history for disliking boys. It was at this young, elementary age, that I discovered sexism. Despite having high marks in school up to this point, I started receiving very low marks. Assignments were turned in near perfect and my grade never reflected it. During a parent teacher conference, my mother was told how terrible she was for simply having a son because "boys can't pay attention in school". Not me, but anyone who dangles between their legs simply cannot achieve in her eyes. Fast forward 3 years later...

Now in middle school I am much wiser, still doing well, however I have learned to game the school system. You see, outcome based education was big in those days. What did that mean? Well, if I took a quiz and failed it, I got a second quiz with an open book and they took the higher score. There was no penalty for late homework. I realized this and figured that I could get better marks for simply taking the easier test and doing all my homework once a week instead of every day, since there was no penalty for me doing so. Despite my top of the class grades, my teacher called my parents to advise that I had a learning disability. She insisted that I wasn't paying attention in class and either was autistic, retarded, or had ADD (her exact diagnosis). Numerous bickering back and forth resulted in my parents relenting to let the school social worker pull me out of class for an hour every other day to test me.

After a month of testing, a very large conference of all my teachers, not just the one who accused me of being an idiot, was called with the principal, vice principal, my mom and my grandmother. This large conference was called at the request of the accusing teacher because she wanted to rub her "victory" in my parents face. Imagine her surprise when the social worker said that not only was I not retarded, autistic, or even slightly ADD, but I was probably the most brilliant child in my class. Later review of the IQ test she gave me would have qualified me for MENSA at the time. The teacher, raging at the social worker for allowing her to look so foolish in front of everyone said that the problem was at home and they needed state social workers to inspect our home to find out exactly I will never know.

My mom had some choice words, but I'll summarize as follows:

Hell no.

After berating the teacher back and pointing out that a brilliant child has simply gamed the system that they believe was "so successful" was not a sign of ADD but a sign of brilliance and there was no reason to punish me for the failure of the teacher, we ended the conference.

I never received a grade better than a C in her class for the rest of the year. I had a large report that was written above and beyond the requirements of the class which received a F, 30% of my grade for the quarter, to which when I asked to clarification of the grade was told "It didn't meet my standards". I compared to some of the under achievers in my class who wrote less, left out information, didn't follow formatting, and received A's and B's. The issue was brought to the principal who forced her to let me redo the assignment. I received a C- in the end for a shorter paper with still no guidance on how I could have improved.

These experiences have impacted my life in a profound way. They are likely much of the reason that I outright question most authority.

This article feels like it could have been written about me, and I wholly endorse it.

4man · 2013-07-31T01:16:11+00:00

One of the aspects of my high schooling I value the most was attending an all-boys school. The majority of teachers were men; a very different environment to my neighbourhood friends who attended a mixed school with predominantly women teachers.

2013-07-31T06:56:33+00:00

When I was around 10 years old, I'd arrive half hour earlier to school to play football (soccer) with my classmates (and other boys of the school). One day it was very equal, so we kinda dragged the game further...and we were all late to class, something like 5 minutes, although we were sweaty and dirty. The teacher, a male who had his daughter in the same class, had us waiting outside around half hour. Then made us go in, put us in front of the rest of the class (all girls) and scolded us for a long time about how the girls would never do anything like this, how irresponsible and bad we were and so on.

We were late and we were dirty, it deserved a scolding, but not the humiliating act of standing in front of the girls being told how good they were and how bad we were. After that, the pre-class matches were not the same anymore...

It remained a constant through my education to hear things like "Let her have it", "let her have her way", "she's a girl, she can do X" and a long etc. And if a boy wanted to have his way, he was a bad person...and this kind of attitude leaves a deep mark in the mind of impressionable young boys (and girls)

Kaderpy · 2013-07-31T02:33:40+00:00

I've often wondered this myself. If all these "behavior disorders" are disorders at all. They're just part of growing up and learning self-control, patience, and how to deal with feelings and urges. By "band-aiding" the problem it doesn't teach them how to deal, it teaches them that a pill is how to "control your life."

I was an antsy, energetic, tomboy. I was kicked out of a daycare because my mom refuses to put me on ritalin. I learned to cope and deal and have self-control because of it. Feeling antsy and can't stand up and move around or don't want to get up? Wiggle your foot. I had teachers who would let me take tests standing up in the back if the room. We need more teachers willing to work with kids, to mold them rather than just have a pill do half their work for them.

rawhednbloodybones · 2013-07-31T04:57:14+00:00

This was a great article, I couldn't agree more. Males need environments where they can be liberated from scrutiny so they can be themselves. There is no crime in that.

saint2e · 2013-07-31T00:32:57+00:00

Fantastic article!

Perpetual_dissident · 2013-07-31T00:36:16+00:00

good shit.

saint2e · 2013-07-31T03:17:00+00:00

I'm pretty sure that the Ritalin they fed my little 8 year old brain, combined with bizarre occupational therapy that a 2 year old could have done, did wonderful things to my developing brain and ego. These days it seems I can't relax unless I self medicate (note though, this is only during my personal down time). I also have massive self image problems despite being quite successful in my career and easy enough on the eyes.

Yeah. Funny how the issues at school only seems to be a problem for the female teachers.

Fuck you feminism. Your downfall will come... and all your lies will be revealed with time.

DarthOvious · 2013-07-31T14:42:30+00:00

I like what this article has to say.

Neurotikitty · 2013-07-31T12:53:35+00:00

Hmmm, I like the concept of the article, but at the same time, I don't like the idea of complete gender segregation as a necessity in schools. Some boys do thrive in the classrooms of female teachers, and some girls respond better to the teaching style of male teachers (I know that I preferred the "lecture-and-a-blackboard" method to pretty much anything else - and only my male teachers really used it). And when it comes to social circles, I like the idea of kids being able to have close friends of the opposite sex. I certainly wouldn't have met as many great people in a single-sex environment.

Not to mention, I have a feeling that females raised in a female-only environment might be subjected to a lot of the feminist nonsense the author mentions here - and they would have very few counter-examples to test those ideas against. How do you know all men aren't dangerous if you don't really have any close male friends? You'd be damning the girls to an echo-chamber of this crap.

There's a line in here I especially don't like:

Boys want to do things, not talk about feelings. Does any sane person deny this?

That's some gender essentialism that I'm not comfortable with. Sometimes boys actually DO need to talk about their feelings. Not when they draw a gun for shits and giggles, but when they are legitimately depressed or facing issues at home, and are constantly being told to "man up" and deal with it.

Again, the idea of the article is a good one, but I feel like the author is making too many sweeping generalizations about how the individuals that constitute each gender behave. Not all boys would be okay in a single sex environment, nor would all girls. It might be better to instead have more male teachers for all students, or simply offer a choice to go to gender segregated schools, rather than make it mandatory.

wdiscourse · 2013-07-31T01:20:29+00:00

Who would downvote this? A ugly cow, that's who.

Title	Boys Gone Wild
Author	MHRA_Leander
Upvotes	95
Comments	29
Date	July 31, 2013 12:08 AM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1jdxbd/boys_gone_wild/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/boys-gone-wild.1167544 https://theredarchive.com/post/1167544

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