Slugs and snails and puppy dogs' tails

Wonderful! The gap is getting worse. Simple souls, parents and ordinary humans, would think that the system, the people who run it and most of all the “intellectuals” who have “driven” education into it's current condition, are guilty of gross incompetence at best and de facto sexual discrimination at worst. Fat chance.

The establishment will aver that it is the fault of others - politicians who don't provide enough money, administrators, the unions, parents, global warming, the GST, George W., the churches, Bin Laden, Uncle Tom Cobleigh, and above all others the boys themselves.

If only they were girls.

We can all rest assured that the establishment will accept none of the blame on themselves.

As for the image or mirage of the uniformly dear little girl, the establishment, and one suspects some of the numerically dominant female teachers would do well to ponder on the comment made by a female year 9 teacher: “I'm really worried about the boys at this Year level - the girls give them a very hard time. The 'sisterhood' are bitchy, socially and sexually aggressive, and nastily intolerant of the boys' less competent verbal and academic skills.”

There is a horrible amount of truth in that statement. It is time that it was accepted that not all girls are “sugar and spice and all things nice”.

The brute fact is that the vast majority of the establishment have little or no idea about what makes boys, except for the “naice” ones, “tick”. In a way that is understandable, the vast majority of their own children are inevitably “naice”.

There is a well known comment by a 13-year-old boy on what it is like to be a boy in today's schools. Hackneyed or not it bears repeating. The boy was very articulate and as a result his anger and contempt are palpable. He said:

My English teacher wants me to write about my feelings, my History teacher wants me to give my opinions, and my Science teacher wants me to write on my views about the environment! I don't know what my feelings, opinions and views are, and I can't write about them. Anyway, they're none of their bloody business! I hate school! I only wish I could write about the things I'm interested in like sport and military aircraft.

It is an interesting thought that if a teacher touched that boy “inappropriately” the teacher would be charged, jailed and banned from teaching for ever - and rightly so. However if an individual teacher, school or system creates the conditions that lead to comments such as the one above, or worse, then all that happens is that the teacher picks up the normal pay cheque.

With, it seems, the odds stacked against them it is almost a curiosity that boys who study rigorous maths and the physical sciences in Queensland perform as well as the girls of similar general ability.

It almost goes without saying that the advantage to males of taking those subjects will apply to students in all states - unless you think there are fundamental differences between children according to their state.