Good article, and very

Good article, and very important topic.

The author lost me for a moment when he seemed to misrepresent the idea of single-sex classes for certain subjects in specific grades as stemming from some sort of "extremist" Right Wing Conspiracy. That's a disservice. There are stong arguments that selective, sparing use of single-sex classes (not system-wide "segregation") is beneficial for both girls and boys. In any case, it merits a fair hearing. In fact, the need to downplay any solution that is "gender specific" is the true ideological Trojan Horse in this debate.

I lean more towards David Hatfield's line of thinking. The problem with boys runs deeper than anything a bureaucratized system can touch. Gerofsky's solutions for the problem are typically bureaucratic (class size, methods of evaluation, emphasis on subjective criteria like "attitude"), and are designed first and foremost to make the job easier for teachers. The issue is how to help boys, not how to better prop up union politics.

Perhaps part of the problem is an invisible social bias that has become anchored in our systems & institutions. Note that Maser dismisses neurological arguments as "paternalistic". Paternalistic is now a universal pejorative term. Pater = Father. Bad. Evil. Pathological.

The problem is deeper than the talking heads can go, and Hatfield seems to recognize this. Lionel Tiger and others talked about the same trends decades ago. Part of the problem is the demonization of the Pater - the pathologization, marginalization and disintegration of the "father's voice" on a visceral level of awareness - And the emotional isolation of men and boys through the disappearance of father/son (mentor/child) emotional supports, and masculine identity consolidation mechanisms (male initiation - in its most constructive sense).

Wish I had to time to clean this post up a bit. I hope it makes sense. Gotta run.

boys and school

Our local high school has a plaque honoring the valedictorian recipients. The last boy so honored was in 1992. Student council presidents, same thing. Student councils--heavily dominated by girls. "Leadership" classes--virtually all female. Boys just aren't a factor in the areas of academic and social leadership in my community. And that's a sad thing.

Where does fault lie ?

This trend as reflected by this TYEE topic is more an indictment of the Public School system than it is an indictment of the "male student" gender.

Anyone with children in the Public School system would likely know exactly what I am talking about without going into this issue any deeper at this point.

More later.

Boys aren't the problem

I'm not a teacher but I believe a solution to improving all students performance in government schools is to have more male teachers. I believe there should be matching percentage of male teachers to male enrollment. My $0.02.

Revenge of the feminists

This is old news yet nothing is really being done about it. The curriculum isn't changing and significant funding isn't being directed toward boys - we're still caught in that "girl power" trance.

I can't help feeling there is an element of vindictiveness in this among feminists setting the educational curriculum and agenda. They have dominated the educational system and curriculum for over two decades and we now clearly see the result. Can such a mess, such a bias really be an accident? Or is it a systematic attempt to improve the performance of girls regardless of cost (even if the cost is the gross under-performance of boys)?

Teacher Ratios

I recently took a course at VCC online, just for fun. Of the 37 faculty in the department, 36 were women.

I wonder what would happen if the ratio were reversed?

way beyond school system

listen I don;t like girly girls and have been quite happy with how females have risen to equality status in our society (and so I have more tomboy-ish/normal human being girls to pursue - good news)

however we have tilted the pendulum out of whack in our society so now the equation Man=Bad, Woman=Good has become our default stance.

You see it in court decisions, workplaces, everywhere.

Ask youselfe the last time someone said men are best and compare that to the last someone said women are best - I will bet dollars to donuts that the first left witnesses aghast while the former brought a round of hearty hears heras from onlookers.

We all know men are prone to aggression, etc, but on the female side, the urge to jail and forbid everything that could cause the slightest harm to anyone has also deeply disturbing consequences.

Females have an innate defensiveness that is danfgerous just as men have an innate aggressiveness that is dangerous.

All this to say we need a more balanced approach. I myself lost my last job because I was not down with the idea that all woman are superiour....(for real - it was sickening to see lesbians conspire to keep me out the corporate world all on the basis of sex)

the oppressed have become the oppressors - the same old same old from our species.

MyBrainIsOnFire

Did you find another job?

Last post we had from you I don't think you'd gotten you first EI cheque yet?

thanks Alcibiades - EI incoming

received the first payment today, paid rent, life goes on looking for work.

doing some writing that hopefully will also lead to work, wish I could share it here, but that would expose my true unsecret identity...no can do for now, but later perhaps...

Thanks for your concern! (and others too)

Passaglia's Left foot

Well said , you get an "A".

PS that was your "Right" Foot speaking correct ?

MyBrainIsOnFire:

You get H-I-G-H marks too..good comment.

PS hope all is well...keep perservering...the pendulum swings eventually, often for the better.

thanks maestro

totally!

Quality education for all? Yes please!

Interesting article … but I found the comments even more “interesting”.

Where to even begin here! After wading through all the comments on “vindictive feminists”, “girl power trance”, “pater demonization” and women as “oppressors” I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or go sign my son up for a drum circle somewhere.

The only comments I can agree with are that:

Yes … Please …I would like to “have more male teachers” as well, particularly at the elementary level. I’m confident most female teachers would echo this thought and know that male teachers are generally snapped up eagerly by elementary principals. One has to ask why it is that women have “dominated the educational system and curriculum for over two decades” though? (…and I’m sure it is more like 5 decades) Would it have something to do with the fact that during this same timeframe teaching has become an undervalued career in our society – no power, no prestige? I’m not talking about a wage issue here, as I don’t think even a substantial wage increase would draw more men into the profession. Increased societal respect or even just common decency towards teachers might go a long way though. What reaction (from friends, parents, society) do you think a teenage boy gets when he declares that he wants to become a kindergarten teacher?

As to “the problem with boys runs deeper than anything a bureaucratized system can touch” comment – agreed, but I think that it could be summed up better by substituting “society” for “boys” here. The education system can’t begin to solve the problems of boys (or girls) who lack the emotional support of a “disappeared” father figure, but they are still left to deal with the fallout. Gender specific classes or support for “kinetic” learning styles won’t even scratch the surface of these deeper societal issues.

A rigid assessment-based education short-changes all students – male, female, kinetic learners, visual learners, whatever. Some students, especially those who through ethnic or gender-based societal pressure are raised to be more conforming and less questioning of authority, may perform well under this system but that hardly means they are receiving a quality education. Interestingly, the recent push towards results-based assessment is mainly coming from conservative societal sectors (insert Fraser Institute here if you like) … an area not usually dominated by mobs of liberal females. Are the old male bastions of conservative society perhaps out to undercut the potential usurpers of their power? Interesting “pride” dynamics!

Most schools and teachers I know are working hard at providing quality education to all students and the really excellent educators see and teach to the individual, not the gender.

Too facile!

My last experience with the school system was in 1978 (I took a teaching certificate, but never used it, soon remembering why I hated highschool as a student) so my experience with today's system, is to put it mildly, limited. But I do think blaming feminists or blaming the curriculum for being weighted toward girls is too facile an explanation and represents more of a not-so-hidden adgenda than an attempt to find the roots of the problem. My experience in life in general and my background in sociology and anthropology teaches me that such problems have complex origins.

A male highschooler's perspective...

Welly, welly, welly. I'm a male grade 12 student here in Vancouver (at a public school) so perhaps my insight can be worthwhile. Firstly, I can absolutely verify that girls dominate the intellectual scene:

- My english literature 12 advance placement course, for example, has three boys (myself included) and fifteen girls.

- My european history 12 advance placement course has seven boys and seventeen girls.

- My french literature and language 12 advance placement course has five boys and fifteen girls.

The major factors, as I've witnessed, are as follows:

- Girls mature faster. They dominate advanced courses which increase the gender gap exponentially moreso.

- Boys are heavily conditioned socially and academically towards traditional "hands on" courses.

I can't find fault with our curriculum that would result in a female bias. Certainly having more male teachers will accomplish nothing. Frankly, I can't think of a solution; This is a very confusing issue and there's no quick fix. Moreover, I don't see this as a "problem".

So what if girls are more likely to study Conrads "horror"? Struggle through Faust? Laugh at the irony in Candide?

If anything, I feel rather terrified at the level of certitude by which Tyee posters assert their opinions over an educational system they're not even a part of. Perhaps this is why I hate PAC so.

Dies irae

Well, when you have children of your own perhaps that Big Picture perspective may result in a far more holistic and comprehensive perspective.

I have been through the BC Public System and now have children currently in the same BC system.

In reflection as both a student and a parent of students in the BC system , and comparing the differences, while one has to analyze them at times to see "the devil in the details" , but the differences do exist nonetheless

Why would you hate PAC... deferring to the experts as simply allowing the inmates to often run the asylum.

I would encourage you to access a copy of " Ambushed by the Principal" by Dr Dawn Benson, a BC School Superintendent...After reading it you may want to enroll any future children in the Private System.

Has the school sytem brainwashed the current crop that " All is good " and the two deadly and in famous words "Trust us"?

Good Luck !!!

Thank you!

Thank you Dies iræ! You have really hit the nail on the head. Thinking back to 1962, when I was in Grade 12, girls back then were academically more proficient than boys and also seemed more mature. Maybe it is a "non-problem."

Thoughtful points

Dies iræ , raingirl, anarcho.

All three of you put it well. And, Dies iræ, ignore maestro, he seems to have subsumed all of whatever meager sense of community he apparently still has into participation in his local school community. PAC's are just another opportunity, in my view, for self-serving parents to advance the interests of their own children.

Each passing year I see more young children whose only sense of family comes from their single-parent mother; my acquaintances who are young women in their 20s never seem to find any difficulty in acquiring the company of a man to 'live with' but, when talk comes round to marriage, commitment and family... not so much.

Of course this isn't just a female/male problem, or a curriculum problem, or a teacher problem - it's a society problem and ours is in big trouble.

I met a supervisor (she evaluates student teachers for the University) the other day who told me about the experience one of her 'client' teachers had been having in a grade 11 class. This teacher is a middle-aged woman with excellent academic credentials who has not been able to gain tenure and decided to get her professional teacher's qualification and teach high school. She is being driven out of the profession by a group of boors, not all boys, in the Grade XI history class she is teaching - and upon which her evaluation will be based - who ought to major in cruelty.

This is not all a woman's, a teacher's or a school system's fault. And it's certainly not just about boys, or girls.

And sadly, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. There are no simple solutions. Least of all when parents who can afford to are encouraged to just abandon the system by a provincial government who think that ‘choice’ is such a good thing.

My view.

The old expression fits

The old expression fits right in here."Women hold up half the sky" But to prove it they must and do work hard to get past the old glass ceiling. So the Law schools, medical schools, engineering schools and other occupations see more women. Two of my last three Doctors are women. Damn good at their job. I don't see TV articles about girls setting up fights outside the schools, and putting the results on the internet.We saw that on the CBC this evening,and yes the schools turfed them out of the class rooms.
Yes some girls are violent but fist fights complete with a crowd leaves a feeling that somehow thy boys just don't get it. The old crap about going to private schools would be the answer simply isn't. I just shipped this article to my granddaughter. second year as a teacher , she teaches mixed grades. And yes at a private school but during her training she was a student teacher at a pretty rough school up in the interior. Had no problems as she treated all students with respect and most certianly expected and got the same from them. It works for her.

Raingirl

I thought your response to the comments in this article was brilliant. Im so sick of middle age men whining about feminists and whatnot. Its bloody pathetic. I finished high school nine years ago but i recall that guys are mostly just "too cool for school" and worried about being a dork or a "fag" im sure a lot of this has to do with society as a whole more than the school system.

Raingirl said: Quote:I

Raingirl said:

Or maybe you just need to sit your ass down and L-I-S-T-E-N, friend.

We just know that this issue is going to get co-opted to support the teachers' union agenda and the ideological left's perspective on gender (mis)construction.

"Remembering facts and algorithms"

I wouldn't underestimate how important this is in our economy, whether our kind of economy is right or wrong. There has to be balanace between left brain and right brain and perhaps the schooling testing system does not know how to measure. What else is new?

The one think that particularly strikes me is to see boys (and men) spending hours deeply immersed in video-games high interaction activities. Of course the drudgery of learning facts and algorithms is incompatible with engaging in these activities.

Perhaps I have been conditionned too in believing that women are doing a better job at remembering facts and algorithms, and doing basic things like running a household. Where the heck did we go wrong, I ask myself???

Done listening

Nightbloom,

Pardon me if I misquote MyBrainIsOnFire for a moment here, but I do believe I am seeing a bit of that “innate aggressiveness that is dangerous”.

Exactly who or what should I be listening to? Those individuals who use psychobabble to heap the blame for the failure of “some” boys in the education system on everyone from teachers & their unions to militant leftists & feminists. I don’t think so. There have always been & will always be individuals who don’t perform well in educational settings. I don’t think these students have ever been offered a better opportunity than they are now getting in the current system. Hopefully, it will get better yet. Many of today’s teachers are bending over backwards to present these students with a multitude of ways to achieve their learning goals. I have heard and seen teachers using rap music, power point demos, digital videos and yes, gaulois, even video-games to illustrate concepts in their classrooms … all in the hopes of pulling those underperforming individuals into the learning experience. Now I know that won’t make the traditional school set very happy, and I’m not even sure if this is completely the right direction to take, but sometimes it works.

So, I’ll listen all right … but I’ll be listening to those who have positive constructive solutions to the educational challenges in our schools and not just those playing the blame game.

Good old G West:

Good old G West:

No kids...yet an expert.

Hence never been on PAC...

Yet lecturing / preaching...

I knew from the first time I logged on I was dealing with THE Mr. Clueless McStereotyper, a living Coles Notes so bereft of anything approaching practical knowledge and experience in much of what he writes.

But continue on...that's your "right"...Mr Uber - Clueless.

Maybe girls are just smarter

Assuming that current curricula embody the knowledge and skills considered essential to capitalism and seeing that girls are assessed to be surpassing boys.... how come women still earn so much less than men?

All three of my kids, male and female, receive a better education than I did and are provided with opportunities to let their various strengths shine. I think the concern over the perceived "failure" of boys may be a misconstrued failure to understand that the world has changed in terms of gender equity. Now that girls are freer to succeed, they may well kick boys' asses round the block. After that, I hope they go on to rule the world. While they do, this boy would be glad to tinker with the lawnmower out in the shed if it helps women to establish a saner order.

Which is to say...

When compared to their own historical record, boys are not failing at all. The drop-out rate, last I checked, was at an all time low for both genders, though certainly higher for males. They are certainly not failing in terms of their earnings. They are "failing" only when compared to the increase in girls' greater academic success over the past two decades. No?

Even the Brits have their

Even the Brits have their heads wrapped around this issue far better than we do. Oh right, don't tell me: yet signs of an "extremist" right wing conspiracy, I suppose?

Helping boys achieve
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6212015.stm

Fathers 'must fight gang culture'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6367273.stm

Review to reassess boys' exam gap
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6043664.stm

The Fatherless Family
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/A3539351

Maestro, I'm inclined to agree. Gwest is simply putting up his customary white noise barrier.

Pot Calling Kettle!

Nightbloom, you have the gall to knock G. West? This is just gutter-press cliches. It is easy to think like you. Whenever there is a problem, real or imagined, don't look for a structural cause, blame some group. The group has to come comes from the following list of scape goats; leftists, socialists, feminists, pacifists, radical professors, Jews, Native People, Quebecois, trade unionists, environmentalists.

Thanks anarcho

Nightbloom,
You're not very perceptive. This remark of maestro's was what I was reacting to:

He was putting down another poster, Dies iræ, whose own words (and personal details) you can see above here for yourself.

For someone who has been championing the principle - and attacking those whom you seem to think have violated it egregiously - that these discussions should not be personal, I'd have thought you might at least understand that.

I know maestro doesn't.

In response to both you and maestro I'll simply quote from Bob Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' - "You don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows".

Anarcho - I defy you to give

Anarcho - I defy you to give me a single instance inwhich I blamed Jews, Native People, Quebecois, environmentalists.

Expoitation of the "Trouble with Boys" issue is a salient point for me to bring up. It goes without question that elements on either side will claim it the issue as "theirs" and then spin it in a manner that is complimentary to their own narrow objectives. The author of the article itself branded one side as "extremist" and "right wing" (unjustly at that, viz. selective use of single-sex classes).

I'm saying that the fundamental issue is how to help boys. Part of that answer is to help teachers help boys (class size, etc.)...but that's only part of it. The other part has to be acknowledged too. And to be fair, a lot of the problem is deeply rooted in societal trends and value-shifts, not just in what is happening in the classroom. Take Gordon Brown's observations, which I linked above.

Again, why the resistance & instantaneous flak against even giving the issue a fair hearing. Maybe the teachers have something to learn here too. Hatfield cut the chase when he was interviewed for this article:

Boy trouble

I retired from a 35 teaching career in 2005. Except for a 2 stint with CUSO overseas, all of it was in BC public high schools.
There are a lot of problems in today's society that are mirrored in the public school system. Preconceived ideas about gender roles lie at the heart of a lot of these problems. Males now struggle to find a suitable role in today's world. Look at the role models given to them in the media, whether it be in sports, music videos, TV or film.It's appalling.
As a male, I've been keenly aware of the shift in the gender balance in the teaching population. It is now possible for a student to go from kindergarten to grade 9 or 10 without ever having a male teacher,or in some districts, administrator.
Is this necessarily a bad thing? I don't know.
I agree that the current mania for standardized testing is killing risk-taking among teachers. The semester system in place in most high schools is also a hindrance to real learning. Class sizes aren't as much as a problem if there are limits placed on the composition. I once taught English 8 to 35 kids who happened to comprise the school band. All Caucasian,all children of relatively affluent parents who shared the same approach to education.
Is this a good or bad thing? I don't know any more.
The inclusive classroom is seen as being a model we should adopt, but the devil is in the details.
About 25 years ago, I taught a group called the Mod Squad which was the modified progam at our school. It took 7 of the lowest ability kids and added 7 of the lowest achieving kids. I was encouraged to throw the curriculum away, and had one of the best years of my teaching career.
Expensive? You bet!
Could any of them perform well on a standardized test? Not a hope!
Lastly, I have no respect for people who bash the public education system or teachers and their union. They are doing an incredible job for incredibly poor pay, under incredibly hard circumstances.
How to improve the current situation?
The public school system is trying to be all things to all people. It can't, and there will never be enough money to allow this.
There has to be more meaningful discipline in the schools. People wonder about the recent surge to French immersion schools.No, it's not a sudden passion for things Francophone, but rather flight from what's seen as chaotic school system.
Get a rein on standardized testing. One comment on a British web site stated that testing had turned British teachers from professionals to technicians. Very aptly put.
Put more money into pilot projects, and widely publish the results.
Spend proportionately as much money on the public system as is being spent on the private one.
Recruit more males as teachers, especially in elementary schools.
I could go on, but it's a nice day and I have a retirement to get to.
If you're thinking about going into the teaching profession, think long and hard.

I meant David Cameron's

I meant David Cameron's observations, not Gordon Brown's (although Blair and Brown are saying much the same thing, illustrating my point about both "sides" vying for "ownership" of the issue). It's an issue that is emerging from the wilderness, after long neglect.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6367273.stm

with all due respect

Nightbloom my friend, If I had a Finn (that's a five dollar bill) for every time you've trotted out the label 'doctrinaire academic leftist' or some similar homogenizing expression about progressives and the left as a class I wouldn't have to leave and head for work this morning.

It has been a constant - until I dropped the bother of pointing it out to you about 4 months ago - feature of our ongoing conversation. To now suggest that you haven't indulged in the kind of intellectual sloppiness that anarcho's tagged you with this morning is just funny.

I really hope the Coyote is watching.

A couple other favourites

And if you'd also paid me a Loonie for each time you've slandered Lesbians and Feminists - both of the academic and the general variety - I'd be able to retire.

Gotta go, he's all yours anarcho.

anarcho:

So....if one is a product of the BC School system .....and also has children currently enrolled in the BC School System...and one tends to also become an involved parent by choice which is also an entrenched legislated right via the BC School Act (if you have read it)...that is totally IRRELEVANT to this discussion , correct ?

I mean, the Teachers have no problem claiming the " fact" of a Teacher Shortage... DO THE MATH !...as approx. 54 of 60 school districts have projected enrollment declines which will continue... PoCo is now closing approx. 5 schools...nor their monopoly on virtue -patented "Social Justice" preaching while "leading by example" and going on a illegal strike and getting a raise AND bonus for all the aforementioned .

Yep !!!! Hey.. lets ALL be Teachers , Save the World and increase the GDP ( and the NDP...ugghhh !).

THUS,...Parents are simply factories to provide clientele to the Public Education System as well as " pay the freight " via taxes ... NO questions asked , much like ransoms and other questionable activities ?

HENCE, What is YOUR experience, anarcho, as a factory to the school system, if any ?

PS Careful...you may end up like G. (....aka all- parent/factories - are - stupid, -even -though- they- are -also-products -of- the- public -system...YEP logic in there somewhere if you jackhammer the BS away!) WEST's " white noise " ala " THE STATE CAN DO NO WoRONgG ".

Also perhaps review " ANIMAL FARM " and Martin Niemollers' old quote.

G West : re " Finn" s?

See...now G West is slandering Scandinavians...saying their lives are only worth $5 Dollars...(is that in Canadian or US funds G West-sky)

Oh well, still worth far more than a G West Loonie post/comment , ie not even worth a " red " cent.

Nightbloom:

Yeah ..sorry to have to ask...but in my own review of this topic I can't find where you are even remotely guilty of which the TYEE Higher Porpoise Parties accuse you of...

Somehow my Standard a-political Thesaurus does not equate your comments with biases and prejudices etc. towards certain visible and invisible minority groups.

However, what you are "accussed of" does more support the premise re the "accusers" and that certain factions sip the same punch and have a god(?) - given right to extrapolate a comment as the original commentor/accusee is racist against "X" ....or biased against "Y" ....or discriminatory against "Z" ...or all of the above.

THEN, ironically...and often because one's own pee test shows no evidence of tasting the same punch... these Higher Porpoise Types wonder why the Left is becoming irrelevant and we, the majority they fail to acknowledge, tend to turn off the volume and the picture ie "tune out" when they appear. No case , and thread bare evidence ,if any.

These types are becoming a literal domestic Al Qaeda wannabee faction( we must rise up and revolt after Canucks games and driving our SUV imports)...yet best advised trying a stand -up routine where the crowd can judge them far more objectively.

Make sure the tossed tomatoes are organic.

Quote:Anarcho - I defy you

I am not saying you did. Please read more carefully. What I said was that what you were doing by blaming leftists and feminists fits in with a whole pattern of scapegoating and then gave a list of typical scape goats for problems. You have to look for systemic and structural causes of problems not point the finger of blame at some group in society that you already are prejudiced against. And as I read your response to me, I am pleased to see that you do seem to be looking at the problem more in a systemic way. And now we can resume a more civilized discussion...

Thanks Maestro - You've

Thanks Maestro - You've described their tactics to a 'T'.

To build on my first post on the need to address gaps in the education and socialization of boys, it might be worthwhile to point out that ours is not the only society that is seeing these trends.

In addition to Canada, the U.S., the U.K. (the "Anglosphere") we're also seeing very troubling trends among young Japanese males related to socio-economic non-participation and suicide. And the problems aren't confined to the developed societies. We needn't mention the systemic pathologies currently faced by boys and young men in Islamic societies, let alone the boy-soldiers of Africa and Southeast Asia. Suffice it to say that there are extremely important developmental, pedogogical, and socio-economic issues directly tied to the new generation of boys and men as a distinct and 'at-risk' group. And let's just wait and see what happens in China over the next couple decades as a result of the warped gender demographics. Raingirl's been-there-done-that bored-to-tears dismissal just doesn't cut it. Let's use our heads just a little.

To some extent, the systemic resistance to boys/men's issues is a product of the deeply rooted reality of male expendability. Whether it's boys with unanswered needs in the classroom, boys without agency on the streets, or boys sent into gunfire on front lines of global conflict, the common denominators are the same: expendability & invisibility.

This doesn't invalidate the importance of girl's/women's issues, and it never did. So why the reverse?

In light of these issues, consider the irony that the principal rationale to justify the deaths of young Canadian men in Afghanistan is so that little girls will finally be able to go to school.

What IS your problem

What IS your problem Maestro? Read my original posting. I make no claim to know anything about the present education system. But I do know as a sociologist, social historian and anthropologist, that problems have systemic and structural causes and that finger-pointing at some group that you are already prejudiced against is not a way to find the root causes and is the mark of an uneducated person. No doubt the teachers have tried to protect their butts and engaged in a bit of empire building. But this is inevitable in any structure and is certainly not the root cause(s) of the problem under discussion. The problem is too complex for such a facile and prejudice-rooted explanation.

Sincere (?) apologies anarcho

WARNING:

Someone has hacked into your Fraser Institute sponsored " Nom de Plume " aka "anarcho" ..and passing themselves off as you, under the title "POT CALLING KETTLE " posted comment made earlier.

ie Comments made in that post equating Nightblooms rather generic comments with about 10 different yet specific groups. I tried, but don't read it any other way.

Please advise the TYEE editors ASAP of this computer - hacking incident.

BTW: While writing out a "foot-sky in mouth-sky " report-sky , see if " G West ", " Alcibiades ", "A. Cameron" are one -and- the- same....and turn into "Clubofrome" when Captain Kangaroo is on during the Full Moon.

Hope you catch the bast*rd/bast*rd-ette hacker.

Thanks (and No- Charge to TYEE comrades).

The thought that all this

The thought that all this time I may have been fending off the same person under multiple names is just...I dunno...

Bizarre. Embarassing. Who would actually keep such a gag going for this long?

Would I be the only one not to catch on after all this time? Has this been a running joke all along? Think of all the good threads that have been wasted by such a trickster.

Gwest? Alcibiades? Sybil? Do you in fact occupy the same body?

Okay, here's an open

Okay, here's an open question:

1. how many other pseudonyms on these threads can be slotted under Gwest/Alcibiades?

2. Who else on these threads is doing the same thing, and what additional pseudonyms can be ascribed to them?

Groan!

And that is because that is how you want to read it. I am talking about propaganda techniques which scapegoat groups. I am not saying that Nighbloom would use all or any of the others. I am talking about a technique. Nor am I saying that he is doing this deliberately. Many people in total innocence pick up these cliches and use them without thinking about their origin or veracity. As I have said before, you have to search for the structural causes of problems and not seek out devils to point fingers at.

And by the way...

Coyote, G. West, Lynn, Alci, Cappy, Anarcho, Clueless, Frank, are in fact all the same person! LOL!

Indeed they are

Progressives having been so thoroughly dismayed by the intellectual superiority of the right wing thinkers who dominate these comment boards with their reason and erudition that they now have only one individual left to defend their points of view.

You forgot to add: ubiquitous, BCMary, the brain, Sharingisgood, Avicenna, Skookum1 and at least a dozen others.

This person never sleeps. Outnumbered and outgunned, the left soldiers on.
My sinsere apologies to anyone I've left out. Keeping all these hats on my head is a task the equal of Bartholomew Cubbins

I had no idea that I was responsible for Cappy too, anarcho, that one really does require some mental gymnastics. I thought you had his strings.
LOL

errata

When I'm pulling all those identities out of their boxes, I sometimes forget my grammar and spelling.

I've erred with the way I typed 'sincere' above here.

I suppose I must be the Spelling and Grammar Police as well, eh nightbloom?

Back to work.

Ta Ta

The lady doth protest too

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

You're not all of those, Gwest, but I've noticed a few things since Truman first mentioned this some time ago. "Gwest" and "Alcibiades" are the same person. What other pseudonyms do you post under? Why do you waste our time doing that?

As for the rest of us, let's get back to the topic at hand. It deserves much better.

Don't forget Gerhardius

He was also, along with maestro, among the personas I've been accused of being responsible for by Truman and, when she was still around, Nana

You can check it out.

Now, seriously, I have to go.

Lunch is over. By the way, I want to be Stan Laurel if it's okay with you Ollie.

That won't do. I note

That won't do.

I note that you don't deny being Alcibiades.

Considering the number of threads which you took on a round trip to nowhere by relentlessly tag-teaming posters whom you disagreed by alternating between the pseudonyms of "Gwest" and "Alcibiades", I think you owe readers of The Tyee, The Tyee's writers, and the regular posters on these threads an abject apology.

You're the one who should be embarassed, copiously posting reinforcement of your own points under an alternate name, and taking turns with yourself flaming posters you don't like. That's pretty juvenile.

The funny thing is

I always thought you and bluenose had a lot of similarities and tended to look like a tag-team couple as well.

The point about what people post here, because everyone except Truman is posting anonymously - for whatever reason - is that it ought to be a debate about ideas and concepts, not personalities. You've implied that Coyote is the only one to get personal and throw brickbats. It simply isn't true.

The editor of this place has just warned (this very morning) another long-time violator of the rules here that he/she has gone over the line.

You can check it out on the headscarf thread if you haven't already.

People from the left, the right, from Quebec, France, America, women, people of different sexual orientations and religions all deserve to be treated with respect and - at a minimum - tolerance. I'd actually prefer a little empathy and I'd even extend it to folks who teach gender studies and feminist philosophy in the academy.

What labels they attach to themselves are pretty insignificant.

I have been bending over backwards to try and conform to that model around here of late. If you don't believe me then check out the Campbell stocks thread for an extended exchange between ME and Capitalism.

Now, I really have to go. But don't pretend you have anything to teach anyone about adult behavior around here.

Shall we move on? If you

Shall we move on? If you want to examine the problem rationally ie, no gutter press cliches and no logical fallacies, I am all for it.
Some points to ponder;
About males in general; High wage industrial jobs have disappeared throughout the developed world. Most of these were held by men without much education. Could this be an important factor?
Students; Are all boys in trouble or just some.? If so which groups and is the difference socio-economic-cultural?
When you factor in the vastly higher male drop out rate circa 1960 with today and the fact that even then girls did well, is there really all that much of a difference academically?

Thinking...

says Mal Content

I would say the same thing about 'any profession' in the place of 'teaching'

You're still not cutting it,

You're still not cutting it, Gwest-Alcibiades, and you've now crossed over into bona fide Loser territory.

Don't relativise your dishonest masturbatory self-gratification and tag-team flaming of other posters using multiple pseudonyms with all the other "sins" committed by others on these threads. Take responsibility and own up.

I just have to think of the vicious "Nightbloom-banished-Coyote" tangent you enacted as both "Gwest" and "Alcibiades" (and who knows who else) the first time Coyote went on an anti-Semitic rant and reaped the consequences. Or of the way you so often hop on one thread and recommend your alter-ego's posts on another as though there's a critical mass of support for your views among Tyee contributors. And there's all the other times you patted yourself on the back for your own sanctimonious posts, or led otherwise useful threads off the deep end and into oblivion. What a disservice to the issues, to the writers, to the readers, and to the other posters.

You're a stooge.

You can continue rationalizing your hypocrisy ad nauseum. Bluenose and I bear no resemblance to each other, neither in reasoning nor in style. Try again, Gwest-Alcibiades et al. I'd never do something so silly as to act as my own cheerleader and still maintain my self-respect as an intellectual and as a contributor to the free trade of ideas, which is what these fora are supposed to be all about.

You should ask yourself why an adult man like yourself (one can only presume now) would feel compelled to enact such a deception so persistently and for such a great length of time. There's something quite neurotic about it.

Get some help; we're concerned.

You need to actually look back

Have a look at what you're actually saying nightbloom.
Because you don't know what you're talking about.

I don't think you'll find a single instance where the two characters you're talking about have ever patted each other on the back.

If they have, it was probably deserved.

"Characters" he says.

"Characters" he says.

You're a character all right - several, apparently.

So what is this is....theatre?.....pantomime...?

You get the Oscar, Gwest-Alcibiades. More than one actually.

Anyone who wants to sincerely comment on the topic of the original journalistic piece, above, by all means jump in and restore some integrity to this website.

AND NOW

I really really am busy. Playing with you is always fun and diverting but I have some important WORK to do.

I've just learned that the Liberal party of Canada has served Notice of Action as required by section 5(1) of the Ontario Libel and Slander Act over remarks made about Liberal MP Navdeep Bains in a letter delivered to Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre demanding that he withdraw his false, misleading and defamatory statements made during an interview on CFRA radio in Ottawa on February 22, 2007.

The Tyee is almost going to scoop the MSM on this one.

Bye

So?

So is anybody interested in actually talking about the content of this article or what?

Excuse me?

This entire post is based on the assumption that maestro was addressing my original post. If this isn't the case, I apologize.

Allow me to provide you with an example of my level of social conditioning and indroctrination into our wonderful "warehouse" education system.

Several years ago a bunch of parliamentarian hackjobs, elected by a minority of the electorate, conjured up the brilliant idea of increasing British Columbia's students marketability due to higher standards at post-secondary institutions. The result was a beast known as "portfolio." The concept was simple, students would be herded like sheep into a cold room where they would go through the motions of "proving" themselves to be "well rounded" students with "extra curricular activities".

A very long, boring two years later, I walked into my "portfolio" presentation and spent half an hour speaking to two wonderful members of the "business community" about how I feel that no one has the right to judge me. That I should never feel categorized or graded based on another scale other than my own. I told them that I was not being educated by miseducated. At some point I may have quoted Noam.

I told them about the Student Congress that I attended and about the words I exchanged with our current Minister of Education. I told them about my experience at highschools in Cuba. I told them about my art: a compassion project (the outline of a body in the school foyer with the word, or words?, "no body?"). I spoke about my abu ghraib pieces (including the statue of liberty with the victim superimposed and Tolstoys, "its amazing how often beauty is mistaken for goodness". Ironic, perhaps, as my piece was rather beautiful (ego! ego! ego!).

I told them that, as far as I was concerned, my twelve years of education have been twelve years wasted. My teachers, by and large, have been poorly paid babysitters.

"They" gave me 100%.

Students today, at least those in a semi-priviledged Vancouver public school (Kitsilano, fiat lux!), are very cynical and more socially aware than ever before. It's reactionary to the 1980's starch conservatism. The problem isn't the students, it's the system:

We're told that we're powerless. We believe that we're powerless. That makes us powerless.

Yeah, really busy

Yeah, really busy Gwest-Alcibiades et al.

"Alcibiades" would always say that when I cornered him on an issue, while "Gwest" would continue ad nauseum on another thread. Puhleeeze. So busy you've got run off and invent another identity for yourself so you can continue policing the other contributors on these threads.

And nice attempt to change the subject. You could at least have tried something along the lines of this article's original topic, which myself and others were sincerely addressing before you decided to step in and perform your 'lunchroom monitor' pantomime under your various guises.

Thanks for bringing us back on topic, Anarcho - I'm ready now - You start.

Article?

Is there an article somewhere? I thought this was MSN.

I did!

Two hours ago I wrote,

Any takers? Or other ideas?

Success

Seven hours ago, I said something like this: The grad rate is at an all-time high in B.C. last I checked, though certainly lower for males.

Can't help but see the worries over "boys getting left behind" as nothing but a comparison to the increase in girls' success and as a reflection of greater gender equity over the past two decades (relatively speaking). When compared to their own academic history, boys do better now than ever - even WITH the much higher expectations from Universities and high schools.

When do Canada's wages start to reflect the increase in girls'/women's success I wonder.

Anarcho - I believe it's

Anarcho - I believe it's definitely cross-cultural and cuts through the traditional divisions of class, education, and race.... although these factors may influence how the overall dysphoria is manifested.

For example, Japanese males are manifesting their "opting out" differently than white and African-American males...who in turn differ from young Arab men. What's interesting is just how easily the class barriers are 'jumped' with regard to the problems affecting boys and young men. We're seeing a lot of the same drug problems, the same trends in suicide rates, the similarities go on. It's a real phenomenon, and one which (I believe) the usual "social welfare" proponents are ill-equipped to address effectively.

On Topic

There's an interesting study on educational outcomes in science done by researchers at the University of Alberta.

A study of 352 English speaking 13 year olds determined that motivation was a much more accurate predictor of success than gender.

This would probably lead one to conclude that both psychological and social factors are the areas where attention should be focused if the object is to encourage boys to achieve better outcomes.

It it can be established that this isn't just a 'boys are generally dumber than girls' paradigm then one needs to look to other factors both in and outside the school room.

I've now passed the 'breaking news' on to the appropriate parties nightbloom and I'd love to be reminded of when you've ever 'cornered' me on an issue. Like most of what you've been up to today, that's a figment of your imagination.

By the way, I do remember several times noticing that you have a curious habit of referring to yourself in the 3rd person. You might want to get that looked into.

The study in question is the work of Gautam Puhan and Huiqin Hu, if you're interested.

Didn't you just say you were

Didn't you just say you were so busy you had to run? Whatever.

Anarcho - I think we've got a far-reaching "modernity problem" not unlike the others, only this one correlates closely to gender. It's something we're going to pay for down the road in a bewildering variety of ways (more delinquency and associated problems, higher prison population, socio-political instability, etc.).

Perhaps we should narrow the

Perhaps we should narrow the focus down a bit and leave it - for now at least - with Western developed countries. The Arab countries are quite a different kettle of fish, though I would agree that the general rubric "problems of modernity" do apply here too.
I would like to see, if anyone can find it, a statistical breakdown relating to class and or education level of parents. Although, of course, I do agree that these problems transcend such boundaries, but it would be interesting to see if there is some sort of statistical "lumping."

Just gotta make an aside

Just gotta make an aside here....I checked out Coyote's blog. First thing I notice is that I get (dis)honourable mention more than any other (a backhanded compliment of sorts). Second thing I noticed (an irony I've remarked before) is that Coyote's perspective on gender issues bears some substantive similarities to my own, notwithstanding his idiosyncratic way of self-expression. The third and final comment is that, contrary to Coyote's assertion, I never sought to impose my own view of gender on others, but to use debate to cut through the obscuratist cloud of extreme "gender politics" which those of us who came of age in the 1980s and early 1990s had to work our way through. I do not oppose in principle the goals of the sexual liberation movements; what I oppose is the excessive 'dogmatization' that arose from is as political interests sought to carve out and consolidate new constituencies for themselves by manufacturing differences and stoking grievances (the bread and butter of New Left identity politics).

Anarcho - Maybe you're right about the need to narrow the parameters for the sake of discussion of the "Boy Trouble" issue.

See what happens ?

Sounds like someone left the tape recorder O-N in the Confessional.

All these "secret TYEE identities" ( or overlapping ones) now admitted and revealed.

Always suspected most of them. Now, just a few more and we're done.

PS I am following a lead that G West is also Michael Walker from the F.I., it makes sense for various reasons.

If so, then the Fraser

If so, then the Fraser Institute needs to keep him better occupied.

Dies irae

Actually, I am glad to see the original discussion was expanded with your latest set of comments. What you wrote is very good and gives better insight into the current Public Education system.

Unfortunately, it seems this so -called greater empowering and "social justice-izing" of the individual students is actually reaping a rather cynical , skeptical and perhaps even bitter harvest.

One may come out of the Public System with a so-called " greater sophistication ", but concurrently pre- jaded and pre- discouraged when one enters the Real World.

Is that simply a reality check...or dare I say, a brainwashing exercise? Not sure it leads to a healthy society in the long term if we pass the torch to the next generations who start off on a cynical-jaded foot.

Seems our own children come home from public school some days like "fire and brimstone" preachers and pointing out our alleged lifestyle sins..." don't eat that...don't do that...this does that...." etc etc. while we also stay up late helping them do their homework.

Somehow we seemed to learn THAT good ol 3 R's stuff F-I-R-S-T before we signed onto the " Save the World Socio -evangelist " tour, and also let our personal political beliefs evolve LATER as we acquired the right to vote AFTER we left High School.

Maybe you've brought things into a far more relevant and apropos perspective.

Thanks.

Kudos to G West

No... you have to hand it to G West...regardless of whether you agree or disagree with them. He perserveres even when the overwhelming evidence trumps the propoganda...but he AIN'T a quitter.

Fast expeditious comments and links...or always into finding the " missing link " .

G West is either (i) a unique individual capable of voluminous multi-tasking...or(ii) the head/ majority shareholder of a well-run multi -national organization with an excellent research staff.
Toss a coin?

Only other suspicion is G West's organization is based in Texas(originally)...or located in some 3 rd World country (Cuba ? )so as to keep overhead costs down. I think he also hands out Wal - Mart gift certificates as bonuses.

ALSO: George Dubya Bush has only a little while longer left in the Oval office, and G Wests dream (aka fits the profile) is to have PM Harper and Dubya on either side of him in a group photo. I hope he gets his wish soon , and that it happens, as it could be worth a lot on e - bay.

PS My opening bid is $100 (in US funds).

David Brooks

Interesting OP ed in the NYTimes this morning about this very subject - with echoes from David Cameron and Gordon Brown in Britain.

It's behind the subscription wall. I'll post it and you can talk about it. No charge.

The conventional ones, though they don’t know it, are prisoners of the dead husk of behaviorism. They will speak of education as if children were blank slates waiting to have ideas inputted into their brains with some efficient delivery mechanism.

The creative ones will finally absorb the truth found in decades of research: the relationships children have outside school shape their performance inside the school.

The conventional candidates will give the same old education reform speeches, trumpeting this or that bureaucratic reshuffle. The creative ones will give speeches like the one David Cameron, who is reviving the British Tory party, gave last month. They will talk, as Cameron did, about the mushy things, like love and attachment, and will say, as Cameron did, “Family relationships matter more than anything else.”

They will understand that schools filled with students who can’t control their impulses, who can’t focus their attention and who can’t regulate their emotions will not succeed, no matter how many reforms are made by governors, superintendents or presidents.

These candidates will emphasize that education is a cumulative process that begins at the dawn of life and builds early in life as children learn how to learn. These candidates will point out that powerful social trends — the doubling of single-parent families over the past generation, the rise of divorce rates — mean that government has to rethink its role. They’ll note that if we want to have successful human capital policies, we have to get over the definition of education as something that takes place in schools between the hours of 8 and 3, between the months of September and June, and between the ages of 5 and 18.

As Bob Marvin of the University of Virginia points out, there is a mountain of evidence demonstrating that early childhood attachments shape lifelong learning competence.

Children do have inborn temperaments and intelligence. Nevertheless, students make the most of their natural dispositions when they have a secure emotional base from which to explore, and even the brightest children stumble when there is chaos inside.

Research over the past few decades impressively shows that children who emerge from attentive, attuned parental relationships do better in school and beyond. They tend to choose friends wisely. They handle frustration better. They’re more resilient in the face of setbacks. They grow up to become more productive workers.

On the other hand, as Martha Farah of the University of Pennsylvania has found, students who do not feel emotionally safe tend not to develop good memories (which is consistent with cortisol experiments in animals). Students from less stimulating environments have worse language skills.

The question, of course, is, What can government do about any of this? The answer is that there are programs that do work to help young and stressed mothers establish healthier attachments. These programs usually involve having nurses or mature women make a series of home visits to give young mothers the sort of cajoling and practical wisdom that in other times would have been delivered by grandmothers or elders.

The Circle of Security program has measurably improved attachments and enhanced social skills. The Nurse-Family Partnerships program, founded by David Olds, has produced rigorously examined, impressive results. Children who have been in this program had 59 percent fewer arrests at age 15. (Presidential candidates are commanded to read Katherine Boo’s Feb. 6, 2006, New Yorker article to get a feel for how these programs work.)

It’s important not to get carried away. “Enhancing Early Attachments,” a review of the literature edited by Lisa Berlin and others, is filled with phrases like “marginal success” and “modest but significant benefits.” But these programs can be expanded.

And one thing is clear: It’s crazy to have educational policies that, in effect, chop up children’s brains into the rational cortex, which the government ministers to in schools, and the emotional limbic system, which the government ignores. In nature there is no neat division. Emotional engagement is the essence of information processing and learning.

In Britain, where both David Cameron and Gordon Brown have grappled with this reality, policy is catching up with the research. In the United States, we are forever behind. But that won’t last. This year, some smart presidential candidate will help us catch up.

G West

Quote; " This year, some smart presidential candidate will help us catch up ".

ALSO: Assuming your " smart presidential candidate " is the equivalent of a SUCCESSFUL presidential candidate....

So, you agree...(3)and possibly (4) consecutive terms for the REPUBLICANS .

Atta boy...you've seen the light.

I kinda of felt ol' silver medallist Al " Whatever -Truth -is- Politically- Convenient" Gore is simply playing the St. John the Baptist role and laying the groundwork for another "Democratic Saviour" LOL .

You know, turning the murky-water enviro - issues into WhINE in the land of milk'n money.

Peace Bro' -sky.

The point, my friend

The point of posting the article, written by David Brooks (who is a well known conservative and a regular guest on several PBS shows), had not much to do with the political realm - at least as it has anything to say about this topic.

Brooks' piece addresses several approaches to improving educational outcomes that are proving effective in the United States and I posted it for that reason.

Sorry to confuse.

You might let nightbloom know. Yesterday he seemed very concerned with discussing issues; now not so much. I have a feeling he's into identity politics today.

Freudian slip?

G West posts something from David Brooks, then suddenly posting for the first time since checking on the EI status of another poster, Alcibiades posts:

I posted

whomever this chamelion G West/Alcibiades is the cracks are starting to show...

He needs help. He's

He needs help. He's monopolized and diverted so many threads over the past couple years using this trick. It's a kind of banditry - one can exert a great deal of effort crafting an argument, only to have this joker turn it into a football and toss it nonsensically between his multiple personalities.

I noticed he's been running around trying to ingratiate himself with a certain clique of posters, since being exposed. Unfortunately, there's a "trade union mentality" among the leftist clique here, and they'll gladly turn a blind eye to unfair/dishonest practices so long as it advances their platform. In other words, it doesn't matter what he says and does - so long as he promotes their ideology, in their books he'll always be right and I'll always be wrong.

Will you get back on the subject!

How much longer is this ridiculous banter going to go on? Don't people wish to discuss the topic at hand, or not?

Gladly. What do you make of

Gladly. What do you make of how this issue is being addressed in the U.K. right now, Anarcho?

Helping boys achieve
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/
Fathers 'must fight gang culture'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6
Review to reassess boys' exam gap
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6
The Fatherless Family
www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/A3539351

Like I said a couple days ago

If you want to discuss something with me, nightbloom, simply respond to the following email

Lots of people have.

Now, as far as I'm concerned this matter is over. I will not discuss it again.

Otherwise, as is the case with everyone else (save two or three people I hope I've acknowledged) we all post here anonymously and pseudonymously. That is, as they say in the funny papers - just the way it is.

If you can find a single instance, ever, where the two personas you're so upset about have ever represented anything but exactly the same philosophy and point of view I'd be very surprised. Furthermore, I've never bothered to deny anything about who or what was behind these labels because everyone with any wit already knew who was behind them.
Ask around if you like.

Why do you think I posted my email address so prominently? Every single person who took the trouble to reply (and you and others have had numerous opportunities) knows exactly what's going on.

Everybody has an agenda nightbloom - you're the last person who should pretend they don't.

Now back to the issues.

The family cost of the way the economy works

This morning the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a study that looks closely at the effects on Canadian families of the economic pressures and changes in Canada since the 1970s.

You can download a Pdf copy here:

http://policyalternatives.ca/documents/National_Office_Pubs/2007/The_Rich_and_the_Rest_of_Us.pdf

I haven't had a chance to read it all but it very clearly indicates that the myth of upward mobility is not just a myth, it's a lie.

Finding ways to support children in schools has a lot to do with the value we place on families and their economic well-being. As long as we have governments in this country who think the worship of shareholder value is more important than giving families the kind of resources they used to have from strong and cohesive communities and a reasonable amount of leisure time, then the kinds of disconnects that are happening in schools today (for both boys and girls) are not too surprising.

There’s a line in either Marx or Engels that says true wealth is measured in time, not money.

The people who are raising their children in today’s environment are very very poor when it comes to that measure.

Here's a very interesting passage from the report:

Here’s what’s going on: Between 1976–79, the bottom half of Canada’s families
earned 27% of total earnings. Between 2001–04, the bottom half’s share dropped to
20.5% of total earnings, even though they were working more.

The poorest 20% of Canadian families saw their share of the earnings pie drop
from 4.5% from the late 1970s, to 2.6% in the early 2000s. In sharp contrast, the top
half of Canadian families saw their share of total earnings grow, from 73% to 79.5%
during that same time period.

On the surface, it looks like half of Canadian families are doing better and half
are doing worse. Not so. Only the richest 20% of Canadian families saw their share
of the economic pie increase. In fact, it was the richest 10% of these families who
drove all the change. The richest 10% of Canadian families saw their share of total
earnings rise from less than a quarter of the earnings pie (23%) in the late 1970s to
almost 30% (29.5%), on average, between 2001–04.

Over the course of almost three decades, the bottom 80% of Canadian families
raising children lost ground.

They had a smaller share of the economy they helped generate — the gains went to the richest 20% of families, mostly to the richest 10%.

You don't think that has an effect on families and the atmosphere in homes - and on outcomes in schools?

Well I think it does.

One more interesting passage - full of interesting data

Date which, more than anything helps illustrate what's behind the fundamental problems facing today's Canadian family.

In 2004, the average earnings of the richest 10% of Canada’s families raising children was 82 times that earned by the poorest 10% of Canada’s families. That is approaching triple the ratio of 1976, around 31 times. Both years were characterized by strong economic conditions.

from the report cited above, at page 17.

Those links

Nightbloom, only one link worked, but the article that I was able to read - the last one on fatherless families was very good indeed. Paradoxically, in the case of this discussion, the sort of girls who become single mothers usually suffer from low self esteem and seemingly have little purpose in life. Having a kid gives them a reason for existence, something to dominate (shudder) and some level of self-esteem as a mother. This is, of course pathetic. Any girl who wants to become an archeologist or an astronaut, the last thing she will want to do is have a kid. As for the boys who impregnate them and abandon them, they don't seem to have much purpose in life either. Trouble with the question of fatherless families is that many people have axes to grind over this, when in fact, it should be looked at objectively.

Also the point made earlier by Brooks. What happens before school is of the utmost importance and I am living proof of it. When I was a child we were about as poor as you could get - no running water, no electricity - yet my parents encouraged me to read and they (and I) listened to CBC (the good old 1950's pre-dumbed down CBC!) So I was miles ahead of the other poor kids and ended up getting a university degree. The problem then is not so much physical poverty but the cultural poverty that so often accompanies it.

To G. West

It would be interesting to attempt to integrate your report with my observations above. What is the link between increasing physical poverty and what must be increasing cultural poverty that help give rise to the aforementioned social problems?

I think it's time anarcho

Parents, both of whom are almost always working outside the home, just don't have the time they did with their kids - in the evenings, on weekends.

They can't engage with school related activities in the ways they used to because they're just too pressured and tired all the time.

Thus, not having time to engage with their spouse or partner (if there is one) or, either individually or as a couple, to engage and get involved in their childrens' school life or their cultural life.

We pretend that family relations are just fine and idealize them as wonderful. I don't think they are. In fact, I suspect the kind of comic dynamic portrayed in 'Little Miss Sunshine' is far closer to the truth for modern Canadian families than many of us realize. And the endings aren't funny at all.

In fact, anarcho

In fact, your own description of your early experience - which isn't, in its particulars, all that different from mine - just doesn't apply any more.

But, even in those families where, ostensibly, everything seems to be going fine.

Nice house, big mortgage, new car, holiday every summer. Even in those cases - and the report talks about them too - the upper mobility is being squeezed out of a longer work day, a moonlight job, extra time on the weekend and the like - the mobility is really illusory and such families are living a treadmill existence - always running harder just to stay in place. It can’t last.

Is it any wonder families and kids fall to the wayside?

I had forgotten to add that

I had forgotten to add that by "culture" I just didn't mean the book larnin' kind. A family of illiterate peasants that eat wholesome home cooked food around the table as a group, who play music or tell stories together, have the sort of cultural capital I refer to in spades.

You are right G. West. I grew up on farms, usually both parents were around and I went with them wherever they went. But I would add an additional observatiuon to yours, the substitution of traditional cultural activities - like Cape Bretoners or Acadians making music together, or in my case reading has been replaced by corporate junk culture. You can be sure that the wretches that are talked about in the fatherless familes article have no other culture than that offered them by corporate junk culture and I think this both one of the manifestations of the problem and also one of the causes of the problem.

Quote:Nightbloom, only one

Oops, I see what happened. Here are those links again:

Helping boys achieve
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6212015.stm

Fathers 'must fight gang culture'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6367273.stm

Review to reassess boys' exam gap
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6043664.stm

The Fatherless Family
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/A3539351

Oh absolutely anarcho

Moreover, we are the poorer for the fact that busy parents rely on television and video games and computers to give them the few hours of relief they do get each week.

I can remember gatherings of three or four generations of family every year for special occasions; dancing , singing, even recitations and of course there was someone in every extended family who could play the piano or a violin.

We learned to relate to each other and to adults in a world that was safe and 'personal' not cold and calculated. Now many grandparents virtually never see their grandchildren at all and musical experiences, like every other cultural opportunity, are 'paid-for' enrichment type efforts done because parents feel it's part of the 'right' up-bringing.

'Culture' in the sense you mean it, is a big part of the problem.

I'm not even suggesting that we can go back to the old ways of life - we can't, it's over. But if we don't understand the economic basis of the problem then we can't ever hope to use the power of the economy to try and address what's going wrong.

We need to return to some real honesty and demand that our political and social leaders do the same.

First step: stop avoiding the truth.

nightbloom

These provide access to a variety of services, such as daytime childcare, after-school homework, music and sports clubs, and support in specialised areas such as speech therapy.

In a wide-ranging speech - the inaugural Donald Dewar Memorial Lecture at the University of Glasgow - Mr Brown also outlined his views on "Britishness" and social justice.

And he talked about the how to ensure that the rights and responsibilities of individuals, society and the state are balanced effectively.

I think that kind of thing is important but I'm not sure that the 'air' of force or compulsion that I saw in some of Cameron's statements will work with families and fathers when it comes to getting folks to accept their responsibilities.

I think the economic problems have to be addressedd first - especially in the Canadian context where the tendency is for that top 10 -15 percent of families to buy their way out of the problem by sending their kids to private schools.

Not only does this disengage such parents and their kids from the wider societal problem, it also detracts from the resources in the public system which then shrivels just a little more with each passing year.

The Americans have been demonstrating very positive results in some inner city neighbourhoods where they've concentrated resources on single-mom families. I haven't got the study I'm thinking of at hand but I'll see if I can find it.

This isn't the one I was thinking of

And it's not exactly up to date either. But still has some good information and ideas, from the University of Massachusetts:

http://crs.uvm.edu/nnco/communsupp/index.html

I agree that the economic

I agree that the economic problems have to be dealt with first. This is sort of the foundation.
But I don't entirely agree that the cultural aspect has disapeared or is impossible. The counter-culture of the 1970's never went away, and this will be enough to make our resident righties choke on their coffee, we maintain many of those old fashioned cultural aspects. And while I have no children, many of my friends and associates do. And every last one of those children has turned out well, and they in turn are producing a third generation with the same world-view. Essentially, we all live modestly, and hence there is time for the children, we are all educated, so we pass that cultural capital on, and of course, people still have real meals and play music at home. Like the seed banks preserving genetic material that might otherwise be lost the hated hippies and lefties preserve the social aspects of life.

Those links

Thanks, Nightbloom, I got them this time. Some thoughts; 1.They seem to be band aid solutions, better than nothing though I suppose. 2. Can't help but worry about pulling the army into this 3. Cameron is right on the bit about fathers, but must be playing to the knuckle draggers in his party with talk about "respect for authority." You cannot force people to respect authority, or anything else, any more than you can force people to love you. Of course you can terrorize people into pretending to respect authority, but as soon as the authorities let their guard down, watch out. What is needed with these kids is a healthy sense of self-respect. If you have that you don't need fear and threats. Of course, this is the very thing they lack, and is something very difficult to instill.

Still listening ...

Still listening … though the thread doth meander.

As for my “dismissal” of the topic … I am far from dismissing that an issue exists with respect to the problems “some” boys experience in traditional educational settings, as it is impossible to dismiss hard stats. What I do reject is the attempt to blame this group’s poor performance on some feminist/militant/leftwing agenda of male expendability. Most of your cited articles and many others I’ve encountered point directly at socioeconomic status, breakdown of the family unit, lack of parental time, etc. as the underlying causes of these boys’ poor performance. Forgive me if I’m wrong here but I wouldn’t describe most poor, single mothers as being at the vanguard of the feminist movement – just the opposite in fact.

We need, to quote Gwest, “to understand the economic basis of the problem” in order to fix it – hurling blame around doesn’t get you any closer to a solution. It is not a “boys versus girls” contest.

So here’s a big bunch of stats on the topic out of Australia, as culturally similar to Canada as you get, and a place where the “boy problem” is also making education headlines. It’s from 2000, so a little dated, and primarily correlative stats but it does highlight many of the issues.

http://www.dest.gov.au/archive/Research/docs/Paper%20for%20Manning%20the%20Milllenium.pdf

My summary:

1) Not all boys are having problems, as Dies irae’s post illustrated, and boys “as a group” are not underperforming. The stats are skewed by a cluster of “some” low performing boys and unfortunately this group seems to be growing. I don’t believe any educators are trying to ignore or dismiss this group. As I’ve said, I have personally seen teachers using tactics to engage this group – not always successfully. Many BC teachers are using strategies not unlike those mentioned in the British study cited by Nightbloom, though on a smaller scale.

2) We can, somewhat, take girls out of the equation. Girls’ success rates in terms of literacy and high school retention haven’t changed drastically over some 30 odd years. Records going back 100 years showed girls’ outperforming boys on school-leaving exams. Girls have historically dominated boys at the upper end of the secondary performance scale. I’m guessing that many factors already mentioned come into play here, including boy’s different learning styles, girl’s traditional conformity, differences in maturity levels, peer and societal pressures. Some of these things we can’t change and ...

3) some of them don’t matter in the long run, as most boys tend to “catch up” by participating in education in other ways, i.e. greater participation in all levels of post-secondary education. Maturity and finding a “fit” between their learning styles and careers/education just seems to occur later for some boys.

4) The troubling “poorly performing boy cluster” is heavily correlated with low socioeconomic status, rural locality (in both Canada and Australia this would include impoverished aboriginal communities), and lack of English in the home. The study results also showed that the gap between performance and socioeconomic status is shrinking. I’d be curious to know if this is because teaching improvements are raising the performance of the “poor” group or the effects of modern lifestyle (non-participatory parents, video-game culture, “insert your favourite modern evil here”) are lowering the “rich” group’s performance. I’m suspecting a combination of the two. Any takers here?

the truth...

wrote G West.

I agree.

~ Alfie Kohn

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/homework.htm

also from that article:

So between the time needed to actually read (quiet time is best), time stolen by the 'idiot box' (also known as that piece of furniture the TV), the video games and meaningless homework; when do we expect our children to get to know thier parents?

This is the same argument being made for/about schools that are bemoaning the 'boys' failing to hold up their end of the pumping of test scores...

some more truth...

wrote G West.

I agree.

We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.

By 1917, the major administrative jobs in American schooling were under the control of a group referred to in the press of that day as "the Education Trust." The first meeting of this trust included representatives of Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harvard, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the National Education Association. The chief end, wrote Benjamin Kidd, the British evolutionist, in 1918, was to "impose on the young the ideal of subordination."

Is it not possible that these young MEN have awoken to the fact that they are being purposely 'held back' from actually maturing?

Why is it that becoming a grown man must include having a university degree?

Did Einstein?
Did Farragut?

The statement occurs in a section of Public Education called "A New Lengthening of the Period of Dependence," in which Cubberley explains that "the coming of the factory system" has made extended childhood necessary by depriving children of the training and education that farm and village life once gave. With the breakdown of home and village industries, the passing of chores, and the extinction of the apprenticeship system by large-scale production with its extreme division of labor (and the "all conquering march of machinery"), an army of workers has arisen, said Cubberley, who know nothing.

Could it be that these young MEN have snapped out of the walking nightmare that is modern compulsion schooling?

Intuitively could it be that some of these young MEN realize that they are but rats in a social experiment? Tired of running the mazes and along the wheels set before them they have escaped the cage and now must un-learn the regimentation of SKOOL and become real functioning parts of this society (one that is in real danger of collapse).

http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/2b.htm

yet another truth...

wrote G West.

A agree.

Bad Character As A Management Tool

I shall not enter this entire text:
http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/2e.htm

Here are some highlights:

"the American worker is a pushover."

"...in the United States, human beings don’t make decisions, abstract formulas do; management by mathematical rules makes the company manager-proof as well as worker-proof."

"The extreme wealth of American big business is the direct result of school having trained us in certain attitudes like a craving for novelty. That’s what the bells are for. They don’t ring so much as to say, "Now for something different.""

So could it not be possible that these young MEN have recognized that they do now want novelty, that they need time to actually think (impossible to do in any primary classroom I have seen). Time to read (in silence), time to seek for themselves what it is they are going to...?

Without some unseen clock suddenly interrupting their train of thought (making it impossible to get it going ever again!)?

some truthiness...

wrote G West.

A agree.

Teachers College Maintains The Planet

http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/5c.htm

If any part of this mentality has infected the Canadian system, and I say that it has ~ take a look at your child's text book and read where it came from, if it was Boston or New York, then your child is under the control of this system ~ then ANYTHING that the teachers try will fail.

GUARANTEED.

Teachers do not control the SYSTEM, any teacher that says they do is either deluded or has not yet run into the administration WALL.

Time for many bricks to be taken out from that wall...take your children out of this system and let it die.

http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/14b.htm

http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/14j.htm

School is a system, not at all interested in actually teaching children anything, the are learning by default!

http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/14k.htm

Could it not be that these young MEN have tired of the yoke of this system watching them all the time?

Coult it not be that these young MEN are growing up faster than the system will allow them to?

murdock

everything you say is important and there are elements of truth in most of the things you quote. I still think there is no over-arching plan to dumb-down the population and turn folks into ciphers - teachers are as stressed and pressed for time as everyone else on this treadmill and their work, just like everyone else's, suffers.

I still maintain the main key is economic and motivational. We need, particularly, more time; more time for thought and reflection; more tome for leisure; more time for learning; more time for family,

We need, as anarcho says, to rebuild community and family culture.

But we also have to quit practicing a culture of blame - at least as regards our neighbours and friends and co-workers.

Last night, when an abominable creature crawled from under a rock and started spewing hate on the Rafe Mair/free speech thread - (you can find the wreckage there if you care) - one poster proceeded to make the case, even as this brute was pouring out his venom, that it was somehow the 'fault' of other posters on this site - as a class - that this creature was there doing what he was doing. Apart from being absurd, that kind of blame and scapegoating is irresponsible.

We are, as regards the fate of this culture and society - especially in terms of how we educate and train the next generation, all in it together. There is no case for and no value in spending all our time laying blame. It's time to look to solutions that will work, not just for our own kids, but for the future and for all of us. Merely addressing the narrow selfish case just isn't enough any longer.

Whoever made this mess is not as important as who will have to clean it up...

some final truths

wrote G West.

I agree.

Does any of the above describe someone you know?

Are they still in the SKOOL SYSTIM?

If you really do care about them, then get them out from the crushing weight that will destroy them bit-by-bit for 12 years and bring them out into a 'real' world.

Get them away from the 4 kinds of classroom:
* students are prepared for future wage labor that is mechanical and routine.
* students are prepared for low-level bureaucratic work, work with little creative element to it, work which does not reward critical appraisals of management.
* students being trained for work that requires them to be producers of artistic, intellectual, scientific, and other kinds of productive enterprise.
* trains students for ownership, leadership, and control. Every hot social issue is discussed, students are urged to look at a point from all sides.

http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/17r.htm

BREAK OUT OF THE TRAP!
Boys or Girls

http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/18p.htm

Modern Schooling is broken, this article just 'highlights' one particular part of the wound on society.

Here are some other ideas for triage:

http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/18t.htm

Good stuff!

This is really good stuff, Murdock. I have always admired Gatto. I am glad you raised these points and I think the most significant of all is that the school system was not designed to educate but to control and therefore teachers that believe in education have an uphill battle and parents are left wondering why their kids don't know much.

cleaning up

wrote G West.

yes and I am starting to do so in whatever way I can.

I am homeschooling and I am posting here about the past and JTG's observations because he puts it all out there better than I can.

Like an alcoholic, modern schooling will not be fixed until it admits to actions of the past.

Since it is a 'system' of our society, the only way to fix it is to allow it, like the alcoholic, to completely fall apart.

Sadly many many other lives will be mangled in this collapse.

There is another way...intervention.

While I do not weild the personal power to achieve this I do have a voice and I can share some well thought out plans for solution.

as I did above:

http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/18t.htm

Try actually reading the link...no really read it!

I've read it murdock

Moreover, I agree with a great deal of what Gatto says. But this is the urbanized effete culture we live in - a society where most of us - absent electricity and the corner store - would simply starve to death.

We are a mass culture and the average citizen is neither capable nor equipped to undertake anything like the comprehensive sort of change that's needed. We must start small and start soon and we have to stop scapegoating. This system, flawed and dysfunctional though it may be, will not be replaced overnight. Read the report I linked to as well - the kinds of financial and economic stressors that have got us in this mess need to be addressed as well.

Only together can reform have a chance. It's time we stopped arguing and created a minimum set of principles that a majority of the people can agree on. When that happens we will have created a political structure that will not be turned back. Not a group of sovereign individuals, but a group of individuals united in a quest for a sovereign goal.

More mangled lives?

I don't think we need to see any more "mangled" lives ... be it from societal collapse or school system collapse. There are too many damaged individuals out there already thanks.

I can agree with Gatto's ideas on a fluffy, Utopian level but in reality, as G West points out, most of society is incapable of carrying out anything so complex. To even assume so is absurd.

Time to get practical - within the current system. It's unfortunate that many people don't see that, to some degree, a Gatto-like application has been happening for quite a while in some classrooms and is, in fact, becoming more prevalent. Mentors with specialized but non-teaching credentials are coming into the classrooms, choices besides pen & paper evaluation are happening, topics are being explored across the breadth of the curriculum in art, science, math. Maybe we've just been exceptionally lucky with really forward thinking teachers, but I think not.

Sadly, many of these initiatives will probably be thrust to the wayside in the current climate of "test 'til you drop" educational conservatism.

the only way we're cheating

the only way we're cheating kids is by allowing the bctf to use the education system as their political football. while the liberals have brought them down a peg or two, especially since outsmarting and outmaneuvering them during the infamous illegal job action, i would still like to see them brought down a couple of more pegs. maybe after the next landslide victory, do you think? not likely the new younger teachers will continue to buy the bullshite that the greyhairs have been feeding them, and there sure seem to be a lot more greyhairs at their rallies these days.

Interesting

Elliot,

This reads to me like an ad hominem smear against:
teachers, the teachers' union, people who happen to have grey hair and people who go to rallies.

Aren't you forgetting someone?

Eliot is trolling

We were actually having an intelligent, objective and civilized discussion on the problems mentioned in the article and now you want to go back to the ideological finger pointing and shouting. You right-whiners never cease to create ill will do you? As far as I am concerned this is troll behaviour.

Yes, more mangled lives.

raingirl counter-argues in the same post!

and

THE PROBLEM IS THE SYSTEM!

This is a big part of the point that Gatto makes, niether boys nor girls are the fault!

This is the 'sub title' tag-line for this article written by Nick Smith. The distraction of arguing that boys or girls are doing better is just another baffle-gab that distracts from the real culprit : THE SCHOOL SYSTEM.

If you care about your children, re-arrange your life so that you can include them in it, then get them out from the control of this entire mind-bending system.

This is not a shot at teachers, nor unions, it is a full broadside at a system that as Alan Bullock, the English historian, said Evil was a state of incompetence. If true, our school adventure has filled the twentieth century with evil.

Gatto-like application?

Raingirl writes: "It's unfortunate that many people don't see that, to some degree, a Gatto-like application has been happening for quite a while in some classrooms and is, in fact, becoming more prevalent. Mentors with specialized but non-teaching credentials are coming into the classrooms, choices besides pen & paper evaluation are happening, topics are being explored across the breadth of the curriculum in art, science, math. Maybe we've just been exceptionally lucky with really forward thinking teachers, but I think not."

I'm curious as to where you see 'this' happening? I don't. While the Ed-minister mouths platitudes ad nauseum about providing more choices and flexibility for students, the system becomes more driven than ever by standardization. I consider the choices largely illusionary, much the way apologists of the ol' Soviet regime waxed on about providing 'choices' in soviet society, as evidenced by a choice in automobiles. "You can buy a Lada in red, white, black and blue Is that not choice?!"

Course intstruction, testing, prescribed learning outcomes (of dubious provenance and value), and consequences for non-compliance define the BC education system as far as I can tell, with some occasional and very local variety mixed in to make everyone feel like there's real choice here. Control is the dominant process.

BCTF as the Problem? Yes

BCTF as the Problem?

Yes and No:

If one does a more comprehensive review of the North American PUBLIC education system...one can see the increasing militancy of Teachers Unions over the past few decades .

Try researching the U.S New York City system. It's a phenomenon all over North America .

Unlike " old school featherbedding " by the Private Sector Unions which has sort of gone by the wayside, these Teachers Unions know they have the Gov'ts by the short hairs and will exploit this legal form of hostage- taking (ie using YOUR kids)to foster any all Union agenda.

ILLEGAL Srikes and BOGUS claims of teacher shortage as schools continually close ? = 16 % raise + $4000 signing bonus !!! ...I am sure the REAL world can match that.

In my view, the very fact that Private schools have waiting lists and Private tutorial companies like Kumon and Sylvan abound (plus those many other Tutors that advertise with flyers on telephone poles) is an indictment of the Public Education system and not even remotely worthy of my advocacy support.

The only possible sense(too much credit?) these Teachers Unions seem to have is that one step over the line will result in massive Parent protest and demands for legal action,ie APPLY THE DAM EXISTING LAW ..... perhaps ol Jinny and BCTF execs in the crowbar hotel with Ex " social justice" students ?

The Teachers Unions' agenda is to water down accountability and make life easier and easier for its members till the sh!te hits the fan...many of us can see it coming already. Much of todays youth are "smart" but STOOPIDZ, they , the Public Teachers , seem to be producing little " BCTF socialist -bots" ...like an Austin Powers movie, who can blame then society for all the ills, join the knee-jerk protest to pay the Teachers more... yet not seeing the root causes.

PS unless you currently have or have had children in the Public School system...I can't see these points being debated with those of us that do have or have had .

hey anarchist; how is

hey anarchist; how is pointing out truths about the bctf 'ideological finger pointing and shouting'? what you're really trying to say is that you don't agree with me so i should be banned. correct?

Example of a parallel edu- universe

Here is an interview with Sol Stern...NYC Public School Education critic.

If you ever read his bio, he is a repentant Hippy-Leftie who had his own epiphany once his OWN children entered the same NYC Public Education system he himself had once graduated from .

Link:

http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/interrogatory090803.asp

PS Does much of this sound familiar ?

Elliot - Consider the

Elliot - Consider the probability that "anarcho" is the same person as "Gwest" and "Alciabiades". Which means the schizoid twit has been alternating his "characters" for much of this thread, with "anarcho" acting as Gwest's foil, deflecting criticism, inserting prompting questions and setting up all of Gwest's posts like a helpful hand puppet. And have you ever read such boiler-plate fare? Notice how he totally floods the bandwith by alternating his "characters". Don't expect a breath of reproof or criticism of such tactics from the "coyote klatsch" on these threads, however. The ends justify the means.

I mean really, why would an intelligent person with an independent viewpoint even both participating anymore. Oh, I remember why...because apparently we "all have an agenda". Clearly, some "agendas" take more license with the truth than others.

i have previously suspected

i have previously suspected that gwest and alcy were one and the same. anarcho as well?

nightbloom

Perhaps I can remind you to look a bit back up this thread. If you read a little more critcally you wouldn't find yourself so surprised at something that was probably common knowledge, even to Elliot.

I thought we were talking about education.

Nightbloom!

Quit acting the ass, Nightbloom, and get back into the discussion. How much are you willing to bet me that I am not a manifestation of G.West? Put yer money where yer mouth is! As far as Eliot is concerned I never said you should be banned. I was implying that you were acting like a troll by disrupting what had been for the last 24 hours a reasoned and rational discussion. What I am trying to do here is direct us away from the sort of hectoring, finger-pointing, demonizing routine engaged in by some of our resident righties and try to look at the problem objectively. Yes, I am willing to suggest that the teachers union has an interest in this, like any of the other members of the education establishment, but to reduce the problems of education to this one group is the worst sort of reductionism and demonization with a clear far-right political adgenda at hand.

As fror my explanation, I'll post it here

There's one thing I can't stand and that's people ganging up on anyone so I signed on with another name and exposed what Colin was doing. If you're interested in the details you can trace them in the archives to the first day Alcibiades registered. Since then I've used the other identity from time to time to re-emphasize exactly the same point of view that G West always takes. Truman has been calling me GWest/Alcibiades for ages.

I don't see it as a problem as long as I'm not playing two sides of any question. Yesterday Nightbloom got very concerned about it and posted a lot of ad hominem nonsense - in my view. I think people who pretend that they are open about their personal details in a forum like Tyee are mad. As I said to him - and as I've been very open with you - I have an agenda and I'm very open about it. But I'm also fair, I don't call people names and I'm more than happy to engage anyone on a knowledge or intellectual basis.

I made no bones about the G West/Alcibiades thing yesterday ( on the Boys in trouble story) and, as long as there's no more need for someone to come to grips with bullies then I see no reason why Alcibiades can't retire.

If you're curious about some of the other things I'm talking about, have a look at Tax Cutter 99's exchanges with aalborg if you want details. As I told you earlier, I'm convinced no one knows what goes on at Tyee better than I do -----. And I really do want it to succeed. If you could just get Terry Glavin to stop making the kind of blanket accusations about everyone who posts there I think I'd be close to happy about the way things are going.

All the best, I think we're really on the same page - most of the time. I felt really badly that I couldn't have done more to help the night before last.

This is a copy of most of what I wrote to David Beers this morning. As long as the efforts that we've seen lately to keep people on subject and away from personal attacks - Alcibiades is retired.

And, as I said yesterday

As I posted yesterday, on this very thread, if anyone wants to discuss this at greater length I am at your service. For the sake of the subject, I think it's time to move on.

As always, my email address has been prominently displayed from time to time, as nightbloom will, I'm certain, attest.

garthwest@hotmail.com

Comrade G West:

Seek clarification:

What art thou actually saying ?

You actually do use DUAL (or more than 2 ) TYEE identities?

"Alciabides is retired"...means you, G. West know for a fact that Alciabides is GONE..." RETIRED " ?

Just a simple answer....

Thanks...

Quote:There's one thing I

So why did you then go on to do the same thing to me (and a few others) on so many occasions for so long using your multiple pseudonyms? What would motivate you to get in on that – don’t you have a job, a life, or anything better to do? How old are you, anyway?

If a bunch of people decide to be a-holes and systematically bully an individual participant on these threads, that speaks for itself, and would probably have been self-correcting in time. But what makes you think it's okay for you to invent a gang of fictitious people and then pull the same shit on legitimate and well-intentioned participants, all on your own, while deceiving every other sincere participant on this website?

And then you have the nerve to give me shit for not contacting you through your pseudonymous e-mail addresses (you've invited me to do so as both “Gwest” and “Alcibiades”), implying that everyone else had done so, and that they were therefore 'in' on your extended prank. Cripes, I have enough friends – as if I’m under some kind of obligation to e-mail you. Holy shit - Get a life.

And since you say everyone was in on this joke, did you and Coyote whoop it up the whole time, while he was calling me a pedophile and making homophobic slurs about my alleged “swishing” and “flapping wrists”, while you with your multiple personalities ganged up to deflect and mitigate my attempts to defend myself? If everyone was indeed in on it then I’ve never encountered such a bunch of creeps. It would explain a few things though.

I’m not the one who has done something wrong, dishonest and unethical by misrepresenting myself (yes, even on an anonymous forum). You’re the one who has enacted a prolonged deception, not I. You’re the one who has used underhanded methods to promote your “agenda”, not I. And that’s why you’re the one who can no longer be taken at face value.

So don’t you give me shit for anything, you big loser.

did you or did you not post this on wednesday

Simple question.

It's unfortunate that this website is becoming a refuge for cranks and and unhinged holocaust deniers like yourself. You present the best argument in favour of selective culling of idiotic abuse of speech at the expense of others.

The fact that no one else in Coyote's hoary clique of anti-Semitic acolytes is willing to call you on it speaks for itself.

I await the next dose of "free speech" directed in my direction with breathless anticipation. Good for you, guys & gals.

If you can find, anywhere, anytime, that I've posted anything remotely similar about a whole class of people simply because they have a different defintion of what constitures 'free speech' then I'd like to see it.

And, as I said before, if you want to take this up at greater length I have posted my address.

See nightbloom?

At least you got an answer...

More Later...

.....but be wary this "outing" may all be a Red Herring.

hey g; in all sincerity

hey g; in all sincerity man, i think you need to get some help.

i realized when seeing my

i realized when seeing my last remark in print that it looks sarcastic and rude, but it wasn't my intention and i apologize for it. you're taking this whole tyee thing too seriously g. for most of us it's just a lark, something to do every once in a while. read some articles, get a different perspective, maybe engage in some debate or add our own perspective. sounds like you're getting a little too wrapped up in it g. maybe you need to take a break.

Thats It!

I have had enough. I was hoping to have a serious discussion about this problem that might have led us (Except the odd "Always blame the left and the unions types for everything" types - ) to some sort of common ground solutions, a direction even Nightbloom was tending. I am not wasting any more time on this.

maestro

Read what I've posted back toward the top of this thread: It's all there in black and white and, nightbloom to the contrary I don't think there's a single problem with it. G West and Alcibiades have always represented exactly the same philosophy and point of view. If I'd been needling someone from the left as G West and someone else from the left as Alcibiades he might have something to complain about.

The few times I ever posted anything even slightly personal about myself, on a thread about Medicare, I wore nothing but ad hominem abuse from someone called tcahill. You can check that out too.

As for agendas and personal characteristics, nightbloom may have complaints about how he's been treated by others - but not from me.

And, I offered him my email address - as I've done dozens of times to others - a long long time ago.

He might not like my tactics, but, if he's an honest man, he'll also admit that the way he's combined his critiques of the academic left with opprobrium for groups against whom he holds a grudge and people like the person behind GWest and Alcibiades who is – believe me, neither of them but who also believes in the morality and responsibility of the way he lives and tries to affect the world as a progressive - is indicative of a very strong agenda on his part.

As for yourself, maestro, I haven't yet figured out exactly what you really believe in.

errata

someone else from the 'right' obviously. I freely admit to needling.

G(?) West(?)

G. West:

Your own confession is that Y-O-U haven't figured " IT " out ....whatever " IT " is, as ol' Bill Clinton said....is most certainly not my problem, its your own self- diagnosis.

Now, that begets the questions of many others on the TYEE , given the strong suspicions many of us have had about dual, triple, quadruple, quintuple, etc. etc. TYEE commentors identities.

These solid suspicions are much like the old comic book Super Heroes...the amazing coincidences when Clark Kent was around, disappeared then Superman coincidentally appeared . Duuuhhhhh !

I think most of us, G.(?) West(?), have strong and consistent beliefs in various things, but often we back them up with valid logical reasons.

It seems many here on the TYEE are old Hippies that did find that Worm Hole and go back and forth in space -time continuum to the 1960's etc. and also have a grow -opp in there somewhere. That explains much of their own logic/reasoning/thinking... using one's own retail/wholesale supply.

One can engage these TYEE types only so far in the TYEE's main goal(...which I interpret as free speech ,information, and constructive dialogue...) before either Chairman Mao's RED book, Fidels Cuban Health care, Federal Liberals Red book or the same old tired NDP rhetoric flies out.

Oooooopps , Lefties trumped again, into " hey man" spin cycle......time to hit the brakes !!!

The so -called fact I have you and your TYEE like-minded types are a bit confused reminds me of a slightly abridged version of a Clint Eastwood quote. It has, on the one hand "Made My Day", but it's been obvious all along ya'll don't get it and many of us will pass on the cult's punch.

Those of us in the REAL World see your types every day, you ARE increasingly a minority, much like the power structures you support , the very same ones that certainly have a different version of equality than most of us...ie LOWEST common denominator.

A secret or dual identity really served no purpose,did it G(?) "Diogenes" West(?).

In Rod Serling fashion...We now enter into the C-R-E-D-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y zone... and all the true G(?) West(?)comraderie trolls who clung onto thine ass and stuck like sh!te to a blanket.

Egg on Face of your comrade posse',( but Egg on Face remover is on sale at aisle 1897 at Wal Mart)

No Lefties in Foxholes..yellow and always running...either away or in circles.

Oh well, at least you had SOME fooled G(?)West(?)...hope they ain't lining up on the Lions Gate bridge.

PS : I'm sure more on this TYEE magic act will ooze out. I'm still also hedging on what the real truth is...

Negative Ways...

There he goes with the lefty stuff again. Echo, echo, echo...

That's it maestro

That's the WHOLE story. Front to back, top to bottom and that post up there is exactly what I sent to David Beers this morning. In fact, I'm seriously thinking of canceling this name and creating a new one:

GWest/Alci

So that when everyone sees it they'll remember that the names people give themselves and the labels others hang on them are so much more important than what they say.

There a lot of people around here who clearly think that and would rather call people names and categorize them than actually discuss ideas logically and intelligently. On both sides of the aisle.

If I’d been up to that kind of treatment of others I'd be very ashamed.

As it is, I'm proud of the effort I've put into this place. You?

And now, I really am serious. If you want to take this any further you know how to reach me.

These labels were becoming a distraction and I have a lot more private work to do these days. Some things you can handle with a computer on in the background – some not.

G(?) West (?)

As long as you, yourself, thee,thine and thou are ALL happy...more power to ya. Time to tie the Gordian (?)knot?

QUESTION: Did you, yourself,thee,thine and thou make a contribution on the TYEE ?
ANSWER: yes and no, or is it maybe yes, maybe no.

Maybe the G (?) West (?) fans are the most affected.

Regardless ...Get back to those contracts!

I'll keep my cards a bit closer as to others on TYEE with possible cross identities.

As I said , this gets very very interesting as old evidence and old theories get discussed.

BTW : New and Old biz:

Not sure on the Fave Picks for the Stanley Cup yet..way too close to call.

BC Lions? I predict there will be a major surprise announcement on the QB situation, something is being left dangling too long, especially with the Argos latest announcements.

Federal LIEberals are toastito.

Global Warming is a BS junk science fad, Climate Change is "gee true" .

Ciao 4 now.

And now back to the business at hand

http://policyresearch.gc.ca/v7n2_e.pdf

Is a link to a pdf file which includes an article by Ben Levin from the University of Manitoba at page 45. It looks closely at what schools can and cannot do to address the kinds of problems we've been discussing here.

I won't quote extensively from it unless someone else is interested in reading it too and then continuing this.

Quote:Front to back, top to

Do you really think David Beers relishes dealing with this kind of stupid juvenile shit? Is this High School or what?

GWest/Alci

No! No more. You've done enough. And you're still lying. It's not just "Gwest" & "Alcibiades". I count five.

You're a fibber who can't admit he lied and cheated. It's not the names, it's what you did with them on a chronic basis.

But it doesn't stop there: you've gotta hang the shit on everyone else, don't you. Who's at fault here? Oh no, certainly not you, 'cause "nightbloom did this and Colin did that and the Tank.net people did the other thing..."

Behold the liberal conscience in all its relativist glory.

The only person who did anything wrong is you, so grow some nuts and take responsibility.

I've taken responsibility - that's what this is all about

But if you want to discuss it I'm ready anytime big fella you know where to reach me.

There are not five. There never were and I'd be happy if you sent an email to David beers to confirm it. If you cared a little more about anything other than yourself you'd step back and take a deep breath. Period.
Here are my sign-up details:

G West
Joined:
22-03-2005
Alcibiades
Joined:
03-03-2006

I was mistaken about Alcibiades sign up, it was actually March and not February.

Editor: Send these jerks packing!!

Editor, I urge you to send these immature jerks packing. They are a scourge on this vrey worthy venture. I, too, run an online community with a much lower tolerance for such puerile nonsense.

They consistenly detract from vital discussion on many issues in Tyee forums; Give 'em a 3-month suspension, is my opinion. Enough is enough!

cc -

Back on topic?

If we are done with the distraction over "who's on first" and anybody is still paying attention ...

Regarding "Gattoesque" BC classrooms BC4me wrote:

I base my comments on what I have seen happening in my children’s local, public elementary & middle schools over the past 8 years or so ... in comparison to my own experience with the BC public system >25 years ago. Topics explored across subject boundaries, e.g. A CSI unit (science - report writing, microscopes; math - comparatative stats, measurement, accuracy & precision; english - exploring the mystery and crime novel genres, creative writing in the same genre), an elementary mining unit (socials - history & geography of mining in BC; science - minerals & crystals, environmental impact; art - giant wall mural of mining industry; english - related novels; music - songs of the Gold Rush period; followed by a class visit to a minesite). Both these topics appeared to be greatly enjoyed by the students, including some of the lower performing boys.

Students at the elementary level are often given choices on how they wish to present their knowledge. On a given topic I have witnessed rap music presentations, drama productions, posters, models as well as the traditional oral and written reports.

Non-certified "educators" have been brought in to discuss and teach everything from Aboriginal cookery to community banking and landscape painting. These are fairly regular and ongoing occurrences. I could go on with many more examples.

Yes, there were some graded assignments and traditional "paper" tests within this context, but overall it is worlds away from the "listen, read, memorize and test" situation I experienced in the past. Personally, I have nothing against a moderate level of testing and basics in the curriculum, with the emphasis on the word moderate. The current ideology, coming not from the teachers themselves, but from proponents of conservative back-to-basics, Asian-style education (and being heavily pushed by the BC government/Fraser Institute/private schools) threatens to undermine all the achievements of the last 25 or so years. ... and in doing so they will also exacerbate the problems being experienced by some of our boys.

bc4me - don't lump me in

bc4me - don't lump me in with the muppet show.

I'm just sorry I allowed this guy to lead these threads on so many tangents. Obviously, that was his goal all along. Sorry if the issue has inadvertently hijacked this thread, and it certainly deserved better, but some of us believe in holding people to account for their mischief.

Besides, the troubled boys alluded to in the title of the article (albeit with a question mark) got left behind loooooong ago, perhaps in the article itself. In fact, I'm virtually the only person on this thread who's addressed that issue head on, in a manner that takes the real issue of troubled and underachieving boys in the school system at face value. Much of the rest of the arumentation is either dismissive of the issue or an effort to redefine it according to boilerplate BCTF politics.

Five-in-One: 1. Gwest 2.

Five-in-One:

1. Gwest
2. Alcibiades
3. Cameron
4. Diogenes
5. anarcho

It all makes sense now. Have I missed anyone?

bc4me

With all due respect...this is a free speech forum.

The TYEE editors, in my view have been fairly small "l" liberal in allowing most of us to exercise each of us our own individual versions of free speech.

However, lobbying for a subjective " play God " censorship starts a tit -for -tat where a case would be made that ultimately leads to E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E is banned.

Question:..,THEN W-H-A-T re: THE TYEE..it'll at best end up to be a cyber rag full of edited comments...or at worst will fold.

Like anything else, let the censorship stop and start internally ,...ignore it via individual choice.

I will support G. West's so - called classic FREE SPEECH right,( with the usual legal exceptions)...but the issue now is CREDIBILITY, given the stunt pulled and now "allegedly exposed" , and BTW one which many of us have "suspected" all along, and as I myself have said G. West/Alci/___ are likely NOT the only TYEE posters doing it.

Once one admits deceit, one can never go back...even if one says the deceit was not a deceit, a joke , it's still a lie...hence credibility is 100% shot...correct ?

However, "G.West aka Alci" apparently have the same agenda/s , which "they" have "both" let it slip...so be wary.

nightbloom

It's no big deal...but let's forensically analyze the scam.

If G West confession is true... (NOTE: always keep an open mind)...they must have been using separate computers, or how would the TYEE editor get scammed , perhaps not foresee the potential of Rogue multi TYEE posters, and not ID -ing the comments as originating from the same source?

I have a theory this is much deeper than G.West = Alci= ____.....G West's comments already indicate something deeper.

To go to all that trouble..Why?...Why not be upfront..?

I think there are more people involved than just uni - G West...My current "raw- yet -to- be -polished" theory is College journalism students and involved in a group project.

cute, but still under the direction of THE SYSTEM

and so on goes Raingirl.

once again missing the point that those teachers are 'playing around the margins' of the school SYSTEM.

None of these games will dodge the demands of the dogwood certificate.

Nor the joke of commencement ceremonies, you know the ones that give away completion certificates to Grade 12 students since no one will know if they have 'graduated' or not until after the tests have been graded.

Meaning that entry into universities is less accessible to those students since the government has not published the results sometimes until right on the deadline for submissions to UBC or SFU.

I maintain that the failure is of the entire system, you know the one that creates the mentality that gives us people like GWest!

You don't read the comments?

1. Gwest
2. Alcibiades
3. Cameron
4. Diogenes
5. anarcho

It all makes sense now. Have I missed anyone?

Just dropped in to see if there was any sense being made here, but I see other than raingirl and murdock no one wants to discuss the issue. As for the bit of silliness quoted above - don't you read the posts? I have already challenged you to put your money where your mouth is. You want to bet that I am not an individual? Come on !

"Anarcho" your protestations

"Anarcho" your protestations sound exactly like those of "Alcibiades" on other threads, whenever I'd have "Gwest" cornered on something. Your use of multiple characters as a foil is getting old. Just drop the act.

You see the point now, "Anarcho-Gwest-Alcibiades" et al. ? As Maestro says, it's about credibility. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

The irony here is that in seeking to artificially multiply the voices of the liberal-Left on these threads, you've only managed to undermine all of them. You're radioactive now. Anyone now seeking to chime in to lend support to you (a la "Alcibiades" and "Anarcho" et al.) is liable to have their credibility questioned. A reasonable interlocutor has no choice but to question their credibility, given the easy amoral duplicity you've demonstrated. You've been undone by your own deception.

Maestro - Interesting

Maestro - Interesting theory. I'm not sure if creating multiple login identities requires a different I.P. address each time. Can anyone confirm that? If so, then yes it would be an easy thing to do in, say, a campus computer lab. Someone with a motivation to do so could easily hop from computer to computer any number of time. But geez - they'd have to be a real loser to go thru all that bother just to score a few points on an on-line discussion forum.

I'm ready to flush the whole issue, but before doing so we should acknowledge that this person still hasn't owned up to all his identities, is still insisting that what he did was perfectly fine and normal (more than that, he seems to believe we're the ones with the problem for taking exception, if you can believe it), and has still not shown remorse for the way he's used his multiple identities over the past two years to tag-team posters, manipulate threads, and amplify the bandwidth his "agenda" occupies on these threads, therefore displacing and drowning out honest dialogue. As I said when this first hit the fan, if everyone pursued such dishonest tactics, then these discussion threads would be useless for anything. So it looks like we'll have to let it go without either a full reckoning nor an apology to Tyee participants from this individual.

Just one question...

Is the person calling himself Nightbloom really Shannon Rupp? I swear they seem like the same persona to me!

nightbloom - for the last time

I have done exactly that. Read what I posted at the top of this thread. Read what I wrote to David Beers. I've written him another letter this morning. The dates I gave on this site are accurate and they reflect the only two identities I have ever posted under at this site or anywhere else for that matter.

I'm more than willing to share my real identity with you if you care to reply to the email address I posted yesterday - and that applies to anyone else who has a problem with what I've done.

Period. I explained why I did it - you can disagree with my reasoning if you like. I never once denied I was both Alcibiades and G West. In addition, I still maintain if you'd looked at what I'd written closely you'd have known it too. They are, unquestionably, the production of the same mind – just as I intended them to be.

I don't believe my actions were dishonorable at all, but that's between me and my conscience. As to what I've owned up to here, don't blame anyone else for their involvement - it was me and me alone and that's the whole story. I had my reasons and I think they were good ones. Period. As for the two years, you apparently can’t count.

As I mentioned above here, Alcibiades first post was the same day that label was registered, March 3, 2007 – one year ago today. It has been an interesting year. I’ve learned a lot about human nature and the way people – even anonymously – treat each other.

G West and Alcibiades are all me - and only me and no one else - ever. So stop blaming anyone else - there is no one else involved - never has been. I’m sorry if anyone is hurt or disappointed – but that’s the end of it.

Now for the last time let it go. I have explained my actions for the last time. You may not respect me because of the way you see the world - I can live with that. You are neither my mother nor my confessor.

Errata

I really should use that preview pane - the date is March 3, 2006.

just as I posted above here:
G West
Joined:
22-03-2005
Alcibiades
Joined:
03-03-2006

Thanks

Put up or shut up!

Nightbloom, if you are so concerned, then take me up on my offer. Let's say $100 that I am not G. West. You go for it, I will post my email address, you email me and I send you all the confirmation that you could want and more of who I really am. Otherwise put up or shut up!

Quote:I don't believe my

That doesn't say much for your conscience.

Don't ever accuse me of having and "agenda" ever again. You take the freakin' cake - you and your muppet show of hand puppets that have made a farce out of every discussion you've ever tainted with your multiplicitous participation.

Like I said,

We both had our agendas.

My conscience is just fine. It's been a very interesting year.

And

For the last time, again - 2 is not multiple. It's 2.

Leave everyone else out of this because none of them were involved.

I didn't need, or ask for, any help.

Quote:I will support G.

Maestro - You're right. I think this fiasco falls within the boundaries of "free speech", and that the only point of controversy is credibility....and I suppose propriety as well (admittedly a subjective criteria).

It's important not to expect too much from forums like this, and this demonstrates that point adequately. I get it. But just to be fair: I put up with more B.S. from this particular conglomeration of posters than anyone else here.

It's actually pretty funny. I've been hammering away at the amoral, exploitative, derivative, and relativist nature of the ideological liberal-Left all this time, and now its principal proponent(s) on these threads has been revealed as fraudulent and amoral as the ideology he preaches.

It's just all very a propos.

So nightbloom

Glad to see you've calmed down. I'd be interested to know exactly 'what' ideology you think I've been preaching.

But, since the actual subject of this discussion is nominally education and its failings I'd suggest we defer this conversation till another time.
OK

nightbloom

Well, we all rememebr how Televangelists Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker fell from grace and disappointed their flock.

I am not sure G (?) West(?) really appreciated what they have done. Without going into what I feel is a much deeper issue and agenda on this facade...once the right to "free speech" issue is acknowledged, there AIN"T much left.

Credibility kaput !!!

I recall when the full moon came out and the G West entity morphed into Alci aka Sybill-Alci, "Alciabides"
mentioned they are " keeping a file...". Interesting, almost like a threat. Then what do you do with a file ... blackmail people?...brown envelopes?...or use for the dirty five letter word..."agenda" of their own.

My agenda(?) is probably no different than others ie live one's life with reasonable expectations no different than most others...OR as one wise elderly gentlemean said to me , "the world doesn't owe you living, but it owes you a RIGHT to make a living ". I see many TYEE posters of the philisophical "agenda-driven" view to either steal, manipulate, micromanage or ultimately control even that basic right yet using bogus logic masking a detest for the very society they live in. To them I bluntly say P*ss Off and get lost.

G(?) West(?) seemed to be the leader of certain TYEE factions who would drink their own bathwater/kool -aid in a typically condescending fashion and yet all be in symbiotic harmony in their views...the deadly party line followers who on cue tend to "gang up" on certain view points that did not adhere to the party line. One almost thinks there was a "conspiracy" to pounce on cue, hence my is G(?) West(?)college students class project theory posted earlier.

There must be egg on these cult members faces, but G(?) West(?) must at least feel honoured being in a league similar to Swaggart and Bakker.

The rest of us are more on the "stand alone individuals"...not in need of syncophants and acolytes cling- ons .

G(?) West(?) is the one with the problem certianly not the rest of us. Many of us suspected it re G West = X....Y,..Z....TYEE posters, and they have finally admitted it, it was close to being exposed regardless.

Case closed.

And G West, as has been posted numerous times

Never once denied that Alcibiades and G West were both being written by the same person - about whom only those with enough courage to actually respond to those prominently posted email addresses (throughout the last year) really know anything at all.

The curse of the uncurious I guess. I did get a lot of emails. Only when people started tying these two names to a lot of other people who have nothing whatever to do with me (that is, the person behind the entirely consistent beliefs and ideas of G West and Alcibiades) did I take any notice. If you go back to an earlier conspiracy thread maestro, you’ll find out they even accused G West/Alci of being behind maestro too.

Now let's get back to the subject at hand - unless you want to send that email.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
I would put very little or possibly no credence in what G West says .I have just discovered on Boy Trouble site, that he has been login in and posting under at least two different names through out the entire Tyee site. G West and Alcibiades are one and the same. Following after my comment I will post his admittance and comment. Nightbloom, to whom I apologize to for having been duped by this phony and for having him exposed. One other matter G West Im going to point out ,you stated on the Boy Trouble site
The editor of this place has just warned (this very morning) another long-time violator of the rules here that he/she has gone over the line.
1. You can check it out on the headscarf thread if you haven't already.
People from the left, the right, from Quebec, France, America, women, people of different sexual orientations and religions all deserve to be treated with respect and - at a minimum - tolerance. I'd actually prefer a little empathy and I'd even extend it to folks who teach gender studies and feminist philosophy in the academy.
It was you who had that comment that I made censured , you make it very clear in your above comment that Quebec are hands off, but no mention of Alberta or its citizens which in my view has been slighted many times on the Tyee site. Before you were G West and Alcibiades your “nom de plume’ was Allan. I know as you both have the same MO. You feel pretty smug don’t you, both you and the Tyee making all us look like fools, that we are.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN (CONTINUED)

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN (CONTINUED)

nightbloom - for the last time
G West
I have done exactly that. Read what I posted at the top of this thread. Read what I wrote to David Beers. I've written him another letter this morning. The dates I gave on this site are accurate and they reflect the only two identities I have ever posted under at this site or anywhere else for that matter.
I'm more than willing to share my real identity with you if you care to reply to the email address I posted yesterday - and that applies to anyone else who has a problem with what I've done.
Period. I explained why I did it - you can disagree with my reasoning if you like. I never once denied I was both Alcibiades and G West. In addition, I still maintain if you'd looked at what I'd written closely you'd have known it too. They are, unquestionably, the production of the same mind – just as I intended them to be.
I don't believe my actions were dishonorable at all, but that's between me and my conscience. As to what I've owned up to here, don't blame anyone else for their involvement - it was me and me alone and that's the whole story. I had my reasons and I think they were good ones. Period. As for the two years, you apparently can’t count.
As I mentioned above here, Alcibiades first post was the same day that label was registered, March 3, 2007 – one year ago today. It has been an interesting year. I’ve learned a lot about human nature and the way people – even anonymously – treat each other.
G West and Alcibiades are all me - and only me and no one else - ever. So stop blaming anyone else - there is no one else involved - never has been. I’m sorry if anyone is hurt or disappointed – but that’s the end of it.
Now for the last time let it go. I have explained my actions for the last time. You may not respect me because of the way you see the world - I can live with that. You are neither my mother nor my confessor.

woody

I wish you'd also post the correction to that date above. I erred when I typed 2007, it should be (as I pointed out earlier) March 3, 2006. Yesterday was the anniversary of Alcibiades debut. It was also the day I ceased posting anything using that label. Thanks so much for spreading the word.

back under the rock...

stay out from the bright light of intelligent discussion G West, your time here is at an end.

Well murdock

As I said to nightbloom more than once, I'll now say to you. We all have our agendas. You included.

Mine was, after I started coming here to the Tyee on a regular basis around the beginning of 2006, to discover if it was even feasible to consistently promote logical and at least moderate discussions reflecting a variety of points of view in a mostly anonymous internet forum like this. And to try and promote at least some nominal fairness in treatment while being absolutely true to the particular point of view I happen to believe in.

I think I've tried to do that consistently and I think the results have been very interesting - though not terribly heartening.

However, I do owe you an apology. Once, early on - and I don't think Alcibiades was involved - bob the cat and G West did make light of some of your positions. That was unfair and I'm sorry. It was meant to be funny – but it wasn’t and I do apologize.

As for the rest of it, I'm perfectly prepared to accept your censure and, at the same time absolutely convinced that there is nothing wrong with what I've done in terms of reflecting attitudes and behavior that I believe in and practice in my daily life. I haven't been - and you know perfectly well it's true - because you've been here longer than I have, that I've never been a poster around here to call people names and ridicule their ideas with a lot of labels.

I think if you think about the past year you'll have a hard time refuting that observation...and you could have replied to my email address to - it was offered; as you well know. And I did read, and was much impressed by John Taylor Gatto; the Sovereign Individual – not so much.

If you'd wanted to get to know the ME behind those labels - you could have done it anytime. You were much more interested in promoting your own points of view. Is that fair?

Moreover, if you're tired of me, don't worry about it. My next project is well underway and I'm going to be busy elsewhere most of the time.

It's been fun. And a very interesting exercise in the limits of tolerance and understanding and intelligent discussion.

bye g. sounds like your

bye g. sounds like your time streaking down (or should i say retreatring from) the left wing is up. hang up the skates buddy.

any time El. send that email

I'd actually like to fine out how you've managed, for at least a year - and I'm sure much longer than that - to never say anything that indicated you're as intelligent as I believe you actually are. It's too bad.

I'll stand by the record I've left behind. I'd hate to be described by yours.

errata

that's 'find' above here - not 'fine'.

Am I understanding this

Am I understanding this correctly - that this guy was also posting as "Bob the Cat" and "Allan" too?

That brings the tally to seven, plausibly.

Now that this guy has opened this door, nothing he says can reasonably be taken at face value. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

I'm also rather inclined to disbelieve "Anarcho's" denials based on his consistent "neo-Alcibiades" pattern of tag-teaming with the other "characters" which "Gwest" has been using. Tactics aside, there's also an established similarity in writing style and argumentation (although I note a rather self-conscious attempt to differentiate his writing style, above, in a manner which doesn't quite jive with his record and established "voice" on these threads). Unfortunately, "Gwest" has taken us down this road, where we now have to scrutinize this kind of thing. It's that credibility thing again.

Anyway, thanks for being supportive of my attempt to get at the truth of this matter, you guys (maestro, elliot, murdock, woody).

No nightbloom you don't understand

I, that is the person behind 'both' the labels G West and Alcibiades have only ever posted as those two identities at Tyee.

G West - Joined: 22-03-2005
Alcibiades - Joined and made a fist post on the same day one year ago yesterday 03-03-2006.

Anyone else who has ever agreed with anything either of those two entities posted, at any time in the last year, did it entirely of their own volition.

Anyone else who slandered leftists, Liberals, the NDP, Neocon Nazis, women. Americans, People from France, People from Quebec, the prairies, the Maritimes, Christians, Atheists, Jews, socialists, teachers, labour unionists, bureaucrats and probably a score of other categories of people including lesbians, homosexuals, First Nations People, single mothers, parents who support some kind of childcare, the homeless and academic feminists did it all on their own. Oh, folks from Scandinavia and Mexico and Ontario as well – almost forgot. And they are still doing it as a quick look around here will illustrate.

Really sorry for anyone I've left out.

That's the truth too nightbloom.

Are you starting to get the point. You might not think all of this was the work of one person. Believe me it was.

still not 'getting it' eh?

Look G West, as I have posted many times before - usually to newbies and now it seems you have missed this elemental point.

This commentary place is like the bar stools around the Cheers Bar. Your value in commentary or making salient points will remain only so long as you are credible in them.

I have done some teaching to you about ad hominem and how to conduct a rational argument, one that does not involve attacking the person, only the message. It took you some time to fully understand that ~ after a few months of others beating it into you.

Now, like the accountant whom cannot get the books to balance within $10, your credibility is totally out the window. It will not matter what you post, it will be suspect.

Do not go away angry, just go away.

Nightbloom Message #3

Take me up on my bet! $100 says I am a different person from G.West. I post my email address here, you email me, I send you proof. Otherwise shut up about me being the same as G. West

Like I said, believe it ot not that's the way it is

murdock,
If you, of all people, aren't aware that you push an agenda here at Tyee then there is no point of even discussing it with you.

Everyone, at the bars I go to has a right to be heard and not treated like pond scum because of where they came from, what language they speak, where they work and worship or don't - ad infinitum. That hasn’t been the case here and anyone who’s honest knows that’s true. A lot of people, women especially, don't much like barrack room banter anyway - and neither do I.

Period. A point needed to be made and I couldn't make it as just one entity. I've already been accused of being too prolix as it is. I spent a lot of time here and now I’m going, for the most part, to move on.

If you don’t want to engage with me the way you did heretofore, that’s your business. I’m exactly the same guy I was then – the rest of this is just about labels and if you can’t see the irony involved you’re not as smart or as subtle as I thought you were.

As I said above, let's let it go. Tar and feather G West and Alci as long and as thoroughly as you like - I knew what I was doing from the outset - but leave everyone else out of it. Period.

I’m leaving because nothing I post is going to do anything but prolong things.
Okay?

Dar gona hang em from da yard arm, yarrr

Garf Zalm mellow out already, sh!t you make it sound like their going to nail you to a cross. Have no fear of that happening ,not at to days cost of nails. Its to bad that you disclosed yourself now , you should have waited until Good Friday , then you, as G west could have (died) disappeared, three days later, on Easter Sunday, Thunder, snap , crackle, pop, you come out of your hole ( resurrected) a new mole , your harldakan again, ( or however its spelled ) Look Garf, maybe you had better to suggest to your boss Mr. Tyee, that your just as well to maintain your present handle, once you disappear, every one will be eyeing each other with a jaundice eye,the harmony this site had, will take at least a couple of years to return, to the level it was at before you blew your cover. I was a little pissed at you guys, but really its quite humorous, as the yoke is on you guys , any way I still like you Garf,Alcibiades, G West, Allan, Zalm. Do tell me one thing though Garf , why did you post my censured comment. I wasn’t going to, although I do realize that was part of you guys plan.

No plan, no zalm, no deal.

I've kept a copy of everything I've posted since I started to comment on this site. Some of the things, like what you posted the other day, I've also kept a copy of.

If you want to check up on anything either G West or Alci has posted, it's all in the archives.

Zalm and anyone else, including you, have nothing to do with anything I posted. As I wrote here, on this thread, on Thursday morning...before I wrote to David Beers - that's the whole story. G West and Alci are Me. No one else. End of story. I stand behind everything I posted under both those labels. I'll take whatever credit or blame comes with that. No one else was involved and no one helped me - ever. Who I am is my business. Period. I've been completely honest about WHY I did it too. Now, I'm turning in. Bye.

hopefully, hopefully, that

hopefully, hopefully, that means for good and not just for the night. get some help while you're at it.

Good night Ron Irwin,Good night Iamc.

I guess we can also say good night to Iamc, and Ron Irwin now as well. Well good night all.

Omigod

You guys are funny. I would never post with multiple names. Unless, you know, I did.

Nightbloom, excellent detective work but you are also a tad intense about it, yeah? It's not a crime to develop multiple aliases that support each other. It's just, um, freaky. Try to see the bright side. As the great philosopher said, "It is what it is."

Hehe - yeah - I just wanted

Hehe - yeah - I just wanted to make it was a slam dunk.

Yammer, etc.

Sorry...the Jig and the Gig is up.

As I have said, others on the TYEE have suspected this multi -person persona all along.

One particular TYEE incident recently was the icing on the cake. One of the Aliases and "moi" were engaged in a discussion....then out of the blue was the Leftie SS....making one of those oh- so -clever (barf !!!) " when did you stop beating your ___ ?" type- of - arguments(?).

This was shortly after Coyote got banned...and then " the Leftie SS/ 3 Stooges " dug up some comment about another TYEE commentator who allegedly (NOTE: I never saw the original comment) equated 12 year old girls as on par with seductive ____ ( won't dignify with a repeat of the word ). What connection there was to the topic we were discussing was beyond me, except the desperation of the old " when did you stop beating your____" psycho - mob logic. Seen this BS tactic way too many times..sign of losing and desperation = NO credibility.

"A. Cameron" was part of that Leftie SS....as well as G. West and Alciabides. What I have noticed is when one tries to delve into complex isssues, and take a rational and logical stand...certain TYEE ideologues hit a wall, get cornered, flat-line and then act like cornered rats and start this "when did you stop beating your___" left wing stink bomb.

Also, waaaaaaay back, I noticed G(?) West(?) was always the "expert" at the ready with info...the link, the quotes, the articles...B-U-T Alciabides INSTEAD often played the "fool" , trying to pull info out of you. This was when I really put the brakes on....something was up. I gave them a hint where to look for info on a certain topic ,..but they STILL maintained the fool stance,wanted me to be more specific which lead to greater suspicions. What IS going on here? its bizarre and inconsistent.

Now G(?) West(?)often claimed to have an open mind...well they impressed me way back on a "few" issues, but other than that I feel like I am talking to a quasi-Used Car salesman with a big cigar and a mismatched plaid suit trying to sell me the usual LEFTIE party line LEMON, which fewer and fewer in general society are interested in at any price.

Why would we need to hear about G West's "contracts" they had to go back to....not really interested.

Also, I never bit on "G West's e-mail address and thus to e-mail them offer...sorry, that's a FIREWALL I myself wish to maintain. However I wonder how many ACTUALLY did e-mail "G. West" AND NOW see they have been scammed by a deceitful party.

The Left, as usual, feel that in pursuit of the " cause " and their monopoly of virtue,(LOL) they have a blank cheque and "the beginning, the middle, and end justifies the means "....YET not seeing they contribute to "moebius logic" that increasingly judges the Left as not only irrelevant,irrational ,hypocritical, perhaps more like a cancer, if not a self- perpetuating parody.

The old TIP of the ICEBERG applie shere, I think much more will come out. I see serious backpeddling AND the smell of fear, and the TYEE jury on this CON job seems pretty unanimous.

'Cameron'

I really had no intention of responding further to any of this but I now realize that the 'cameron' nightbloom and others refer to above is Anne Cameron.

I write this as an apology to her for not having included her above, with Truman Green and Ed Deak, who have always posted under their own names here at Tyee. For anyone to include her in whatever you feel I deserve - and am more than prepared to shoulder for what I have done over the past 12 months - is absurd.

Long before I had anything active to do with Tyee, Anne Cameron - whose style and writing ability I can only envy - was a paid journalist for work published here on this site. If any of you are curious about how she was treated for her efforts then you can do the research yourselves.

Anne, if you see this, I'm sorry I left you out and sorrier still that you've been sideswiped once again by ruffians who think that kind of treatment is fine because they hide behind an alias.

Bye bye...G "a,b,c,d,e,f,g, ....fill-in-the-blank" West

Birds of a feather F--ck together G.West...(you fill in the "--" blanks).

PS You STILL don't get it eh,... TYEE's Jim Jones ?

Or as Woody keeps implying , you seem to have a self de-ification complex. You may have taken down the TYEE...hope you feel all big n' tough.

YOU are STILL clinging onto A. Cameron ? Yeesh I am still trying to "Exorcise" my computer screen from that ugly episode.

YOU just STILL can't handle the TRUTH...which is why you are likely trying to sabotage the TYEE. There's a conspiracy for ya.

Where is Anne?

I note that Anne Cameron used to post here frequently when I first started, what 3 years ago? She doesn't any more. Must be fed up with the right-wing crackpots who come here to disrupt things. It would have been nice to have had a place where people of all progressive tendencies could get together and discuss issues, but instead, we get bogged down in arguing over the usual neocon boiler plate that gets kited in here.

there's lots of lefty sites

there's lots of lefty sites out there anarcho. just go to any public union website and all the links will be there for you. you can wax poetic about fighting the man until the cows come home. have fun.

Quote:Must be fed up with

Is that the pot calling the kettle 'black' or what....You mean as opposed to the double-dealing multi-personalitied schizoid amoral left-wing crackpots who come here to disrupt things, perhaps?

I think the best thing you could do right now, "anarcho", is stay wery wery quiet. In case you haven't noticed, the muppet show has had its curtain call. Don't act like a hand-puppet, and perhaps (in time) you won't be taken for one.

Oh I don't think so nightbloom

I see you're still here.

Wake up.

You're still libeling people I told you days ago were never involved. I know it hurts your ego, but there was only one person involved who spoke through two very similar mouthpieces...for one year only. In addition, that's over now. I've made my point. And very effectively too, I’d say. You really are only into character assassination and name-calling and you want to involve as many people as possible. Instead of admitting you’ve been gulled by your own narcissism.

Now if you have the jam, lets get down to business and actually hear your proposals for improvement in the way boys and girls are being educated. I've told you what I think, if you can manage to forego the jargon for a minute, what's your program?

Wow. You're

Wow. You're u-n-b-e-l-i-e-v-a-b-l-e.

I knew you wouldn't rise to the challenge

What are your proposals, or is throwning mud the only thing you can do?

Quebec

Quebec has actually had some very impressive successes in these areas.

Are you familiar with with the Carrefour de pastorale en monde ouvrier (CAPMO) (Pastoral
Outreach to Low-Income Neighbourhoods), an organization set up by some priests in Quebec City in 1978?

Working with lay people from the Catholic Church they have tried to obtain greater social justice for the poor taking their lead from liberation theology.

You might also want to take a look at this

http://www.studentlife.uoguelph.ca/citizencommunity/gs/documents/FromCharitytoSocialJustice.pdf

It's also a major problem for First Nations students

The Martlett, UVic's student newspaper had an interesting treatment of the issue last fall - I managed to find it online:

http://www.martlet.ca/view.php?aid=39104

boys n girls

Read your history and ponder how the jesuits, et al managed to keep the girls in class, in line and spreading the gospel according to the colonizers. The boys, however, ran from the routine. Classroom structure was never designed for boys.

It was structured to produce institutionalized bots to fill the inevitable vacancies that come with attrition, old age, disability and death.

The classroom setting sucks for boys. Always has. Took me 30 years to go back, and only because I had to or starve.

you're not doing a very good

you're not doing a very good job of changing the subject g. why are you still here?

Because I'm proud of what I believe in.

Proud of how I stand up for it. Proud of fighting fair and treating people with respect.
You only do that when you're talking sports Elliot.

Curious.

A.A.

We need an 'intervention' - we've clearly got an addict or obsessive compulsive of some sort on our hands.

anarcho:

I often find you to be at least somewhat reasonable with your comments.

However,I would like to try to give you some basic good advice to stay away from association with peers who tend to feel the ends justifies the means , who are trying to bamboozle us with BS to cover up their backpeddling for subjecting us to was a long term scam.

Otherwise you are giving indications of yourself apparently endorsing G West's long term scam.

If G West was a shameless neo-con right winger (instead of a shameless unrepentant clueless Leftie )who did the same stunt, we would never hear the end of it from the Lefties. Kettle Mc black sky. Maybe one should consider why the Lefties would be the usual suspects in stunts like this...back to the end justifies the means on the way to the great socialist utopia..Lord knows its worked elsewhere..look how popular it is...like cancer.

G West say he's busy and has to move on?yeah right..he will keep coming back to the scene of the crime trying to protect their honour and dignity ? LOL. G West is fairly easy to profile but there is nothing left...the tow truck has hauled it away. He's flatlined and hand still caught in the cookie jar.

G West is now bringing in Quebec again in his posts...setting " B-A-I-T ", so someone else can get lured and baited into making something resembling an anti -Quebec comment so the TYEE will have to edit it or ban them...then this person will get ragged n' slagged as racist by the Lefties. Capisce?..or are you in on this same conspiracy anarcho. I've seen this Leftie stunt and other Leftie stunts too many times.

Re the LEFT...and so-called " right- wing crackpots "? Well as Nightbloom said, pot calling the kettle black. The Left tends to crash parties, pee in the punch, get bounced out, get its ass -kicked, then get into hissy fits. Now back to sociology/fine arts class.

The Left is very often simply amusing, irrational, and irrelevant yet trying to mask itself as serious, rational and relevant.

Otherwise..carry on Lefties, on the "Free Speech" front..just attach a warning label of "NO Credibility".

nightbloom

I've actually had exactly that opinion about you, and your involvement on this site for some time.

Now, let's get back to the subject of this thread or is it really the case that you don't have anything to say on that subject? It’s awfully curious to me that you’re the one who refuses to get ‘on’ topic my friend.

I like G West, and so do I

Especially how he brushes off this coyly delayed admission of multiple, harmonizing voices as no big thing, so let's get down to the REAL issues, damnit!

Nothing to see here, people, move along!

My new clothes are AWESOME!!!

I like G West, and so do I

Yammer, so funny you said that, that's exactly my thoughts.

That's an excellent point Yammer

And coming from someone like you, who has also posted under two different labels - and published for pay as a Tyee contributor as well - I think it adds verisimilitude to the concluding coda of a small and highly orchestrated composition of phony outrage.

Thanks Ron, much appreciated.

Now back to our schools and how they are failing, or not, our students.

if you look above you'll see

if you look above you'll see g west justifying his pathetic behaviour. you're messed up guy.

Yammer and Ron Yamauchi

Hey, I have two logins, sure. But I readily (not teasingly and reluctantly) admitted to being the same person, Allan, er G West, er, whoever.

I registered here as Yammer cuz I am Yammer on every board that I troll, er, patronize.

I *had* to register as my real name cuz that was the deal for me to "live blog" the last provincial election. I reverted to Yammer pretty much exclusively thereafter; although I understand Truman's exhortation to be "real," I prefer posting as Yammer (with its apt overtones of both sententiousness and self-deprecation).

At NO time have I ever done what you've done, Mr. MPD: i.e., to have both of my avatars chiming in on the same thread, giving the illusion of a mass of posters agreeing with a particular point.

That's pathetic, and you know it.

As for my reaction, it is neither phony nor outrage. It is closer to twitting, or gentle ribbing. The phony part is where I pretended that you aren't a pitiable symptom of the delusional types that infest the Interweb.

The tragic part is not that people are kicking you in your virtual balls, but that this is giving rightwingers an opportunity to say, "oh, look at the lefty -- so deceptive and, frankly, weird." You've largely discredited the good posting that you've done here and for which you claim pride -- and not without justification.

I don't agree Yammer

But you already knew that.

The words and the opinions stand on their own - what label comes before them is a point of absolutely no consequence. I've never denied I posted as Alci and G West. I did it for exactly one year in an attempt to promote some actual fairness and debate and discussion on real issues. There was never anything pathetic or deceptive about it. If I'd posted two different points of view - or outright denied that the same person was posting with both labels - you might have a point. And if you can ever find a place where either Alci or G West stooped to ad hominem attacks on people’s sex, national origin, sexuality, homeland, politics and several other categories of labeling I’ll be very much surprised.

I also know that there are and have been, during that year and prior to it - numerous others who've posted under at least 2 and sometimes 3 names.

I only mentioned you because you chose to comment about what I'd done. And besides, as I already said - and confirmed to David Beers so he could check it himself - just two names - that's it. What's really pathetic, in my view, is the frantic efforts of some others around here to smear everyone else with this.

That truly is pathetic. And, if you haven't read back up to the top of this thread - and the wreckage left on Mair's free speech thread - you don't know my reasons either.

I'll stand by them.

wit and argument

G. West, what I see in all the rabid, "hurrumphed" and perenially slandering "nom de plumes", all full-up with their "indignant" bluster as to "identies" et al, are all are trying to smoke and mirror away from the real issue they have with you: You can intelligently argue their pathetic, morally bankrupt, "I'm all right jack, lets cut the rope" arguments - right into the ground, with wit and grace, every time.

yammer too eh? another

yammer too eh? another lefty with multiple aliases. i wonder how many there really are here. maybe only a handful after all is said and done.

I Agree Chris Bouris

Fun is fun, but time to destroy them G West. I have maestro so dizzy right now he doesn't know which way is up anymore, he only drools and shout's back anything with the word left in it. Get back in the game kid, we all cough the puck up down the middle sometime. Forget about them and get back into the game. Engage Maverick, damn you, engage!!

Bax - 2 - Skoolz ;

In hindsight , in my own experience, I found that females were often high acheivers, perhaps more in proportion, or disproportion , than males, even back in "the good old days".

However, these days, my own experience as a parent is that their is this subtlety to the school system that manifests itself as boys ARE actually treated differently.

However, I will make a demarcation between (i) Elementary (Grades K - 7) and (ii) High School (Grades 8-12).

I find that the system I went through , while females were many of the higher achievers,at least in elementary school, ALL were inspired to achieve rather seemlessly, indiscriminately. No one seem to have had, either directly or indirectly, a sexist stereoyping as the males will be stereotyped into this and females will be stereotyped into that.

We had a reasonable mix of Male and Female teachers, though almost always female teachers in the primary and early intermediate grades. Regardless, we were taugh the 3 R's . and politics and social issues were rarely if ever mentioned. Teachers were often involved in extra curricular activities .

Nowadays, I sense much in the way of militancy by these elementary school teachers, who are, in my experience predominantly female. I don't see the FEW ie (2)male teachers as such, I know one quite well, and one can sense their reticence in these BCTF inspired actions, in fact cringing at complying with BCTF mandates and directives or else.

What is intersting is this same teacher, who actually won an major teaching award, told me that their passion for teaching is to do Extra - curricular activities...or else they would NEVER have become a tacher...TRUE PASSION..... and who directs their own teaching methods to creating strong individuals males and females..., but also focusses on many BOYS teams...a real great guy and amazing inspiration. He will also stay after school to run sports leagues. etc. or do it during lunch hour, etc.

However, our female staff (and a span of ages..new and near retirement) is effectively gone and out the door by 3-4 PM. and YET every time there is a BCTF protest they embarrass us with wearing funeral -like dress with long moping faces and dare-you looks that would scare Hells Angels. Added to this is the so-called support staff of learning assitants, again mostly female.

Add to this the Illegal Strike..,the female Public School teachers seem to both directly and indirectly indoctrinate our children with a feminist socialist agenda...which by either definition or default,is anti- male. The schools are, by and large, feminine themed in what they do...lots of subjective airy -fairy chock full of colours arts- fartsy stuff we parents are supposed to be impressed with as an education ???. It looks like Kindergarten from K to 7 . That is the subtlety that is anti male...or pro female...males cannot by and large relate to this and all the subjectivity that goes with it.

Ultimately, I see the children, and mostly the males , as looking lost clueless and aimless, unfortunately this status -quo is buttresed by many clueless parents lapping it up.

CONCLUSION: Elementary school , in my view and experience is NOT Male friendly nor Male supportive(...NO Viva la difference), and hasn't been for years. Males are simply tolerated and pushed to the periphery.

High School is, however, quite different.

To- be -Continued.

Males are simply tolerated and pushed to the periphery.

My understanding, from people who are involved in the 'education' of teachers is that elementary school principals are desperate to find young male student teachers who are interested in and want to enter the profession at an elementary school level.

If you mean 'teachers', I simply don't think your statement Males are simply tolerated and pushed to the periphery. has any traction at all.

If you mean elementary students in school I can't believe that either. I think the looking lost and clueless syndrome (in both males and females) would best be addressed by a disconnection from the various I-pod, cell phone and video game and computer consoles interfaces which are apparently de rigueur for students in most of BC's schools today (sometimes in school and out – and certainly at home). If parents weren't so pressed to keep their financial heads above water they might have some more time to do a little parenting. As virtually everything I've posted above here indicates, most (though not all) of these problems and disconnects are economic.

My view.

Male Students and Male teachers.

Clarify: Males as in MALE Students in the " males are simply tolerated " quote I originally posted .

HOWEVER, Food for thought is MALE teachers in an elementary school setting which is often BCTF militant (+) predominantly staffed by female teachers, hence you -do -the- Math of what results.

Unless one had children in the system, and even moreso currently has them enrolled in the Public system...one cannot take the proper notes nor relate to this and make reasonable connections and conclusions .

This can be no more simple that children often need and also benefit from BOTH parents as role models and children often have teachers as quasi - parents, given the time spent in school in a given day.

Militant feminists and lesser number of Male teachers skews things...back to "boys are tolerated"...how can a modern -day female teacher connect to what is traditional male behaviour in the elementary school setting.....except whip 'em and wimp-ify them.

NOTE: These are also basic comments from kids coming home.

But you see maestro

You're making the same point you always do. You assume I don't have children and I know nothing of the system from a personal point of view: Whether or not that is true has absolutely nothing to do with that question. I’d be equally offensive if I denied nightbloom the right to make the points he does about male victimization because he’s gay. Or if I said, as Barbara Boxer did about Condoleeza Rice, ‘that she had no concept of what the parents of young people fighting in Iraq feel.’

That's the problem with anecdote and strictly personal experience, unless it's part of a carefully collected set of data it is largely meaningless. I'm not saying you don't 'feel' - obviously you do and I’m sure you ‘care’ about your kids. I'm saying that unless you have something more concrete to back it up it is nothing more than a feeling and we can't have a logical and meaningful discussion about it.

That's the difference between written and face to face communication - you have to put your beliefs and ideas in a form that has some general impact and depth or you might as well quit. I might think you're a wonderful guy to have beer with if I met you as a person - but if I want to evaluate how a complex entity like the education system functions relative to boys and girls experiences then your personal feelings and observations are wasting my time. In other words, write a novel and I’ll have a look at it. But if you want to make a point in this kind of forum you have a lot to learn.

It's an aspect of effective abstract thinking.

By the way, If you think manhandling little kids with corporal punishment or emotional punishment in any public elementary school setting (especially) is appropriate behavior then my discussion with you is over - whether that kind of treatment was meted out by a woman or a man.

Moreover, I don’t think that’s a huge problem. Most teachers, male or female, are trying very hard – under difficult multi-ethnic conditions and often inadequate funding – to do the very best job they can.

Quote:how can a modern-day

Maestro - what's more, bear in mind that many of these boys are not getting adult male socialization at home either. Their entire environment is "other" - hence the exagerated need to differentiate themselves by self-consciously incarnating pop culture caricatures of masculinity....which nowadays means the profoundly negative and corrosive African-American "gangstah" culture (more often than not) with its glorification of violence, objectification of women & 'girl booty', and its worship of easy cash, bling, and other displays of unmerited social status (unmerited is key here - the pop culture image described above always suggests that money and male social validation are gained thru drug dealing, pimping or rap...certainly not by staying in school or achieving success the "white" way via a career or hard-earned achievement).

A lot of this degradation in male socialization and culture is due to the banishment of male voice, the silencing the archetypal Father's "No" which sets constructive bounds on the rapacious adolescent male ego and restraint on expressions of male sexuality. It is no coincidence that much of feminism over the last twenty years has been trying to replace these in-built restraints with government re-education programs aimed (predictably) and changing human nature rather than disciplining it and channelling it along socially constructive (but ideologically anathema) lines (see comments on "Pater" and "paternalism" far above).

More male teachers would certainly be a start. But there are modern neuroses on that score which would need to be overcome.

well put Yammer!

Yes I was aware of your dual aliases, and the reason for it.

I have had the unpleasant experience of 1-2 punches from G West/Alci in the past and now I have definately decided to ignore those posts.

Yammer

Yammer were you from the old Steveston (shady island ) bunch , or possibly your your folks. Im an old bum from the area.

I am just one, though I would occasionally like to be "many"

Maestro:

First, please … what’s with the airy -fairy chock full of colours arts- fartsy stuff that males cannot by and large relate to comments. I’m sure Monet, Picasso, Dali and the Group of Seven might have something to say on this subject. Please tell me you were not the parent who garbage-canned the kindergarten tissue paper art as soon as your child brought it through the door?

And … enough with the anecdotal evidence. I can counteract every bad experience your children have had within the BC Public system at the hands of militant feminist teachers with my children’s great educational experiences. Good and bad teachers come in every combination of sex, age, political persuasion, whatever. Most teachers I’ve encountered are, I’ll say it again, bending over backwards to engage the low performing boys in the educational experience. It seems to be working for some of them. I’m sure suggestions would be appreciated on how to improve the situation other than 1) more male teachers, which most would already like to see, or 2) the dismantling of the entire system in favour of a Gatto/Utopian educational revolution.

But … it isn’t always working and I would have to agree with Nightbloom that a lot of it has to do with inadequate male socialization at home … and family socialization in general. I do believe however that “Corporate Culture” is pushing the agenda towards familial breakdown a thousand-fold more than any feminist agenda. My earlier point was that this isn’t a school issue, but a societal issue – schools will never be able, no matter how many male teachers, be able to solve all the problems of this group.

With respect to:

I might add, how also can a traditional male teacher connect to the problems of a modern day student? Substitute assorted other combinations. All teachers will at some time encounter students with whom they share little in common with respect to background/learning style, etc. … the best will always try to make the connection.

Some studies have shown (I cited one somewhere back before the name calling started) that males who have been successful in the traditional academic setting, i.e. they were able to excel at high school, attend uni to become a teacher, may have less empathy towards problem male students than female teachers. Kind of an “I did it, so what’s your problem” sentiment. Having said that, and speaking totally anecdotally, I’ve never witnessed this from any of my children’s male teachers … of which there weren’t enough.

Quote:I have had the

Murdock, that's a sound policy.

Raingirl - Thanks for the vote of confidence. You're right about corporate culture totally reshaping and warping our natural familial and interpersonal relationships.

I actually don't blame the "feminist agenda" - if we distill feminism to its basic (and best) 'first principles', we should in theory be left with universal liberation (i.e. for men too). It hasn't worked out that way though, because feminism became derailed during its "second wave" (1960s to 1980s). That's when feminism became a part of corporate culture. The movement was co-opted, and began celebrating the lone-gun "boardroom ball-buster" with the designer attaché case as the highest form of life. Mothers, women in "traditional" occupations and any other woman who "sold out" were regarded as defective traitors to the cause, or programmed victims of "patriarchy". Culture (literature, art, religion) in all its manifestations was totally trashed. But in reality the real programming and thought-control lay in convincing women en masse that they only really achieved value and validation as a person by becoming good productive drones of consumer society.

Something went somewhat haywire with the feminist critique during this time. Prior to this era, during the Betty Friedan period, feminism meshed smoothly with the other movements that were germinating in the immediate post-war period. Friedan sought to demonstrate how run-away consumerism were warping how we lived our lives and alienating us from the relationships that mattered. Friedan's seminal book "The Feminine Mystique" was complimented two years later by such critiques as the film "The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit". You get the idea.

So we actually still don't entirely know what went wrong, because all the liberation movements went sour around the same time too. This is part of my frustration with the dogmatic liberal-Left. They don't admit the truth. Feminism began channelling something that was alien to its original basic ethic and ideal of amity and mutual respect between the genders. Although she was derided at the time, Friedan's warnings of the anti-social and misandrist "lavender menace" within feminism were not as ill-founded as her critics asserted. Something became unbound, unravelled, and needed to bleed itself out before the pendulum could return to its natural resting place.

Ultimately, we have to recover the universality of these liberation movements....but not by enforcing a militant ideologically mandated notion of sameness between the genders. I think the answers to our "adjustment problems" in this modern and unnatural way of living will need to be tailored to the specific needs. The "trouble with boys" issue is one of those specific needs, and a bureacratized one-size-fits-all solution into not going to pre-empt the shitload of problems we're going to inherit.

Well nightbloom you might want to remember that

The Conservative right-wing agenda gets pretty frustrating for folks on my side of the fence too. I'll get back to differences between boys and girls tomorrow. Tonight, I'd like to post this little appreciation of Ann Coulter from someone on the right side of the spectrum - it has something in it that you and the rest of the gang at the right wing cafe - along with the boys and girls of the imaginary liberal/left coalition ought to remember and which, whether you're man enough to admit it, is pretty much what I've been trying to say all along.

Ann Coulter is a woman of many gifts and many right ideas. She can be an eloquent spokeswoman for conservative convictions and a prophetic critic of secular liberalism. Unfortunately, she can also be her own worst enemy.

Last week, as she addressed the American Conservative Union's Political Action Conference, she made a deplorable reference to former Sen. John Edwards. Here are her words, as spoken to the conference:

"I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word "faggot," so I – so kind of an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards."

Coulter remains unrepentant about the slur, saying, "I'm so ashamed, I can't stop laughing." She added: "C'mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean."

Mean? Ann Coulter has turned herself into the evil queen of mean. She has lowered herself to embarrassing theatrics and crude humor. More seriously, she clearly does not mean all insults as a joke. In a recent book, she attacked some 9/11 widows as publicity hounds. She has a tawdry record of cheap shots, crude slurs, and indefensible personal attacks.

Conservative institutions cannot afford any association with this kind of language or attack. The issues are far too serious to be treated in this manner, and the very convictions Ann Coulter often defends are now sullied by association with her.

Referring to John Edwards by using a word meant to demean homosexuals? What was she thinking? Ann Coulter has never been married. She has been known for once dating Bob Guccione, Jr., son of the Penthouse magazine magnate. John Edwards, on the other hand, has been married for almost thirty years to his wife, Elizabeth. Together they have had four children, Wade, Cate, Emma Claire, and Jack.

Wade died in a tragic car accident at age 16, throwing the Edwards family into a grief that often tears spouses apart. Their marriage not only survived the tragedy, but went on to produce Emma Claire and Jack. John Edwards stood by his wife through her more recent fight with breast cancer, and there has never been a scandal associated with their long marriage.

I oppose John Edwards' political platform, but not John Edwards the man, husband, and father. I do not want to see him elected President of the United States, but this has everything to do with his political positions, not his personal life. I do not appreciate his crude oversimplification of the challeges that face our nation, but I must oppose any crude talk about John Edwards the man.

So . . . why would Ann Coulter use that word? And, even more troubling to me, why would any in her audience laugh? There is nothing remotely funny about that word in any context. It is meant to hurt when boys use it in the locker room, and it was meant to hurt when Ann Coulter used it when speaking to a conservative audience. It demeans homosexuals and should be banned from any acceptable discourse.

How can homosexuals think anything but the worst of a movement that would laugh at the use of this slur? How can we think any better of ourselves if we stand by and let it happen?

Now you can ride your high horse off into the sunset with murdock and elliot as long as you want, but you know damn well it has never been me - the person behind both G West and Alcibiades - who has practiced that kind of behavior.

I can live without your comments on what I might have to say in the future - but I couldn't live with myself if I'd said the kinds of things about other people I've seen posted on the Tyee during the last year. If you've taken the trouble to investigate what Alcibiades very first post was all about you might come to a different conclusion about what I've been up to. But truly, after what you’ve done and said since last Thursday I could really care less.

You handle the disconnect however you please - I've handled it my way.

Good night, nightbloom

alci/gwest

why is this clown still here? hard to believe the site manager allows him/her/it/them to continue to post on this site. doesn't say much for the credibility of the tyee. if they ever want to be more than cheap advertising for big labour and the ndp they'll have to be more professional than that. oh well, who really cares, this website is going nowhere fast.

raingirl et al

Puhleeze spare me the old " studies by X PhD at Y university on Z subject have shown blah blah .

We are not talking scripture here, but some theory du jour that will collect dust. They are interesting to quote, but so are hockey stats.

I am not into the spin cycle mode of publish - or - perish experts. The only ones that make any sense are the ones that re-iterate what is common sense.

Perhaps my " Life experiences " anecdotes are more localized examples, but the more and more I talk with other parents I come to the conclusions it is common elsewhere.

I am quite involved in our school and its inner workings, and I am to the point I should perhaps contact a publisher with an expose of the Public School system which reaches to the upper echelons. Beleive me , it is not a pretty picture. That is " anecdotal " but also nothing any study would reveal.

Education had turned into a politicized black hole. The system should be turning out strong individuals ready to take on the world. I fail to see why education has involved into uber - diagnosis...looking for flaws in what are non-clone individuals..ie we are not the same, but unique individuals with individual strengths and weaknesses.

1 + 1 = 2 , so find your way to get to that point...whatever your strengths and weaknesses are , but once you do...it is very empowering.

1 + 1 = 3 , unfortunately seems to cut it these days.

Nothing has changed except the messengers and their methods of delivery, thus it has changed.

Again, the topic involves males...who I think are being left behind. In this so-called enlightened age... I think their is actually less equality and moreso as time moves on.

Bill Z. Bub

I was on my OUIJA board tonite...

Alciabides says hi from HELL !!! ahahahahaha

School is a religion.

Don't think so?

You cannot 'sue' a teacher.
You cannot 'sue' a priest.

Is there a connection?

Writes maestro.

Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. In this way the teacher is always the prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true kingdom of heaven.

What is "proper" social order? What does "right" social growth look like? If you don’t know you’re like me, not like John Dewey who did, or the Rockefellers, his patrons, who did, too.

Consider those happy thoughts as you send your children off to have their minds warped by government agents, called 'teachers'.

Article on Praise and students

How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The Inverse Power of Praise.
By Po Bronson in New York magazine
http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

Take a look at this article.

After School

Maestro,

Could it be that the reason female teachers are "effectively gone and out the door by 3-4 PM" is that they are also parents and have their own families to look after? I bet for those male teachers staying around for extra-curricular have wives who are looking after children while they stay at their school.

dave49

Good one !

Good point

However...

A rough breakdown is a majority of the female teachers (who are the vast majority of the staff )are single, divorced or their children have graduated years ago.

Rough guess, about 20% have children of elementary school age.

HOWEVER, one male teacher is single yet volunteers, the other is married, kids graduated, but again, a national award winner for their exceptional efforts, much of them extra - curricular.

PS How much was the bet ???

That is pretty rough

Rough guess, about 20% have children of elementary school age.

HOWEVER, one male teacher is single yet volunteers, the other is married, kids graduated, but again, a national award winner for their exceptional efforts, much of them extra - curricular.

Do you have anything, anything at all, to support what you posted above?

Apart from your own observations: What, for example, is the population you took your sample from?

Furthermore

What are they 'out the door' to do? The teachers I know, all of them young by the way, are very busy at home in the afternoon and evening - working at doing marking, finalizing lesson plans and assembling materials - often late into the night and on weekends as well. Frequently, in a time when a significant minority of the students they teach have some kind of behavioral or family problem as well, this often involves phone calls and other communications with parents and other professionals.

In the final analysis, I hope the next installment in this series provides readers with more meaningful information about what actually is happening in British Columbia's classrooms.

Schools: (Cont'd). Elementary vs High School

While female teachers have , by and large, often been representative of the the vast majority of the staff at the Elementary level, this changes at the High School level.

Why ?

Why aren't male teachers at least 50% of the teaching staff at the elementary level, ie representative of the same proportion of male students at the elementary school system.

Perhaps this is simply to be expected...part of the natural order? Or is it an aversion by many male teachers to teach in this majority female environment ?

When the Teachers strike was going on...I found the male teachers looked like fish out of water, but the female teachers, at least at our school, seemed to relish the BCTF militancy disguised as "ITS FOR THE KIDS" BS.

Perhaps it was a recruitment drive for the "alleged " Teacher Shortage (or is it "alleged teacher " )ie

CIVIL SERVANTS: Break the Law and hold children hostage = 16 % raise + $4000 bonus...No jail time .

PRIVATE CITIZENS: (Eagle Ridge protestors etc) Break the Law = Go to Jail, maybe even die.

Therefore:
Logic sez:

Combine your (i)Teacher Job action with (ii) any/all illegal activity and you get a raise and are immune from prosecution.

I can see it now, Faculty of Education enrollment soars.

"Hi, I am a BC teacher, here's my diploma and union card......stick em up..."

One of the many life's lessons...not only outside of school, its apparently seemlessly attached to the curriculum.

Maybe that's why male teachers with a passion to teach avoid the K - 7 socialista 1 + 1 = 3 programming camps...and figure they can instead contribute much more at the High School level to fixing the many walking wounded who arrive in Grade 8.

Its " Elementary" ,....(Dr.)Watson Phd.

G West aka Jimmy Hoffa lives

Where do YOU T-H-I-N-K I obtained my stats data?

Answer T-H-A-T question first.

OT, obviously: Woody

Yes, I had some peeps in Steveston, some years back. If you happen to be in the commercial fish biz, you might remember the "Nikka" store.

BTW speaking of interesting things from a few years ago, I met Ann Cameron in Powell River and her feisty personality and other personal characteristics were consistent with her postings here, so I actually don't agree that MPD Man is also A Cameron.

Yammer

What don't you understand about what I've already posted here? If you prefer to persist in combining with Elliot and nightbloom ( and even he appears to have realized what he was saying is ridiculous) and want to believe I'm Multiple Identity Man, that's up to you.

Two names, one person, one set of ideas and beliefs. That's all. Ever. I had to respond to the attempt to slander Anne Cameron further on Tyee than she already has been. It was just too much when that Nazi brought her up on the Rafe Mair thread.

You can contact me if you want more details Ron.

The rest of this stuff is just laughable.

Quote:If you prefer to

You seem to be getting further and further from reality. You opened this door, you took us down this road, so you have to wear this. If others are being tainted by the dishonesty you have foisted on these threads, then you have only yourself to blame. I note that your usual confrères are conspicuously absent. I suspect they can see what you apparently cannot: that you have not only stepped on your own dick here, but that you persist on stomping on it repeatedly.

The bottom line is that the bottom has fallen out of whatever credibility you had. This is all your doing and only yours, so bite your tongue and suck it up.

I wish I could stomp on my own dick

Well, not really.

MPD Man, why are you people objecting to my last post? I was distinguishing yourselves from Anne Cameron, the ex-Powell Riverian and novelist, thereby defending what y'all said on that topic. Geez. Get some lives!

LOL - he's just needy.

LOL - he's just needy.

Yammer:

No objections here..

My "A. Cameron" comment was with reference to a past TYEE incident...

An "A. Cameron" does exist..I checked it out.

That Leftie menage'- a -trois stunt which involved G WEST, ALCIABIDES and A. CAMERON was likely the phyrric seeds- sown moment...shall we say. The amazing coincidence almost had one out buying Lotto tix.

M-O-R-E to this than meets the eye.

Typical, nightbloom

You're the needy one dude - it's all about you and that's the end of it for you.

There's another editorial behind the firewall at the Times this morning. Since you didn't 'get' the point I made yesterday, I'll make it again:

There were plenty of words like “faggot” being thrown around back then. There was “faggoty,” for example. “Retard.” And “spaz” — or “total spaz,” the rhythm of which rang through her words last year, when Coulter dismissed Al Gore on MSNBC as a “total fag.”

The world of playground insults hasn’t altered much since Coulter’s schooldays, but the larger world has changed a bit. She made her remarks during a major gathering of conservatives in Washington that drew most of the major Republican presidential candidates, and commentators of the left, right and center soundly denounced her.

Even Michelle Malkin, Coulter’s fellow pinup girl on the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute’s 2007 “Great American Conservative Women” calendar, blasted her words as “rhetorical fragging” and a “tired old schtick.”

We shouldn’t be content, though, to let it go at that.

Leaving the issue of not-so-latent homophobia aside — dwelling upon it, in this context, is a matter of shooting ducks in a barrel — what I found particularly shocking in Coulter’s comments was their studied juvenility, the sheer idiocy of their language. “Faggot” and “total fag,” like other political pearls of our time — such as “bring it on” and “girlie men” — are just epoch-making in their stupidity. In fact, they sound like lines out of Mike Judge’s 2006 film “Idiocracy,” a political satire that I rented a few months ago and can’t seem to get out of my mind.

In “Idiocracy,” a man the Pentagon has chosen for his perfectly average intelligence is sent into the future and finds the America of 500 years hence inhabited by people so grotesquely moronic that they can barely grunt utterances greater than “Man, whatever!”

Those future Americans have, however, held on to a full arsenal of obscenities and repeatedly tell the hero, who speaks in full sentences, “You talk like a fag.” As the film plays out, it’s the People vs. the Fag — the very dynamic that Coulter establishes when she connects to her audience via their inner 13-year-olds.

All this led me this week to think of Frank Luntz, the hot political consultant and wordsmith who wrote the lyrics for the 1994 Republican revolution. In his new book, “Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear,” Luntz puts forth the argument that using the “uplifting, ennobling tone” of famed political scribes like Ted Sorenson and Peggy Noonan is not the best way to capture the attention of Americans today. Instead, to communicate with the people — the real people of “small town, middle America” — and to speak straight to their hearts, minds and entrails, you’ve got to put “yourself right into your listener’s shoes.”

In other words, think small. “Use Small Words” is Rule 1 of his strategy for successful communication. Rule 2: “Use Short Sentences.”

Luntz has a doctorate from Oxford; Coulter has degrees from Cornell and the University of Michigan Law School. Conservatives generally like to run with the idea that liberals are elitists, living “in a world of only Malibu and East Hampton,” as Coulter’s recent blog posting on the “crock” of global warming put it. But isn’t there something elitist, if not wrong, I wondered aloud to Luntz, about condescending to — or coddling or enabling — the imagined verbal limitations of the less-educated “other”?

Luntz did not much appreciate the question.

“It’s not condescending — it’s pandering,” he said of Coulter’s most recent performance. “Everything about the book says what she did was not just wrong but reprehensible. Those aren’t words that work. She broke every rule.”

“God, I really hate it every time she speaks,” he fumed. And, he added, if I were to even think of mentioning him in the same breath as her, “I will really, seriously raise hell.”

At a Conservative Women’s Network lunch at the Heritage Foundation last week, a question was raised, over dessert, about how conservative women should deal, “as women,” if Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination for president. The guest speaker, Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer in Washington, hemmed and hawed, shared some thoughts about Wellesley College and Barbara Bush, blushed, then concluded, “We’ll let the redneck guys who just aren’t ready to vote for a female commander in chief take care of the woman thing.”

Sounds like a plan. Sounds to me, too, like the Republican noise machine may just have a monkey wrench in its machinery.

Judith Warner is the author of “’Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety” and a contributing columnist for TimesSelect. She is a guest Op-Ed columnist this month. Maureen Dowd is off today.

I think it's very apropos - your noise machinery isn't making much of an impression any more.

It’s clear that you NEVER did want to talk issues. As I've said, I could care less what you think of me, your continued persistence at making a point that hasn't had a scintilla of fact behind it since last Thursday is very informative as to what your motives really were all along.

What on earth are you on

What on earth are you on about? Ann Coulter?? Good grief.

Just stop defending the indefensible, and inserting little jabs to the effect that the rest of us are off base on this. You fck'd up kiddo, now you pick that up and carry it. End of story. Just move along.

And don't even think of dissing my contributions. The only time they even came close to being sub-standard was when I allowed you and your muppet show to harangue and tag-team ad nauseum at the expense of my original arguments. By your own admission, that's always been your only purpose - to bait your opposition (as you are currently doing) and to boost the bandwidth of your own narrow ideological outlook.

You've seldom (if ever) ventured any original thinking on these threads - certainly not in the manner I have. You're derivative and superfluous - a self-confessed white noise emitter whose sole purpose has been to dampen genuine debate and innundate opposing points of view with nonsense and red herrings.

Don't reply. Just do your thing and leave me out of it from now on. And stop policing my posts so incessantly. I don't want to engage you anymore. Again: Don't reply. I'm not interested.

Yammer

You are too smart for me to have to explain this to you.
I'm pleased you reiterated the fact that Anne Cameron is not in any sense a figment of my imagination.
The rest of my post was clear. You used the term ‘multiple’ that means, as you well know, several or many. My objection was obvious - there have only been - as anyone with any wits already knew (and many here have already acknowledged) - two labels - G West and Alcibiades.
As I've said numerous times, I couldn't care less what you think of my reasons for doing what I did but I object to anyone conjoining my actions to anyone else's.
I'm perfectly prepared to stand behind both G West and Alcibiades and defend every word they typed on these pages. In fact, no one has actually taken the words and meaning of what I posted as 'either' G West or Alcibiades to task at all - quite the contrary.
Like very much of the 'so-called' debate on this site, things almost always get bogged down in horrendous name-calling and ad hominem characterizations; as Judith Warner's piece says so eloquently, in my opinion.
That was the whole point of what I did - end of story.
I think it has been extremely interesting, but I did this alone. No one else should be saddled with that responsibility.

Call me Dual label guy if you like - but leave everyone else out of it.

nightbloom

You prove my point with each further ad hominem attack. You could care less about people nightbloom - for you it's just an opportunity to play games with your own resentment and preen about your own personality and singular take on the world.

Sorry, if you were half as smart or half as ethical as you think you are, you'd have taken five minutes to do some research about the events that started Alcibiades existence in the first place.

Like I said, I have nothing to be ashamed of. And if you think resorting to your usual armamentarium of calling me and others names is going to get me to abandon what I live by, forget it. Just keep on spinning your wheels my friend, sadly, most of the mud is sticking to you. Your facile attempt to tie a whole lot of completely innocent people to what I’ve done is just another piece of mud added into the mix. I don’t back away from what I’ve done – you don’t even recognize you’re doing it.

Just like your attempt to blame on others, (what did you call them, guys and gals) what that Nazi posted on the Mair thread last Wednesday. That for me was the last straw.

Now, g'bye, I've got work to do.

you've got no work to do

you've got no work to do gwest. you spend most of your time here. you're easily the most frequent contributor and have been for the past year. can't believe you haven't slithered away with your tail between your legs after embarrassing and humiliating yourself. just proves how out of touch you really are. and to think you'll be forgiven after giving us some feeble excuse for your pathetic actions shows that you must be quite shallow. if you really believe that you have nothing to be ashamed of then i feel very sorry for you.

I stopped feeling sorry for you el

When I realized you had nothing substantive to say ever and were only interested in slamming people indiscriminately because you don't agree with them.

Thanks for continually proving my point.

Just another item to add to your file.

i thought you said you had

i thought you said you had some work to do.

Boy Trouble in the Schools

No-one knows for sure why girls are starting to do so much better than boys in school, but I have some ideas. I don't know if these ideas are related, but maybe, because they both deal with action. As some people here have said, boys don't get enough action in school.

Two components of this problem are that physical education has been in decline both in school and out for a few decades now. As was suggested in the article, boys need to move their bodies more, to express themselves physically, and this is not happening enough, at any school age. Phys Ed is seen as an afterthought. In Ontario, where I teach, kids in high school only need one course in Phys Ed. Elementary schools now restrict recess activity for fear of being sued if a kid slips on the asphalt or falls from the monkey bars. This and the fact that boys spend a lot more time playing video games, whereas girls tend to chat on MSN, explains part of the decline. Boys are doing ok in the sciences, but in classes where writing is involved, they're weaker than girls.

A second cause of the decline is that history, like phys ed, is now an afterthought in school curriculum. Where are boys to get role models for their behaviour. There is no tradition historical tradition taught in the schools. Yes, Canadian history is important, but that's all kids have to know, and as proud as I am to be a Canadian I would have trouble convincing young male teens that we should all be like Tommy Douglas or Jonas Salk. Boys have few role models to inspire them to act, other than what is presented uncritically in movies, sports and music.

Some commentators would like to see the whole school system destroyed, but we might as well destroy the whole social order while we're at it! School is only a reflection of the adult world we live in and for the most part love, since we're doing so little to change it. I'd love to see schools where kids only attend when they're motivated to learn, but that's not likely to happen. A similar change would be giving up all gasoline driven vehicles right now because it's good for the environment. A great idea.

I'm not saying that better education shouldn't be our goal, but really what would happen if we all of a sudden made school optional for millions of students. Party for a few weeks or months and then what...how could resources be provided. Yes the rich kids could have parents at home for them, but what about the many more who don't have this luxury? Some form of social organization/institution is needed. It's this fact that makes the self-righteous tone of some educational anarchists a turn-off. What are the solutions?

There are already a lot of great teachers trying to make their classes work. There are lots of kids who do get something out of school, though it can be tedious, time-wasting and downright cruel. What we need is school policy that empowers real education, not silly literacy tests and curriculum documents that list 250 goals a year to achieve. Certainly real learning doesn't work like that.

Let's build smaller schools, let's decrease class sizes, let's create stronger bonds with the community for co-operative education, let's let the kids have a say in what they're going to learn, but let's keep in mind, practically speaking, that institutions like schools are needed to provide support for kids.

If anyone can tell me how a truly alternative education could be offered for millions, not just a tiny percentage of that, how grading could be eliminated when applying to limited spaces in our universities and colleges, or how schools could be entirely democratic and child-focused, when students are required to go, I'd like to know! Enlighten me.

Boy Trouble in the Schools

No-one knows for sure why girls are starting to do so much better than boys in school, but I have some ideas. I don't know if these ideas are related, but maybe, because they both deal with action. As some people here have said, boys don't get enough action in school.

Two components of this problem are that physical education has been in decline both in school and out for a few decades now. As was suggested in the article, boys need to move their bodies more, to express themselves physically, and this is not happening enough, at any school age. Phys Ed is seen as an afterthought. In Ontario, where I teach, kids in high school only need one course in Phys Ed. Elementary schools now restrict recess activity for fear of being sued if a kid slips on the asphalt or falls from the monkey bars. This and the fact that boys spend a lot more time playing video games, whereas girls tend to chat on MSN, explains part of the decline. Boys are doing ok in the sciences, but in classes where writing is involved, they're weaker than girls.

A second cause of the decline is that history, like phys ed, is now an afterthought in school curriculum. Where are boys to get role models for their behaviour. There is no tradition historical tradition taught in the schools. Yes, Canadian history is important, but that's all kids have to know, and as proud as I am to be a Canadian I would have trouble convincing young male teens that we should all be like Tommy Douglas or Jonas Salk. Boys have few role models to inspire them to act, other than what is presented uncritically in movies, sports and music.

Some commentators would like to see the whole school system destroyed, but we might as well destroy the whole social order while we're at it! School is only a reflection of the adult world we live in and for the most part love, since we're doing so little to change it. I'd love to see schools where kids only attend when they're motivated to learn, but that's not likely to happen. A similar change would be giving up all gasoline driven vehicles right now because it's good for the environment. A great idea.

I'm not saying that better education shouldn't be our goal, but really what would happen if we all of a sudden made school optional for millions of students. Party for a few weeks or months and then what...how could resources be provided. Yes the rich kids could have parents at home for them, but what about the many more who don't have this luxury? Some form of social organization/institution is needed. It's this fact that makes the self-righteous tone of some educational anarchists a turn-off. What are the solutions?

There are already a lot of great teachers trying to make their classes work. There are lots of kids who do get something out of school, though it can be tedious, time-wasting and downright cruel. What we need is school policy that empowers real education, not silly literacy tests and curriculum documents that list 250 goals a year to achieve. Certainly real learning doesn't work like that.

Let's build smaller schools, let's decrease class sizes, let's create stronger bonds with the community for co-operative education, let's let the kids have a say in what they're going to learn, but let's keep in mind, practically speaking, that institutions like schools are needed to provide support for kids.

If anyone can tell me how a truly alternative education could be offered for millions, not just a tiny percentage of that, how grading could be eliminated when applying to limited spaces in our universities and colleges, or how schools could be entirely democratic and child-focused, when students are required to go, I'd like to know! Enlighten me.

coyoteblue

Not much wrong with what you've written, as I see it, and you've put your finger on some real concerns.

More physical activity is certainly important. I went to a high school where we had a minimum of two hours of phys Ed twice a week (four hours total). Boys and girls were in separate classes (just for Gym and Phys Ed), everyone showered afterward and I think we could use a lot more of that kind of thing in our schools.

Turning the whole program over to parents would be worse than what we have now. I suppose there are some teachers who are slugs - same is true of most professions. My analysis of the charter school/ voucher experiment in the States is that it doesn’t work except in residential (and usually religious) schools.

Boys, if they are one's main concern, and I'm not sure they ought to be, generally respond better to a competitive environment than girls do; in my view that can be used to provide motivation. Girls seem to work better an thrive in cooperative environments so I think there is some traction for the idea of separating students according to sex at least some of the time. I’m not all that convinced that the whole ‘role model’ ethos is worth the powder to blow it up. Kids come in all varieties – the object of them all trying to emulate the same handful of avatars seems dangerous to me. Give them a wide variety of rich experiences and I think they’ll find their niches.

In the end, I still think that the economic pressures on families and children have a lot to do with how successfully the school will work in any particular neighbourhood. Rebuilding community is often the key but finding some sort of economic sanity from the pressures of a competitive market system is also a big part of the solution. Right now, even the winners are losers.

There is no one-size fits all. Alas.

"Experts"

A friend of mines' daughter attended the same school as our children. Her daughter was in the French Immersion (FI )program.In Grade 5 a new "young" teacher came to the school. The new teacher and her learning assistant (near retirement) decided to "play Dr." and state that this friend's daughter had...drumroll..Attention Deficit DIsorder (A.D.D.) and wasn't capable of the FI program and should no longer be enrolled in it even though they had 5 years of FI to this point.

The daughter later moved to a High School and a savvy H. S. Teacher noticed something, and after being referred to the appropriate professional, was brought in, and due to the Teachers' insight, the proper diagnosis was Epilepsy. Treatment most certainly helped deal with the now -properly diagnosed issue.

How much of this goes on ? , one asks as a very valid question.

Another scenario : We know a couple with a Down's Syndrome child. They have taken it upon themselves to give this person ( now over 40 years old ) excellent support and also accessed the proper resources . This person holds a full time job , quite self sufficient on many fronts, and one can converse quite well with this person, truly amazing and inspirational. Most experts would likely have written them off.

The links to these two stories is that be VERY careful if you consider yourself an expert, YET if one stays focussed and has a goal and an objective one can succeed regardless of perceptions, biases, and other hindrances.

In other words...back to basics, learn the fundamentals...be wary of the so-called experts..you can't run if you don't learn to walk FIRST ... and cut the Bullsh1te from the edu-fad diet. Many of these bullshit "pusher" experts can't walk and chew gum at the same time anyway.The rest of us have to clean up their mess,ie wherever either the gum falls ,sticks and doesn't gum things up.

Excellent points Maestro.

Excellent points Maestro. I'm surprised we hadn't touched on the ADHD over-diagnosis, and the associated over-prescription of Ritalin to boys (mostly boys, but girls too) as a result.

I brought up this issue, and the physical activity issue, on an earlier thread about introducing yoga into the phys ed curriculum. At the time, I suggested that yoga likely wouldn't provide what boys really need out of phys ed (for example, the release of nervous energies, positive channelling of aggression and competitive impulses, leadership skills, sportsmanship, etc.).

not sure what your point is

Not sure what your point is: Relative to education. That still is the subject of this thread isn't it?

Alternatively, have we moved into advanced diagnostics by computer instead?

I think most people take medical problems to doctors. That's certainly what I'd do if anyone told me a child of mine had ADD. If teachers are doing on-site medical consultations in their classrooms, this is the first I've heard of it - if they advertise it's probably illegal.

Seems like a good plan to me. Your down-home matchstick in the corner of your mouth wisdom is interesting.

I'll make a note of it.

Have you ever kept track of all the clichés you use in one day?

It might be an interesting exercise.

nightbloom

It might be an interesting exercise.

You also made the same point, at the same time, about the dangers of medicating kids to calm them down in class - which is valid and is an often a strategy used by overworked and stressed parents before their children ever get to school.

Mistaking epilepsy for ADD or ADHD is a completely different question, as I'm sure you know.

Jimmy Hoffa: aka G West

I know you are scared sh!tless to tangle with me...but it may be more useful to perhaps use an initial ie "Mr. M " as to whom you are referring to .

Do you have A.D.D.? not that its any of my business.

PS I am doing this as a courtesy to thee whilst thou are in " Reality Rehab." and also injecting mega -doses of credibility while in Leftie Land. (NOTE: Bet you wish you could go back and undo what you have done eh?).

ALSO: Clarification: You aren't that ex Liberal MLA who used the name Warren Betanko ...are you?. Maybe you are simply pissed at Premier Campbell for turfing the bad apples. Surpised the NDP didn't pick you up ASAP and offer you the NDP Premiership...... speaking of bad apples and barrel-bottom scraping.

Signed :

" Hope springs eternal"

Experts, ADHD and Anecdotes

Maestro:

So, let me get this right … studies don’t mean anything, statistics can be “creative”, anecdotal evidence proves all …

“full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”

... but since we're into using anecdotes only ... here's my two cents:

Several years back the teachers at my children's primary school arranged for a couple of the low-performing/troubled boys to meet, during the school day and on a regular basis with an older male volunteer who specialized in certain non-academic areas, with the goal of building the boy’s self-esteem. Apparently, everyone thought it was working well, as the boys appeared happier, less disruptive when they were in class, etc. Well, several vocal parents became rather loud with their complaint that this type of special treatment should be available for their children as well or not at all, whined to the teachers, threatened to go to the school board, etc. The school staff, strong militant feminists that they are (sarcasm intended), bowed to the pressure of these parents ... and back to square one ... boys aren't happy, teachers and other students aren't happy, smug group of overbearing, know-it-all parents very happy.

Coytoteblue:

Exactly ... I'd like to be enlightened to. What I don't like is that every small step forward in educational enlightenment is followed by several shoves backward by parents and/or governments who "think" they can do it better their way, have their own agenda (insert anti-union, anti-feminist, anti-public school, etc.) and show little respect for teachers, other students, education for the masses in general.

As for Maestro's other anecdotal stories:

ADHD/ADD diagnosis is not and should not be done by a teacher and I have never heard of a teacher doing more than "suggesting" that there may be a problem and some testing needs to be done. If this truly happened then it reflects on the poor judgment of an individual teacher and not the education system as a whole.

Parents I know (anecdotal again) seem to fall into two camps with regards to an ADHD/ADD diagnosis - the ones that are in complete denial that their child has any problem and the ones that are more than happy to hang a label on their child and absolve themselves of further responsibility. The parents who make any attempt to deal with the actual issues behind the diagnosis are in the minority.

As to the epilepsy and Down's syndrome scenarios: 1) Glad to see you use "savy" and teacher in the same sentence; and 2) teaching a Down's syndrome child the life skills they require is not comparable to teaching physics or a foreign language. I know many parents who are stumped by 5th grade math ... they need the help of an "expert".

Point is .......(open the envelope SVP)

I guess many of us should take a cue from the Residential School problems...and seek compensation .

Most of us were not treated properly as all sorts of problems weren't diagnosed . THUS....WE are the ones with problems , NOT the current education system and its " patients " .... err Freudian Slip .... I mean "students".

My God...open the floodgates.

Let's label students as deficient or identify their deficiencies ASAP, yet keep telling us parents the education system apparently caters to "Self Esteem" (?) as a priority , yet via the Lowest Common Denominator route . ie Competition is B-A-D.

THEN let's subject the students to subjectivity -based deficiency fixes... after we have 100% subjectively diagnosed the deficiency actually exists. See how seemless and logical that is ?

We will exclude things (?)like school staff are often populated with resource staff, say 10-20 % of staff are supposed to help fix what the main teachers have diagnosed...as well as the KUMONS and the SYLVANS etc doing booming business. Huh?

"Dr. Teacher" Heal Thyself, and thine deficiencies, and THEN we'll look at the "patient /students".

Gee "if it ain't fixed don't broke it"...or is it "if it ain't broke, say it is anyway then fix it". ..whatever.

Why ignore the facts that learning is often abstract, and absorption of material requires focus ,inspiration and discipline ?. This requires treating each individual as an actual individual ,acknowleding what may be true hindrances and impediments, yet ultimately acheived via tapping the true potential within each individual as the main objective.

Gender is and should be irrelevant in this matter, both in theory and in practice.

What the hell are they teaching "teacher wannabees" these days at ol' Ivory Tower U . ? Denial? How to set yourself up and get a job at Kumon after you retire ?

Geez Jimmy Hoffa/G West ...I used to think you "got it" , but were ( or trying to )playing cute because you were too dam lazy to open your mind.

SUGGESTION: Try using the same crowbar to open your mind that you are currently using to separate yourself from yourself.

raingirl

Point is....the system should, from day one, prepare the students for lift - off, the old "air under their wings" ...not have the pilot make excuses why they are grounded.

Life ain't fair, but one can try to make it fair and level the playing field. I often look to see both sides of the coin...and when whatever system that exists is trying to BullS!te us with the more of the shiny coin's side.

It's like the old " CRIME is UP, we need more POLICE " !!! when maybe the system needs a major fix from top- to- bottom...like the old " trying to put out a fire with gasoline ".

If there is NO comprehensive PLAN...any and all money thrown at it is wasted. That's old classic school.

Coyoteblue and Raingirl

Interesting questions, Coyoteblue and Raingirl.

There have been many schools that have been of the "open" type. One noteworthy one that comes to mind was named "Summerhill", and was situated in England (in the 50's). It was started by a person named A.S. Neill, who once had been a very "diciplinary" (corporal punishment) oriented teacher, and gave that way up after having a complete turn of mind, based on experience.

The school was a boarding school and had an interesting focus for that time, being a free school. It was populated by "problem" students, who were really struggling within the strict disciplinary English system of the day. The students often came from private schools, brought by desperate parents looking for answers.

Neill's moto was "freedom, not license", and also believed that children were fundamentally good, integral and curious - and would learn when they wanted to learn, and after they were treated with core respect, and after they were truly allowed to choose.

The students also had regular school meetings and could vote on how the school was run, at many levels. Each child of any age, each teacher - and Neill had an equal vote: One.

Neill was voted off the school once - and then asked back after leaving, because the children felt Neill had something equally important to contribute, as they. There was at least one book written of the school that I know of: Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing. by A.S. Neill.

Keeping the period and cultural psychology beliefs of the day in perspective - its fascinating reading.

This isn't exactly on subject, but

I think it provides an appropriate coda to this 'discussion' as it marches off into the archives. From behind the wall at this morning's NYTimes -

I kind of like the last para - and I think clubofrome would too:

Glass Slippers? Old Hat
By JUDITH WARNER
We were laid out on the couch the other weekend, stopped in our tracks by an unforeseen afternoon broadcast of “Maid in Manhattan,” when an important moment of sociological revelation arose.

Ralph Fiennes’s character, the Senate candidate Christopher Marshall, and Jennifer Lopez’s Marisa Ventura, a hotel maid mistaken by Marshall for a socialite, locked eyes for a searing moment. “I only came to tell you that this, you and me, can’t go anywhere beyond this evening,” J. Lo said.

“Well then,” purred the man best known for his impersonation of a sadistic Nazi, “you should’ve worn a different dress.”

“Why’d he say that?” asked my daughter Emilie, who is nearly 7.

“He said that,” I answered, “because he is arrogant. He’s a man who’s used to getting his way. He figures that he knows better than she does why she’s wearing that dress.”

“Tradition! Tradition!” Nine-year-old Julia was booming upstairs, simultaneously embroidering, dressing the dog, cleaning her room, listening to Bill Harley and practicing for her school musical.

“It’s just a fairy tale, Em,” my husband, Max, said with a sigh. “A Cinderella story.”

“A stupid Cinderella,” she countered. But nothing then — not Monopoly, not War, not even a go at the hypertoxic crystal-making kit — could make her peel her eyes away.

I shouldn’t have worried. And I could have spared her the lesson in dime-store feminism. Truth is, in the real world, the fantasy of a highly successful man swooping down to make off with a winsome, wide-eyed maid is pretty well dead. Instead, according to recent sociological research, what these alpha males are doing is marrying equally high-octane women.

It’s the latest twist in what social scientists call “assortative mating” — like marrying like, in normal-people-speak — and it’s been going on pretty much forever. But until recently, according to the sociologist Barbara Risman at the Council on Contemporary Families, the phenomenon played out in terms of race, ethnicity or the social class of origin. “It never before meant men and women were choosing each other or were like each other in terms of achievement level in the work world,” she said.

The coming together of equally well-educated and successful people can be very good, particularly when worldly ambition doesn’t fly to extremes and the partnership translates into more equal task-sharing and co-parenting. But the mating of like-wired colleagues and college pals is raising some questions as well.

Some economists worry that the concentration of income in high-achieving two-earner homes is aggravating the wealth gap. Some evolutionary psychologists say that pumping up certain kids’ genes for intelligence will increase the achievement gap (by creating supersmart kids with an even more unfair advantage than their smart parents had).

In Britain, Simon Baron-Cohen, the Autism Research Center director at the University of Cambridge, postulates that assortative mating among people with great skills in understanding and building systems, like engineers and economists, may be linked to the greater numbers of autistic children. Similar hypotheses have been floated around to explain the increased and earlier incidence of bipolar disorder and anorexia (too many perfectionists marrying perfectionists, too little “hybrid vigor”).

This is all speculation. For our family, though, the message is clear: if Emilie persists in her declared career path of being “a artist,” she isn’t likely to be swept off her feet by an investment banker and to spend her life working within the velvet bondage of having him pay her Bergdorf’s bills. She’s more likely to marry a guy she meets in art school, whose economic prospects will be as dim as her own.

All that bodes badly for a future in which she was supposed to grow up and take care of her parents, writers who bonded over their mutual dislike of Thomas Wolfe — “O rock, o leaf, o pretzel,” Max wrote to me — and over their shared ambition of reading as many books as possible while living as expensively as possible and working, perhaps, not at all.

Julia plans to spend her life swimming with dolphins. It just goes to show: if you’re going to marry your soul mate, better beware of the content of your soul.

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