Why do girls do better in school?

I’m just sitting here, shaking my head…

Giselle Minoli – Definitely at David Leonhardt… 😀

Ayoub Khote, good dodge (teasing).

Giselle Minoli, I’ve always believed adversity breeds internal and external strength. So coming out of your corner fighting or even on waking up, is born from life-long practice and coping mechanisms, not necessarily personal choice.

Meanwhile, the challenges faced by minorities are just not acknowledged or rationalised, usually by the very people meting it out and who have never been on the receiving end.

Whilst entitlement robs you of any chance of developing any strength or a backbone.

Net result – if you don’t have “the club” to facilitate you through life/love/job etc, then membership does not give expected assistance/rewards and the rude awakening occurs. Explained away by rationalisation e.g. boys dearth of role models, sitting quietly in class to learn does not apply …

On a separate topic, what passes for child education today does have something to answer for not engaging all children, not just boys.

I write long sentences Walther M.M.. I assure you the verbs/adjectives are all there. Call writing “long” a female trait. What with, you know, all that sitting for hours and hours and hours at my desk in school while the boys were running around unable, seemingly, to sit still. 😉

I couldn’t possibly disagree with you more, Steve Faktor. Sorry. Asking nothing of our boys is not natural in any sense of the word.

Giselle Minoli I don’t think that’s at all what the article (or I am) saying. Who said anything about asking nothing of boys??

I think that is wildly incorrect Steve Faktor. The world has been on course for exactly this revolution for decades. And yet, as David Leonhardt points out, boys are not evolving with it. The old stand by of “brawn” over “brains” (as he states in the article at the end) is a result of wanting things to be the way they always were. 

It is a disavowal in a big way of the evolution of girls and of the need and importance of our global societies championing that evolution…because it’s about time.

Parents and educators who do not embrace this side-by-side of boys and girls, men and women, are not, in fact, asking anything of our boys. They are not asking them, in fact, to grow up. They are, in fact, asking nothing of them.

dawn ahukanna raises an interesting point above: if girls are so much more mature than boys are at a relatively young age, and it in fact takes boys such a long time to catch up, in the interim girls will have had to take on so much more learning, in a sense, than boys, then (negatively) allowing that gap to be bolstered by expecting more of girls than boys is part of the problem. Because it sets a precedent for expected and for future behavior in both genders.

And that is what needs to change. On a family level this is the reason it is said that a woman’s work is never done, because women still have two jobs while most (not all…but most) men have only one. Women go to work for their day jobs and then return home to run their households.

I do believe your own view is actually against men, as it limits their abilities so much, when, in fact, little boys and men are incredible. But we allow them to be incredible in a limited way, rather than in an expansive way.

They are suffering, at the moment, from decades of linearly traveling through life. It no longer works. For any of, women included, but women seem to get that.

Giselle Minoli there are several evolutions happening at once. There is the societal one that has completely transformed the US from 70% agrarian to 70% services in less than 100 years. Then there’s the biological one that takes hundreds of thousands of years. We can deny it all we want, but our bodies are designed and DNA coded for physical activity, for sensory stimulation and for survival. None of that is being asked of us by this recent turn in societal evolution. The two are wildly out of alignment and the male, which as you said, has only one job, one singular purpose and one way of defining himself: work. And increasingly, it is a vapid shell of its former self. Women retain not only the “job” of motherhood, but I would argue the power of it. That connects those women who choose to exercise the power of motherhood to an evolutionary purpose in a way men can never experience. And less so than ever before, certainly the last century.

Walther M.M. I have officially taken my hair shirt out of my closet, dusted it off (it was pretty horrid) and put it on long enough to insert the word “count” into the above offensive sentence. Thank you…and I hope you will forgive me. I shan’t do it ever again. In case I do, I’m leaving the hair shirt bedside for the time being. 😉

Amen for our dads and their generation Giselle Minoli !

WOW! What you said Giselle Minoli.

I have often purported that women are the most discriminated against group in the history of humans, that no amount of trying will “make it up” to us and we’ve just had to get over it. As usual, we women have righted the boat ourselves.

Having been deeply involved in education over the years I am always amazed that no matter how much things change, they remain the same. Educators initiate and discard new programs and methodologies about as quickly as a 2nd grader dumps a bad school lunch.  In the end, the one constant is this; Each person has unique talents and abilities and every person has their own style of learning. We simply cannot generalize. It’s not boys vs girls, vegetarians vs carnivores, Californians vs New Yorkers. We need to teach all our kids;

1. How to be critical thinkers

2. A good work ethic

3. Respect for people, property and differences among us.

4. To be good stewards of their family, community and the earth.

Stop making excuses and start expecting more. Raise the bar. The world of technology makes accommodating individual styles a non-issue. That, and some “Get Over It” will take us a long way. That’s how I got here, and I’m guessing you too.

Julia Senesac I am going to Ping you when the essay that Meg Tufano and I have co-written comes out in early May, because I think you might be interested in the subjects we cover. Your point that “We need to teach all our kids:

1. How to be critical thinkers

2. A good work ethic

3. Respect for people, property and differences among us.

4. To be good stewards of their family, community and the earth”

…is absolutely how we need to evolve. This current nonsense of just making a living, of just making money, of just conquering the world business-wise, and leaving out the messy, complicated, difficult, challenging concept of how to teach our children to become deeply involved not only in their own futures, but in the future of our planet and their communities is the only thing that is going to save any of us. The Age of Selfishness and Greed is not going to save our Planet and it is not going to create more jobs – for men or women.

So your call to Stop Making Excuses, Start Expecting More, Get Over It, and Raise Your Personal Bar should be everyone’s Mantra!

I’ve been following this discussion with great interest. Thank you for the rebuttal Giselle Minoli. I finally made time to read the original article and was frustrated by the fact that nowhere does it mention the continual cutting of physical education, recess, and the arts from school. Of COURSE kids (not just boys!) are fidgety! Used to be kids walked to school, ran around at recess, and walked home. Our children are given high sugar breakfasts (cereals have unbelieveable amounts of added sugar), driven to school, and expected to sit without moving for hours on end. As a parent and frequent observer in a school, I see the best results for fidgety kids when the teachers incorporate physical activities into their daily routines. Research on standing desks and “brain breaks” as well as the intense educational boost provided by P.E. support the idea that children in general learn better when academics are interspersed with physical activity. 

As for the wonky gender biases people are expressing here? If women are better at sitting still and hand work (outdated arguments used, by the way, in the 18th and 19th centuries for why women were “better suited” for sedentary factory work), then why the strange 50 year period when men dominated office work? (Hello Mad Men).

Giselle Minoli and Steve Faktor One of the main “discriminants” between young men and young women has nothing to do with politics, it has to do with developmental psychology:  it is a fact that women’s pre-frontal cortex develops earlier than a man’s.  

(One) Source:  http://www.columbiaconsult.com/pubs/v52_fall07.html

Women experience this during high school when the boys are acting strangely immature and the girls feel utterly ‘with the program’ and wonder what these guys’ childish behavior is “about.”  Well, the surge in men’s prefrontal cortex happens from about the ages of 19 through 28.  Just think of a man at 18 and one at 28 and those ten years show what a growth in the prefrontal cortex can do!  ;’)

As Giselle knows, I don’t like arguing gender politics.  I like to think of the end of Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own,” when the man and woman run together to catch, and eventually share, a taxi, they going off together as a symbol of our future:  I hope we are getting to the point of appreciating each other.

I think we are meant to work together in this life deal.  And I have a sincere empathy for men who are feeling lost in a culture that does not seem to be giving good models for men (OR, I certainly agree Giselle, -women)!  I especially feel for men who feel that no matter what direction they go in, they are not going in the right direction.  They are in a “disruption” phase of culture that I think is creating a huge identity crisis for men:  what is the best way to live?  The ONLY arbiter of success left to men (and for many women) is money.

That’s a very harsh arbiter and it makes for a very shallow life.  

We can do better.

So, I hope like hell that we change education fast, not just so we have more physical activity for BOTH genders, but so we have better educations that prepare all of us for what is the very hard task of living a good life.

Our future depends on it.

I would like to read that entire article Meg Tufano…but since I haven’t all I can say is that I don’t agree with the quote. I don’t really believe that parents have changed the way they have raised their girls. I just think the force of momentum of getting an education, wanting to work and/or be mothers and more and women making that/those choices has resulted in more women working and going to school and therefore it seems like they are being raised differently.

And I don’t agree at all that women are behaving more like men. They are behaving like women who are wanting to be educated and wanting to work and be financially independent. Those are not male attributes. They are born into each gender equally. The study that was released about 3 years ago that shows that testosterone levels drop in a man when he has children – in order for him to bond with his kids and make him (biologically) want to stay home and care for them – shows that, in the same way that women are predisposed to work, just like men, men are predisposed to care of children, just like women.

Why do we keep separating these issues along gender lines? Because we are unwilling to believe/accept/admit that despite our different biologies and their purpose for procreation, men and women have some very similar needs when it comes to their intellects and creativity and wanting to be productive.

There are certain cultures that prevented this from happening by…binding women’s feet, by putting chastity belts on them, by circumcising them…all sorts of physical stresses that repressed them for a very, very long time.

Perhaps it’s just the pendulum swing, the forces of nature balancing themselves out into what I (and perhaps you?) would call a more “natural” state of affairs – men and women working side by side for the purpose of a common goal – not just surviving…but thriving.

And, for what it’s worth…life for women is political. It wouldn’t be if every election someone didn’t threaten to overturn R v. W. It’s political because there still is a need, sadly, for an Anti-Violence Against Women measure.

All of my mentors in my life have been men. Great men. Truly great men. Those men believed that women are equal to men. What I find so disturbing now is that after all those years of telling women that they, too, could be equal members of society, they are being almost blamed for this recorded (and seeming) regression in men.

And I don’t know that it’s because of pre-frontal cortex development. I wonder if we are in the midst of a great and long overdue pendulum swing. Sort of like a hole in the Ozone layer….

Meg Tufano I tend to look at it like the Church, in which women cannot be priests and priests cannot marry. All the power, property, authority, control. decision-making and money therefore remains in the hands of the men. Women are nuns.

Thus it is in business, which has been dominated by men since the beginning of time. Women are as capable as men. Their brains are as big as men. But it is hard to break into something on complete parity that has been so out of balance for so long. Men do not want to give up jobs, money, control…anything. It has been their purview for a very, very, very long time. 

I am not making a feminist (or female) observation. I am making a psychological…and a spiritual one, after decades of observing it and working within it first hand. 

I agree with Kim Crawford’s assessment that it is changing. But in light of both the Harvard and Yale studies about the treatment (and welcoming?) of women in higher education, and in light of the fact that so few women are CEOs and Governors and Senators…it is going to take a very long time.

That is, unless, The Hill becomes President. Then everything will finally begin to shift. 😉

For what it’s worth, men have been regularly opting out of being providers for a very long time. A certain kind of man. These men divorce their wives, start second families and leave a trail. Then there are deadbeat Dads who abandon their children. The article that I attached here makes reference to families without fathers leaving holes in boys’s lives. But to say that women divorce men because they loose their jobs, is ludicrous. I think you need to re-read that study Steve Faktor. It does not conclude that women leave unemployed men because (simply) the men have lost their jobs. What it does say is this:

Men’s activities have changed too, but much less than women’s. Husbands face increased expectations that they “help” with housework and child care and provide emotional companionship (Cherlin 2004; England and Shafer 2007). At the same time, men still feel stigma attached to doing “women’s work.” Time use studies show that men’s contribution to household work and child rearing has increased, but less than the increase in women’s hours of employment (Bianchi et al. 2006). Nor have these changes relaxed the expectation of full-time employment for men. In this sense, the male breadwinner model of decades ago seems firmly in place even while an acceptance that women may join men in breadwinning, and men should “help” somewhat at home, has grown up alongside it. 

A la Kim Crawford’s assessment above, women work two jobs: the paying one outside of the home and the unpaid one at home…mostly by themselves. It’s exhausting.

Meg Tufano and Giselle Minoli Regardless of a woman’s desire to accomplish, parental expectations, role models -male or female, societal acceptance – or rejection, little boys with ADHD or educators’ interactions…in keeping with my simplistic approach, I think many of the advancements made by women over the last 40 years have been out of sheer need.

So many single parent households exist in this country.  Not to bash but more often than not the responsibility of the children falls to Mom. Not only does that make Mom a strong role model but often it makes Mom go out into the work force and kick some ass. I mean, if you’re spending your day doing it…may as well.  

That is not to say we’re always paid as well, promoted as often or respected as widely as our male counterparts but to hear Mr. Leonhardt tell it, we’re to blame for this bad economy. Who would have thought?  

In reality, many of us have had less far to fall because women are the work horses of the business world. Some of the very issues that keep us from the top have also kept us from the unemployment line. That and the fact that we do “get over it” and get on with what needs to be done. After all, we have kids to feed. 

Giselle Minoli So right. Goes back to integrity though huh? 

Giselle Minoli I don’t WANT to believe that women leave men who lose their jobs because I will always be a Grasshopper (as in “you live in a dream world”), but when Grumman Aerospace went out of business twenty years ago and thousands of (mostly) men lost their jobs, I was flabbergasted at how many women said Goodbye.  Honestly, it was startling. They chose their jobs over their marriages and that’s what freedom is about I guess, but it was like watching bowling pins fall.  Not a single family that we knew (and we knew a lot) stayed together.  In fact, even after moving to Tennessee, our two boys were in many classes where NO ONE in their classes had their two original parents.  So, whatever the hell is going on in our culture, a whole lot of change is happening.

Getting back to the article, I think it is mostly a red herring.  Our problem is a need to improve education for everyone.  The statistics in this article are being squeezed to fit the hypothesis that our economy is falling apart because boys are no good at sitting still?  I’m with you, that’s ridiculous on its face.

Our economy has lots of points of failure, but you cannot use statistics about the the last fifteen years of educational studies to explain ADULT lack of jobs.  Logically, that’s impossible.  (Uh, the oldest kid in the study will be fifteen!)  

The only statistic that really is salient to our current un(der)employment is what HAPPENED just about fifteen years ago… W came into town and (in my opinion ASKED for 9/11, “Bring it on!” (the summer before).  He savaged our economy with very little resistance from the populace (who, admittedly, didn’t KNOW how much we were losing because the books were kept hidden).  Before he arrived, our economy was stoked, we had money in the “lockbox” and, essentially, we had the wool pulled over our eyes, these odd men (face it, Cheney is one odd person) who just did whatever the hell they wanted to do and power was the ONLY solution to everything.  If in doubt, beat up somebody.  

I would like to say, because I have spent so much time with college freshmen, that there really is some kind of confusion going on with men.  These are not the frat boys, or the trust fund boys, or the cocky guys I knew (and loved ;’)) as a young woman.  Something has fundamentally changed in their outlook on life and it has NOTHING to do with sitting still!  

If I were to ruminate on the most common confusion it would be, “Why can’t I organize a family?”  A great deal of anger is coming at them from women, and I won’t write about that here (since we’re publishing in a few weeks), but if there’s any kind of “attention deficit” by young men,  it’s that they do not have a clue how to deal with anger–their own, certainly–but more, their significant others.  I just went and read about five articles on why men leave, but they’re all so old (2010 was the most recent) and they come to the conclusion that it’s easier to leave than deal with the anger.  

OK.  Maybe.  But I think YOUR point is the more true:  women cannot leave because who the hell is going to pay for the pablum?  So, they do whatever needs to be done to keep the family together.

The statistics show that a third of the families in the U.S. live without a father present. I know that fathers determine a lot in the development of human beings:  a girl whose father pays attention to her intellectually will be the more likely to be intellectually successful as an adult (I can explain why theoretically, but it’s too long to do that here).  

But for boys it’s crucial to have a father for a really paradoxical reason:  boys need to REJECT their fathers, have that fight with them.  They cannot do it if the father isn’t there.  Best book on this I’ve read is The Sibling Society by Robert Bly.  

Here’s a chapter that I uploaded to Google Drive.  I made it public which I THINK means, you can download the PDF.  But maybe I have to transfer into Google Docs, not sure.  

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_LPIlRhgTXuMThTYWlNSkp4eGc/edit?usp=sharing

The thread has certainly grown in informative content, it’s gotten really insightful.

One point of view which I always considered pretty strange is that of “we evolved to be that way.” I find such points of view pretty flawed because evolution isn’t really all that intelligent, it just goes into random directions and sticks to whatever doesn’t kills us. Practical, sure, but who can believe it optimal?

Rather than defending traditional roles of males and females, we should be discussing whether or not it is possible to adjust our roles to a more egalitarian society (which Giselle Minoli’s latest stream of research links hints at being very possible).

Hi Giselle MinoliThanks for an excellent post! To anyone who might be interested:

Between 1900 and 1920, power elitists, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, poured more money into American public education than our Federal Government did.  And, it is them, and the politicians they bribed and put into office, who we have to thank for the forced public education system our nation has today.

To give everyone, here, an idea of the philosophy, foundation, and structure the founders of our public education system—these power elitists—had in mind, here are a few quotes: 

“In our dreams, people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands.  The present education conventions of intellectual and character education fade from their minds.  And, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk.  We shall not try to make these people, or any of their children, into philosophers, or men of science.  We have not to raise up them as authors, educators, poets, or men of letters.  We shall not search for great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, all of whom we have ample supply. The task is simple.  We will organize the children and teach them in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.” John D. Rockefeller 

“The aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The aim is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level; to breed and train standardized citizenry, to put down dissidence and originality.  That is the aim of the United States.” H.L. Menken 

“Education should aim at destroying free will so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking and acting otherwise than their schoolmasters would have wished.” Bertrand Russell 

No doubt, it were these same ‘power elite’ responsible for the “Texbook Scare” of the 1970’s, the “Why Johnny Can’t Read” phenomena of the 1980’s, and, likely, the widespread conflict/violence/illegal drug problems we have in our public schools today.

In an “Input-Output” (memorization-regurgitation of information) system, in which those students exalted as the “Best and Brightest” are merely those who can puke information the hardest, while the true ‘best and brightest’—the free thinkers—are squelched, medicated, and treated as though there’s something wrong with them, “Public ‘Education’ System” is a misnomer.  In a system, apparently, designed from the foundation up to ‘dumb down’ the public; in which young people are conditioned into blind obedience to authority, and to serve the economy and social structure, “Public ‘Indoctrination’ System” (I think) is a more accurate descriptive.   

If there is any “Link Between Fidgety Boys and (the) Sputtering Econom(ies)” we’ve had in the US over the last century, then it probably has more to do with American public education, as it was initially conceived, than anything else pertaining to schools.

Jeffrey Kunkel, those are some excellent quotes to illustrate the injustice of the education system. That could be it’s own topic, the type that hits the hot stream and raises public ire.

Yet, it doesn’t. Why? Has the plans of such elite people already worked so well…? But let’s not digress. Such important issues deserve their own spotlights, not being treated as a side-dish in another (also important) topic.

David Bauer That was a very powerful story. I am truly glad you’re here to tell it. I am now getting involved in an organization called Defy Ventures (http://defyventures.org/) that helps ex-cons get jobs or become entrepreneurs. If you’d like to get involved or know people who could use the help, you can email them at info@defyventures.org. 

To your point about boys, the problem is happening at two levels: the crisis level for the forgotten segment of the population you describe so well. Then there’s the fluffier, whiter, more luxurious version where doting parents argue with Teachers over Montessori techniques. Two very different worlds. One is very real and very neglected. The other is splitting hairs over first world problems. 

:subscribing: 

Jeffrey Kunkel please allow me some time to respond to you properly. I am pondering, have many thoughts, questions and things to say. But, for now, let me ping in Meg Tufano as your comments so pertain to education (I know you have mentioned her above), which is a true passion of her.

…and to say that I am very curious about your book, and cannot help but wonder whether it is personal memoir in nature, and, if so, whether it touches on the musician/teacher within you as a response, or in response to, becoming oneself, or finding the route to oneself outside of a traditional metier.

…and to say Hello Graham Kunkel it’s nice to meet you…

…and to ask whether the two of you have ever committed to writing a dialogue between you about the above subject: father and son discussing the art of being and belonging, as well as the highly refined and much disregarded art of no belonging!

Back at you later…

John Poteet I think the issue that needs to be addressed is not the issue with boys OR girls, but the issue with schooling itself. I know people who have gone to excellent public schools, but I, unfortunately, did not have access to one of those.

The way you describe yourself, could be the way I described myself. Had I not found the school I did find, I often thought I might well have slipped through the cracks right into the abyss.

I could never make a case, however, that I would feel good about that all private schools are great and all public schools are terrible because I don’t think that’s true.

What I DO think is true is that certain assumptions are made about students (boys and/or girls) that it becomes impossible to escape from: such as boys are more fidgety than girls (not true), or that girls are better at multi-tasking naturally than boys (not true), or that boys are better than girls at Maths and Sciences (not true), or that girls are more well behaved than boys and don’t need competitive sports or physical activity (not true).

THAT is what I found so disturbing about the attached article. What is difficult to find are schools/administrators/teachers who have the ability and insight to figure out where the key and door are into a particular kid’s mind, heart and spirit…and then to unlock it.

We tend to standardize everything in this culture because it’s easier. But it is also extremely difficult to come across a particularly bright kid (such as Jeffrey Kunkel’s son) who has a special door into his learning soul that doesn’t fit into common thinking, and not somehow marginalize that kind of student…if they aren’t lucky like I was. Those kids do, often, slip through the cracks and it is a tragedy and a travesty.

But as a woman John Poteet I can tell you that girls are being just as ignored. If you don’t think that’s true, then why, in 2014, are there still so few women in positions of leadership, leadership positions where they could start changing much of this? The reason is because in school girls are still being trained to sit still, be nice and behave themselves.

Perhaps you think that my suggestion that we stop coddling boys is a lack of compassion. But…my own definition of coddling is that we are narrowly defining these issues and problems: boys are “fidgety,” girls are more “mature.” These definitions lead to labels that are squeezing kids into narrow views of themselves, and their employers into narrowly viewing them, and there is no end to the trouble that it is causing.

In my own life, I was and still am probably very much like a fidgety boy. I cannot sit still for most things to save my life. You would never catch me going to a school where there are lecture classes and kids take notes. Not. Going. To. Happen. And yet, I know kids who prefer that, who thrive in that environment. The door into each’s kids learning soul has to be discovered…and not kicked down.

I was pushed by my teachers to go past my own narrow definitions of myself. That is what I mean by not being coddled.

But if you were to ask me whether I think I would make it through our current educational system? No. I would not survive it. There is no way. 

So I completely share your concern…

John Poteet and Jeffrey Kunkel I am convinced that this failed belief system about girls and boys – what is good for them, what their true nature is, how they should be behave, what they are capable of, how they should be “handled” – all of it is fallout from relying on certain aspects of evolutionary biology to determine how we should be, what we should aspire to be. There are individual “scripts” that we live by…traumas that are inflicted upon each of (or good things, too) that then determine our entire belief systems all too often.

A young girl who grows up in a family where she is “taught” by her mother and father that girls should be home-makers has one hell of an uphill crawl is she aspires to be an astronaut. A young boy who grows up in a family that encourages caricaturized behavior (aggression, he-man stuff) denies him the opportunity to know his full self.

Boys and girls who go to schools where the teachers and administrators cater to culturally engrained false belief systems (about what subjects boys to better in, about cooking and nurturing babies, for instance, are “feminine” traits) grow up squeezing themselves into boxes, lying to themselves and to others about who they are, and frequently climbing up the entirely wrong ladder to the top.

John Poteet I do not agree, however, that these belief systems are held solely by the well-heeled over-60 set. Girls are frightening hyper-sexualized by young boys, teenagers, and men. Rape on college campuses is rampant (just look at the front pages of the major newspapers).

In January I posted Google, Tell Me, Is My Son a Genius, in response to an article about the fact that while parents tend to be concerned about whether their boys are geniuses, when it comes to their girls they are more likely to be concerned about their weight. Here is that post, which got 177 comments: https://plus.google.com/+GiselleMinoli/posts/aZZ66Q23p1A

While I think that boys AND girls are being short-changed by an antiquated educational system that caters to out-dated and even dangerous beliefs about boys and girls, I also think that while parents and educators often tend to underestimate what girls can accomplish, they have higher expectations of them – in terms of the way they behave – in school. Likewise, while parents and educators have great beliefs and hopes for what boys will accomplish, they have lower expectations of them – in terms of the way they behave…in school.

I feels like the old yarn: Boys Will Be Boys…

Giselle Minoli John Poteet Jeffrey Kunkel For being a place of learning, when I look around at the people in school there are a lot of people who get pressured by there parents to get straight A’s and take all advanced classes the other people are either barely scraping by or just don’t care at all as for me, call me lazy, or a bad student but yes I may sleep in class, and have bad grades but why participate and speed up the process of becoming a mindless slave to the man (paying taxes). Im glad there is other intelligent and enlightened people in the world thanks to Jeffrey Kunkel when i read your comment i could not help but smile

Graham Kunkel You need to check your grammar, Buddy Boy! But, thanks for the compliment! “Daddy LUV Buddy!”

Graham Kunkel That’s why I believe you should shift your education to areas of life you are interested in. That might also come with learning how people who do what you’re interested in live first hand.

Most artists are broke for a very long time. Professional athletes get disciplined or get out because being slack means getting hurt and spending the rest of your life in a power chair. You want to write then spend time cranking on the keyboard and so on down the line. 

You’ve got a very small window of time when the greater mass of adults will support you. It’s best to be very good at something by the time that window of time is up. Find something you believe in and hit it hard. 

Giselle Minoli Very much that also. I see the challenge with many young people is that they are not open to the passion of engaging with the world.

There’s a neighbor of mine that, like myself, keeps a large and active compost pile. Our children are good friends. The kids are baffled as to why adult men with all the resources of a university town at their disposal would choose to spend hours every week shoveling compost piles. 

What we really can’t explain to them is that there’s a whole world of events happening in each shovel full of compost. There’s an ecosystem in there that we watch, nurture and adjust and then spread out to our greater gardens. We’re interested in what’s happening while we shovel compost. 

Without access to that passion and engagement with life the Liberal Arts education that you describe, and we both engage in, is the hollow whispers of old dead guys to young minds. At some level they have to want it for themselves or it doesn’t work. 

Giselle Minoli Ah, yes. I believe I’ll do that although it may take some processing time. 

Graham Kunkel I went to about two years of high school. As did my kids mom with the Master’s Degree and several credentials and my oldest kid who is scheduled to graduate from University of California Santa Cruz this June. 

I’m not saying that is easy because it’s not. There are other paths. I don’t know what’s available where you live. You’re still going to need a decent command of english, math and history because without understanding these things it becomes too easy to rip you off. 

You might want to learn a second language because there’s a culture you’re interested in or because having two languages makes your mastery of English better. If you were a woodworker it would make your boxes better and if you were a welding it would make your welds better because you’d have two separate ways to describe any process you do. 

I’ll tell you now that clumping your way through high school getting B minuses and a few A’s is the lazy path. If you finish the assignment properly you’re done. Choose to be your own master and you’re working for the only jerk on the planet who’ll make you work 7 days a week for no pay. 

It’s your life dude. Nobody else can live it for you. 

If you have art: post it. Lots of popular, well supported web comics have started out as scribbles. Heck Randall Munroe has a huge global following and he’s literally drawing stick figures.

http://xkcd.com/

Graham Kunkel I understand how you feel…but life as an illuminated person does not suck. It isn’t easy. And I’m not sure it should be (or that anything worth attaining, striving for should be). Often I don’t even know what “easy” means. But I think we all need to make peace with the fact that criticism, hardship, obstacles, people disagreeing with us, trying to stop us, topple us, pigeon hole us…’twas always thus and ’twill always be thus.

I hope you are watching Cosmos. One of the more interesting things about it is to be reminded of the struggle scientists, thinkers, discoverers (male and female) went through when they were going against the grain of accepted, common and unchallenged thought.

Others can brainwash us…or we can brainwash ourselves. Which is worse?

Watch Cosmos…

Yes, Julia Senesac it is a journey and, whether we ever meet IRL or not…and whether he knows it or not…we are, each of us, on the road with Graham Kunkel, bumping up against our resistances and greeting out better selves whether we want to or not!

BTW…I share being a stepmother with you (mine are all adults now!)…

Julia Senesac Giselle Minoli Write down what Julia said!!!!!!  

Giselle Minoli, I agree with you that there is “mass-fidgety-ness” in American K-12 schools among, BOTH, boys AND girls. And, like you, I see it as having nothing to do with the things mentioned in the article you posted, much less anything to do with any “sputtering economy.” But, rather, I see it as a symptom of a much deeper, farther reaching problem. I see it as (what Hermetics might call) a “Microcosm of a Macrocosm.” Please bear with me as I explain. I promise I’ll arrive at my point(s):

The socio-political-economic ideologies of Thomas Jefferson and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel are diametrically opposed. Jeffersonian states, “The State exists to serve the individual.” Hegelian states, “The individual exists to serve the State.” Thus, what I think we would be comparing, would be States/social structures designed and functioning to empower and exalt the Individual, or “S”elf (Jeffersonian) to States/social structures designed and functioning to disempower, impede-compromise-supress-denigrate-subjugate and, above all, capitalize on, and usurp the values of the Individual, or “S”elf (Hegelian-as all socio-political-economic Collectives are corrupt).

A comparison of Denmark (Jeffersonian-model) to the Russian Federation (Hegelian-model) would serve as an excellent example. In cross-cultural studies, Denmark ranks “Truest of World Democracies,” “Least in Corruption,” and Danes rank as “The Happiest People in the World.” In Denmark, it is mandated that mothers receive one-year of paid maternity leave. Fathers also receive paid maternity leave (just not as long). Danish taxpayers pay, not only, entirely, for their students’ educations, but also for their students’ living expenses while they’re at university because it is the Danes’ consensus that educated people make for a better country (as Thomas Jefferson also believed). Because of its territory, it is necessary for Danes to be quad-lingual. Though Denmark’s population is less than one-third the size of New York City (less than six-million people), the country has the highest number of tertiary degree holders in the world (at the least, Bachelors degrees). Also, despite its relatively small population, Denmark’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is only 30% less per capita than the US (with a population of approximately 370-million people). Unemployment is next to nonexistent in Denmark. And, if a Dane does become unemployed, the government will, not only help him/her find a job he/she loves, but the taxpayers will also pay to train him/her if he/she is under qualified for his/her chosen profession. By the way, Danes enjoy among the world’s highest standards of living. Best of all!! Denmark is where ‘mind-developing’ Lego toys are made (as opposed to the US, where ‘mind-degenerating’ xBox ‘Grand Theft Auto’ is made). It’s true that Danes have among the world’s highest personal income taxes. But, considering what they get in return for their taxes (compared to the US, for example), the society is still quite a bargain. (What do we Americans get in return for our taxes? Bank-Corporation bailouts, tax breaks, and incentives? Obscene military spending?).

In comparison, I don’t know what the Russian Federation is like today. Putin puts on a good front, but I suspect the actual Russian Federation social conditions are far less positive than he represents them as exemplified by current events in Ukraine. (I’m aware of the evidence that the US was involved in the sniper attacks against the Ukrainian protesters). But, approximately a decade ago, the average life expectancy of a Russian male was 54-years (Vodka-chain smoking-drug abuse-suicide). Substance trafficking and abuse of all kinds were rampant. Crime and violence prevailed, as did Black Markets (as they always had). And, organized crime (the “New Russians, ” or ‘Russian Mafia’) was running the Russian banking system (just like the US ie. HSBC 🙂 as well as promulgating all the other negative and degenerative impacts organized crime has on a society.

Now, given the two extremes I exemplified above, I think there is strong evidence that the US has been in a transition from a Democracy-Republic to a Corrupt Collective beginning, at least, as far back as 1900 and, perhaps, even as far back as our textile industry-instigated Civil War. (Sorry, but, just as our “War on Terror” had/has little, or nothing to do with ‘Terror,’ our Civil War had little, or nothing to do with ‘Slavery.’ Our War on terror was/is about oil, just as our Civil War was about Cotton. It’s just that Plutocrat ‘wannabe’s’ need some quasi-legitimate excuse to send the masses to war—to kill their own people—make boat loads of money, and, thus, gain excessive power. What self-respecting soldier would lay down his life for oil, or cotton? Who among the masses would support it?).

My points are:

1) We humans must “socialize.” We must live in “societies.” The human social, or herd instinct is (arguably) as innate a part of us as survival and reproduction. But, we must choose the types of societies we allow. That’s right. I said, “We must “choose” the types of societies we “allow.”” “Authority” doesn’t deal well with dissent and is virtually powerless against it. Further, it doesn’t like global embarrassment (although, as our government’s owners and operators gain power, the US is becoming more, and more brazen. Presently, it doesn’t seem to matter to them whether we find out their lies and injustices, or not, because there are no penalties for them. After all, they’re “Too Big to Fail,” or so they would have us believe through their “Economic Suicide Threats”). Not too long ago, a “Collective Lightbulb” lit up over the heads of both East and West Germans, which was like, “Hey! There are a whole Hell of a lot more of us than there are of them! And, if we don’t want to live this way, we don’t have to!” And, down came the Berlin Wall! (As “Authority” stood by helpless). Poland and the Slovakia’s are similar examples. And, recently, Edward Snowden caused quite a global ruckuss single-handedly. Judging from Ron Paul’s campaign contributions, which came predominantly from US Military personnel (Ron Paul wanted to abandon Afghanistan and Iraq immediately), even our own US Military doesn’t support our government (its owners and operators).

My point is that we can either choose a society that empowers and exalts the individual/”S”elf (Denmark/Jeffersonian model), or one that disempowers, subjugates, and exploits the individual/”S”elf (Russian Federation/Hegelian model). There are solutions to our social problems. However, in the direction the US has been headed… We’d better get on the ball!

2) Regarding the Hermetic idea of “Microcosm of a Macrocosm:” on the Macro level, show me any social structure in which a handful of ‘power elitists’ (read ‘Inbred Megalomaniacal Sicko’s) are attempting to supress, control, and subjugate the masses, and I’ll show you a social structure characterized by grand scale ignorance, apathy, mental disorders, escapism in its various forms (television, entertainment, addictions, etc.), lack of self-respect (obstinance, dissent, conflict, violence, self-degradation even to the point of suicide), and a wealth of other degenerative social characteristics.

On the Micro level (as well as the Macro level), the Newtonian phrase, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,” comes to mind. In reference to the ‘power elite’s’ quotes I transcribed in my first comment on American public “education,” our K-12 Education System is an arm of government. It was designed from the foundation up as a social indoctrination system. And, the social system it indoctrinates us into is Hegelian in philosophy: like the Russian Federation. Thus, show me any indoctrination system into such a Corrupt Collective Society, as our American K-12 Education System happens to be, and I’ll show you, AT THE VERY LEAST, “Fidgety-ness.”

Julia Senesac Giselle Minoli  Two Martinis.  ;’)  

Walther M.M. I did share Jeffrey Kunkel ‘s comments in a separate thread, but hard to find it now.  (Why isn’t G+ Search better?)  

This extraordinarily inreresting post has lain dead for a week, or so. I hope I didn’t disturb anyone’s world view too awfully badly (or, maybe, I hope I did 🙂

Meg Tufano : Thanks, again, for your re-posts and positive reinforcement. Also, Walther M.M. : Thanks for your encouragement. As I scroll down my G+ Home Page, I see all the beautiful images, memes, and aesthetically appealing and spiritually valuable things people post and I wonder where they find them, how they create them, and how, technically, they put them up. I think I’m at a point in life in which I have some things of value to communicate. But, I don’t have the command over technology to make what I communicate posts all their owns. So, I comment on others’ posts on topics about which I feel passionate. Sorry if I’ve overwhelmed anyone.

Also, obviously, from Edward Snowden’s revelations, Google is in bed with the NSA. I tend to write about controversial socio-political-economic subjects. And, I believe it’s “The Man’s” agenda to distract the masses; to preoccupy us with everything in the world EXCEPT for organizing against “Him;” mass dissent. I can personally attest to the fact that more than a few of the comments I’ve posted on G+ have mysteriously disappeared and that my personal ability to comment on posts has been blocked on G+ when I’ve known damned good and well that the posts have been open for comments. This is especially true when I’ve quoted international news sources (other than our American Rupert Murdoch-Ted Turner propagandist mainstream media duopoly). So, maybe it’s better that I just try to ‘topple a domino’ here and there.

Also, thanks to everyone for your concern, encouragement, and advice to my son, Graham Kunkel . Both, he and I appreciate it!

Giselle Minoli I would love to satisfy your curiosity about the book I’m writing. But, not publicly. I think I’m onto something that hasn’t been done, yet, in the way I’m doing it. So, you know… “Publish, or perish…” But, I will tell you, your speculation is correct. It is, generally, about “S”elf. Also, I like your idea of a Socratic-style dialogue between my son, Graham Kunkel, and me and I will explore that idea together with him.

Also, Giselle Minoli, you impress me as one also interested in the idea of “S”elf. I’ve done quite a lot of study on “it.” I don’t know about you. But, I’ve found the “S”elf, perhaps, the most elusive thing to understand and on which to elucidate. But, one of the most interesting comments I’ve found regarding “S”elf and which I think is closely related to your post, here, is the following quote I’d like to share with you:

“Much of magic, as I understand it in the Western occult tradition, is the search for the Self, with a capital “S.” This is understood as being the Great Work, as being the gold the Alchemists sought, as being the Will, the Soul, the thing that we have inside us that is behind the intellect, the body, the dreams; the “Inner Dynamo” of us, if you like. Now, this is the single most important thing that we can ever attain: the knowledge of our own “S”elf. And, yet, there are a frightening amount of people who seem to have the urge, not just to ignore the “S”elf, but actually seem to have the urge to obliterate them”S”elves. This is horrific. But, you can almost understand the desire to simply wipe out that awareness, because it’s too much of a responsibility to actually possess such a thing as a Soul; such a precious thing. What if you break it? What if you lose it? Mightn’t be best to anaesthetize it? To deaden it? To destroy it? To not have to live with the pain of struggling towards it and trying to keep it pure? I think that the way that people immerse themselves in alcohol, in drugs, in television; in any of the addictions that our culture throws up can be seen as a deliberate attempt to destroy any connection between them”S”elves and the responsibility of accepting and owning a Higher Self and then having to maintain it.”

Alan Moore

Jeffrey Kunkel Hi Jeffrey, I agree this post should be a BOOK!  Couple, three things . . . the first is about your son’s education.  I don’t know exactly what he’s studying, or how he’s doing it, but you can contact me outside of G+ (meg.tufano@gmail.com) and I will be happy to help him construct a program of study.  I have a great deal of experience with “discipline problem” boys, a long story how I got that experience, but it turned out to be something I was good at:  my conclusion is that they are bored out of their minds!  And it’s not so much about sitting still as it is that the subject that is ever on their minds (sex) is never part of the education environment!  When one can help young men to see literature through the eyes of what “glues” literature together (sex), the blinders come off and some interest develops.  I mainly got my students to talk about what they cared about and learned from them what it was that I should address as the “subject.”  They ended up reading Shakespeare and poetry for fun.  But it did not happen overnight.  (In my opinion, you need to start where the student is, not force the student to learn something someone else thinks he should know:  eventually, no matter where you start, you will eventually get to all the other subjects (my experience, and makes sense from my study of Jungian theory (I have a Master’s in Depth Psychology).  (The word, “educare” comes from the Latin meaning “to draw out.”)  

I would love for your son to give me some feedback for a course I’m designing in critical thinking.  This is the first Module:

http://www.synaptiqplus.com/critical-thoughts/critical-thoughts-1

It is a course in learning to think for yourself and I designed it some years back to great acclaim from students (land-based) and I would like to see if I can redesign it as a standalone “unmanned” course.  (This is the first of 13 modules.)  

I also would like your response to my article on the NSA.  I go against accepted “wisdom” on this subject:  

http://www.synaptiqplus.com/journal-winter-2013/The-Deep-Dark-Web

Please respond and ping me in on another thread as I feel this is seriously threadjacking Giselle’s thread!  ;’)  

I have to now get back to actually laying out the article Giselle refers to above.  We are very late getting out the Spring issue because I had to wait for the artist.  It was well worth the wait.  And why I am awake at 7 in the morning is a mystery to me.  (I never get up this early.)  But thought I’d try to catch up on what I had been missing while Photoshopping.  ;’)  

Meg Tufano I spent a long time looking at your module. I think its amazing! I haven’t thought about anything that much in school ever! Its always memorize this formula or “learn” these rules. Which really means memorize it. When you are actually taught to think, and use your head for more then just a hat rack you can then create ideas and form opinions. Your module does a great job of teaching you how to do that!

Meg Tufano I am very glad that there are people out there working to make the world a smarter place! Giselle Minoli

There’s nothing wrong with change, if it’s in the right direction, regards.

Vanessa Vaile , welcome. Here’s the original post by Giselle Minoli  you requested, reposted by Meg Tufano  . Thanks for your interest.

Meg Tufano  I mentioned in a previous comment that I had known the purpose of public education for a long time. But, it had never occurred to me before that it (breeding and training of ‘standardized citizenry’) was the very “Reason,” for it, as you re-posted it. 

After thinking about it, your re-post reminded me of David Naisbitt’s book, “Megatrends,” published in the early 1980’s. (By the way, Naisbitt is the author who coined the term, “Information Society,” so popular since the ’80’s). In it, he pointed out that, in 1880, 80% of Americans were making their livings in agribusiness. By 1920, 80% of Americans were making their livings in industry.

I guess it should go without saying that this massive shift in the foundation of U.S. economy caused a massive shift in our population: 80% of rural folk relocating to the big cities. And, I suppose (arguably) this massive relocation of Americans would have created a need for a “Public Indoctrination Program;” thus, Andrew Carnegie’s and John D. Rockefeller’s massive investment in American public education between 1900 and 1920 (exceeding that of the U.S. Government).

Just an afterthought… 

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