Aotearoa / New Zealand

I think a lot of folks might overlook how different schooling is now than say when I was a kid in the 80s. Back then, classroom sizes were on average quite a lot smaller than they are now; and perhaps more importantly it was still common to have one parent not working, or only in part-time work.

There are lots of kids growing up nowadays where both parents are working 8+ hour days, and combined with commuting times etc a lot of the daytime opportunity for interactions with parents, discussing what they're learning, exploring books, nature, whatever just isn't as available as it was 40-50 years ago.

There is another problem that I don't think gets enough attention when talking about educational achievement. The article mentions the rise in misogyny in these disaffected boys, but it doesn't take that to the logical conclusion.

People of lower education and already feeling dejected and isolated are ripe for radicalization; if we continue down this path of failing boys, we will end up in a place where gangs will gain followers easily and as a society we will wring out collective hands and ask "how do we fix this?".

Highly educated people can be radicalized; but it is much much more difficult to do.

We need boys to feel that education is worth their time, that it has value and that they themselves can see a path to being educated. Maybe it is boys schools and girls schools, that specifically cater to their need at the primary level. Maybe it is different classes in the same schools. Maybe it is another thing entirely, but it has to be something, because if we continue too fail boys the gangs will pick up the disaffected and dejected boys and give them a sense of community and respect. The more boys that we fail the more power the gangs get.

I once saw a post by a "feminist" basically saying that it was good that girls were out performing boys at all levels of education. That girls "deserved" to have the upper hand after centuries of being the under class. But this misses a significant point; like it or not men are physically stronger, more aggressive and if they "have no future" will steal, batter, kill, rape and destroy communities. Large groups of uneducated boys and men are a danger to society at large....we pretty much no longer have convenient wars to thin that particular demographic out.

We need to ensure that boys by and large do well in education, it is not a competition between boys and girls especially at primary school. The upper end of high school and definitely at university there is competition, but by then the students already value education.

"Tomorrow's Schools".

1. Give an unqualified Board of Trustees governance of the school, even if by proxy of the Principal they hire.

2. Underpay teachers: reduce the talent pool of candidates for teachers, reduce the quality of teachers (on average).

3. Underfund schools: reduce the quality of teaching resources. Increase class sizes so that the total time a pupil has for one-on-one teaching is effectively zero.

4. Reframe curriculum to be more accessible to more pupils. Assume that one curriculum fits all, fail all pupils.

TL;DR: boys are falling behind, down to the same level as everyone else.

Rose tinted glasses for the 80s in abundance here. What if boys are fine? What if girls are just doing better? I can tell you bei g a girl in the 80s wasn't so flash.

Knocked up and abandoned at 16? Too bad, no school.

Dad or mum hurt themselves? You need to stay home and look after them.

Did well in school cert or 6th form? Good news, off to nursing school.

I've previously read about studies where girls are more likely to be helped by teachers, where boys are more likely to be told "I know you can do it, go and try again". I was reading this in a book arguing the girls were disadvantaged by this bias because boys got to learn better this way where girls basically got told the answer. This study was in younger primary aged kids.

But if we know this happens, what if this becomes a disadvantage in later study? When the work becomes too hard to work out on your own, but the teacher sends you away anyway?

Alternatively, I know many people who trained as teachers but didn't stay because of the politics and general working environment (outside of the kids). What if the teachers who stay are the jaded ones that just don't care anymore?

I dropped out on my 16th birthday and I never completed level 1 NCEA. I asked to do a programming class and showed them a program I had written, but all they could offer me was Microsoft Visual Basic. Which, from my understanding, is stuff like putting a button on the screen, clicking it, and making it say "button clicked" (that was year 12's programme for 16-17 year olds, but it's probably more suited to a 10 year old's level). I wanted to learn pre-uni stuff like 'c' and c++ but they didn't teach that. I don't think they even taught Python.

The male teacher who I talked to on this matter was really boring and uninspiring. I didn't see how any of my classes would help me with my plans. The principal and secretary of the school kept on dragging me and my divorced parents into meetings because I was bogging down the school's stats. They really are just a bunch of useless paper pushers.

I'd like to volunteer to help primary school children or speak in high school assemblies, but it's impossible to do this, because the government-owned schools don't give a crap about what's good for people. Once I tried to sign up for Big Brothers Big Sisters, but the reference checks were impossible for me to pass. I think they wanted 3 people who had known me for 5+ years and it couldn't be my best mate or family lol. Nobody has really known me closely for 5+ years because I've never held a full time job for 12 months. Like the wojak/doomer meme I'm mostly invisible in this society.

The government won't fix this. What radical change to education could they possibly make? They can tweak a bit of administration, but the rotten core of the education system will remain.