>Any curriculum and school policies that specifically disenfranchise our male students WILL effect male antisocial behavior. Any outsider can look at the K8 curriculum and see how the males in this town are constantly marginalized. The reading materials are unabashedly feminist. Girls are great! Boys are insignificant, at best. The so-called math program is based on lateral “girl” learning patterns while the normal “boy” learns through vertical layered reasoning which is not to be used because it favors boys (and the rest of the world too). Males in Ridgewood are told from day one that the school system is a hostile environment and that they are the reason for everything that is wrong in the world. The State of New Jersey has been using taxpayer’s dollars since the early ninties to fund anti-male curriculums in this State starting with the New Jersey Project run by the misandroids Sheffield and Rothenberg at WPC. That program has been folded this year – thank God! Yet it has morphed into PRISM at Montclair State’ Women’s Studies Department. The deparment is full of third generation man- haters and they have alot of money to “transform” curriculums into female friendly and screw the males while your at it mistresspieces. It’s hard for me to believe that B&I with their connections to MSU and Rutgers and their own educational backgrounds could have been unaware of the origins and intent of TERC/CMP. I’d like to see the statistics from Travell and Orchard broken down by gender. I’d like to see the gender of all of the reportable incidents at the high school broken down by gender. I think those statistics will prove my point.
>5 of the 6 elementary schools are run by female principals so I think we can expect this trend to continue.
>Soooooo, our boys will turn into girlie men?
>I’ve had girls go through the schools, and now have an unusually language-oriented boy, but I know that what this person is saying is true.
And the TERC people state as much in a document on the web in which they claim reform math to be “the next civil rights prize” to be coveted by girls and minorities.
Worse, they looked at how white males learn, and then discarded that instructional technique.
You can find it all in a public document on the web, courtesy of the TERC publishers. It’s appalling.
Here it is: Weaving gender equity into math reform
>We have a daughter and we have worked hard to raise her to be strong and independent and to hold her own with “the boys.” This girlifying everything just irks us!
>Our public schools have become bastions of gender based and race based offensive maneuvers.
Women’s studies programs are fundamentally fake and supremely sexist, yet young idealistic women are made to soak up this stuff like it’s an elixir, not knowing enough to just spit it out.
Now, a generation of women have been schooled in this movement and they are dumping its detritus on us.
Our female centric board of ed is only too eager to stroke its ego on such feminist propaganda. They’re just another example of what a brain drain looks and sounds like.
B&I are the living results of what ails and fails the public school system.
we should never let them forget that we’re on to them.
>”Normal boy learns through vertical layered reasoning…” Normal? People who really know about teaching and learning avoid that word at all costs, because it suggests that anything that lies outside of this “norm” is simply—- well—– abnormal.
Also, “males in Ridgewood learn from day one that the school system is a hostile environment…” WHAT are you talking about? I have a son, and he has not experienced this AT ALL. He’s a happy kid, socializes well, enjoys school, free play, organized activities (CCD, etc.), sports… This posts has a ton of assertions, please back up these opinions with some facts.
>I agree. I also have a son in Ridgewood schools, I have always been involved and aware of what he’s being taught, and I have NEVER felt that the schools are a “hostile environment” for boys.
This whole argument is just a hair’s width away from the affirmative action conversation. There are so many parallels. That’s a bit scary to me, because I have not seen that we are “adult” enough in Ridgewood to discuss things maturely and thoughtfully.
>The teachers push fiction versus non-fiction. (Boys perfer non-fiction.)
Hostile and agressive games like tag and dodge ball are banned.
The math is full of language, where boys are traditionally lag behind girls.
Very few teachers point out that boys tend to write less than girls and that is “normal” boy development. It seems that teachers have the same expectations for boys without acknowledging that boys most often lag behind girls in language.
Boys tend to be more active and could use the longer recess the kids used to have.(Remember that lunch hour that is now 45 minutes.)
If reading workshop and writing workshop are stressed more than math and science the curriculum starts out bias against boys.
Newsweek did an article on this last year called “The Trouble with Boys”, so this is not fiction.
It’s a nationwide problem reflected in Ridgewood.
>First, let me respond to your ridiculous generalization that “boys prefer nonfiction.” An argument could be made that if boys “prefer” nonfiction, then the teacher absolutely should “push” fiction in order to expose them to this extremely important art form. Duh.
Second, my son recently completed elementary school and before tag was banned, it was MOST aggressively played by girls. They were brutal! And as for dodge ball…it has no place at school. Fine if kids want to play their own dodgeball game after school, but during recess? A game where the point is to target and hurl a ball at defenseless kids? Too much opportunity for bullying.
And all kids — boys and girls — could use a longer recess. Blame NCLB for that loss.
You sound fairly biased against girls — I suspect you feel girls should use a longer recess only to practice their sewing or housekeeping skills or — oh no! — read their fiction?
>How many times are our children going to be made to read “100 dresses” or whatever the heck that depressing, pathetic book is called.
It sucks for girls but it must be sheer torture for boys.
>I see that 7:54 wants to feminize boys for their own good. What shape pretzel would you prefer? Dodge ball does not consist of hurling a ball at defenseless anyones. They are playing a game with willing participants. Sounds like you have a degree in Womens Studies.
>”You sound fairly biased against girls — I suspect you feel girls should use a longer recess only to practice their sewing or housekeeping skills or — oh no! — read their fiction?”
LOL! Nothing of the kind. I’ve got two sons and two daughters, and I can tell you this bias toward girls in the schools is very real.
Read the link above, directly from TERC, about “weaving gender equity into reform math” for an example.
Do your homework before spouting off.
Oh, and my girls don’t need girl-math. They don’t need to be accomodated, or receive alternative assessments (yes alternative assessments for girls are in that document too.) My family is insulted by the very idea.
My girls are intelligent, as are most of the girls in this town. They can do normal math.
>1. “Males in Ridgewood are told from day one that the school system is a hostile environment and that they are the reason for everything that is wrong in the world”
My son must have missed that memo. He is doing very well in reading, math and science.
2. “The deparment is full of third generation man- haters and they have alot of money to “transform” curriculums into female friendly and screw the males while your at it mistresspieces”
Did they actually tell you that, or did you guess.
3. “I’d like to see the gender of all of the reportable incidents at the high school broken down by gender. I think those statistics will prove my point.”
Shouldn’t you have your facts before you make your conclusion?
>so i guess ridgewood is going to be the next new training ground for hairdressers and interior decorators
>”Normal? People who really know about teaching and learning avoid that word at all costs, because it suggests that anything that lies outside of this “norm” is simply—- well—– abnormal.”
There is the problem right there with those people. We all know what the damn word normal means. But along comes a bunch of oversensitive, undereducated “teaching and learning” people who decide that it doesn’t have a “nice” meaning. Puleese!
These people have wrecked our education system. THEY NEED TO STOP!
>Hey 3:17 PM — you’ve noticed the trend. I would add restaurant managers/workers, or those who will work for daddy at his business.
>God help us is we really have to fight a war to save ourselves.
I feel sorry for this generation of boys. They are so put down by the feminist culture and its fake quest for equality.
>Breathing is risky but I still do it….life is a smorgasboard of challenges, how you approach them will define your character.
>I am surprised that there are so many bloggers who are afraid of women.
Boo
>There is an incredible misogynistic bent on this blog…it’s scary! I also can’t believe that your day is ruined because your boy can’t play dodge ball. You know what, it’s because of crybaby litigious parents and lawyers. It stinks, but get over it. My kid can play it in my yard and he plays sports. Believe me, it’s not ruining his life, in fact, his best buddy almost lost his eyesight last year due to a football hitting him in the eye during recess. But that’s besides the point.
Stop. Just stop. No one is persecuting boys in this town. Get over yourselves.
>Maybe you should teach your kid how to catch a football using his hands.
>Normal is a statistical term. Ever heard of the bell curve? It probably isn’t used much in this TERC infested town.
>7:51 PM I’m a woman and I’m not afraid of women. I hate the womanist infestation now in our public schools. It is toxic and it is bad for both boys and girls.
Womanist: n. a militant advocate for coerced feminist equality for females and ALL males, whether they want it or not.
>7:51 Tell the truth, did you make that up?
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) – Cite This Source
wom·an·ist /ˈwʊmənɪst/ Pronunciation Key – Show Spelled Pronunciation[woom-uh-nist] adjective 1. believing in and respecting the abilities and talents of women; acknowledging women’s contributions to society.
2. pertaining to a type of feminism that acknowledges the abilities and contributions of black women.
–noun 3. a person who holds or supports womanist views.
>7:48 love what the dictionary said, but I like mine (9:25) better (LOL). How did the “black” get in there? Are black women different from other women?
>5:12- hey, how about you learn how to read? I didn’t say it was my kid, it was his best buddy, and he was PEGGED in the eye.
>5:15- the word “normal” when used with children, with the absence of the qualifier “range of ________” implies that anything outlying this is pathological.
>9:20, so it’s “when it’s used with something” that its meaning changes. And I love how it’s “implied.”
Well imply this: English is English no matter what mis-educatred educrats prefer to make it.
>7:27- well, no. Consider this, each profession has it’s own lexicon if you will. Somehow, on this blog, any terminology that refers to education, teaching, pedagogy, curriculum, etc. somehow gets twisted and gets referred to as “edu-speak” or practioners gets termed “edu-crats.” There is no pleasing any of you.
And yes, many words in the English language (and I am a linguist, so I do have expertise here) are used with modifiers and other qualifiers that DO change meaning or nuance of meaning. “Normal” and “within a normal range” or “range of normal” do have different meanings. Why don’t you ask a physician and perhaps they could explain it to and perhaps you wouldn’t be as defensive since you could not then call them an educrat.
>I think that seeing pathology in using the word “normal” without a qualifier is pathological.Who is doing the “implying” here? I think that you are. How’s that for a linguistical twistical.
>3:45 you started this by being “defensive.” Can’t you see your own reflection in your words?