Tuesday, 7 January 2014

Yes, Clearly, This Is A Job For….Schools?

Dating advice, money management and life skills are to be offered to boys from male teachers in a unique way of improving attainment at a school.
On Canvey Island. Yes, I know, I know…
The male mentor scheme is being introduced by headteacher Victoria Overy for those boys who do not have a positive male role model in their lives.
Subjects will vary from how to save money, how to ask a girl out, how to treat women, how to approach a teacher if you have a problem, how to present yourself and shave, and what it means to be a good pupil and friend.
The school was rated ‘inadequate’. Hardly surprising if they spend their time on this, and not on teaching them to read, write and add up.
They will do golf lessons, football tournaments, and team building activities such as camping, survival skills and bowling.
How terribly gender-limiting! Surely this cannot be? Surely the school will be attacked for limiting the choices of the pupils to gender-normative pursuits?
Girls will work with female teachers on finance management and career aspirations.
Not on frock-making and etiquette? Well, I suppose that’s something…

13 comments:

AndrewWS said...

You can mock, but a lot of this I could have done with, and I was educated at a grammar school and then a Russell Group university. Wonderful though both of them were, I grew up with no social skills at all, still haven't a clue about money and dearly wish someone could have given me some tips on dealing with girls. And my father was the last person I would have asked for any of this sort of guidance, as he would have told me not to waste his valuable time.

Fidel Cuntstruck said...

It's almost as though she is saying that they are never going to learn to read, write and add up, so the school may as well send them out into society with something

I guess that they stand a better chance of turning into clean shaven and reasonably polite benefits claimants if nothing else?

Anonymous said...

AndrewWS is right. At the age of 18 i joined the Forces and for the first time i was taught about how to handle my bank balance and money. Yes, the other social stuff about cleaning, respect, ironing etc.
I have spoken to numerous youths and all of them have said they would like input on handling personal finances.
It's easy to knock poor feral youth for being that but it's far better to try and do something about it.
They have to learn from somewhere.

Ian B said...

In other words, another excuse to hammer boys with nonsensical and impractical feminist ideology regarding behaviour, etc.

Close the schools. Seriously. Just close them all.

Anonymous said...

How to invite a girl out on Canvey.

Some boys knock on a door.

"Hello Mrs Chav, can your Chardonnay come out for a group fuck?"

"Of course she can."

Woman on a Raft said...

another excuse to hammer boys with nonsensical and impractical feminist ideology

I don't really see how shaving, dressing as if you wanted the job and managing a bank account is 'impractical feminist ideology'.

If anything counts as IFI it is telling boys (and girls) that these things do not matter and that if you get in to financial trouble it is someone else's fault.

On balance, I'm amazed that a school has been allowed to start telling the truth to its pupils and welcome this as a small step in the right direction. I hope it will be followed up with other practical lessons in English, Mathematics and how to cooperate on simple group projects such as putting up a tent without going off in a huff.

The Blocked Dwarf said...

And how long will it be before the Daily Hitler is screaming out that "PEDO SIR GROOMS SCHOOLBOYS" because some little darling misunderstood the fatherly advice given him?

It's hard to 'teach' these kind of subjects without getting dangerously close to a line that no teacher would want to risk these days...these days where any kind of intimacy with a child -albeit so innocent and purely verbal- can lead to imprisonment.

The Blocked Dwarf said...

What if Atkins-minor thinks he is gay? Will Sir be offering advice on dating boys?

I can just imagine the press release from Stonewall...


And can you imagine how the CIFers will react to the CULTURAL INSENSITIVITY if white teachers are advising non-white pupils?

Anonymous said...

Bunny

This is what Secondary Moderns used to do and isn't a bad idea at all. Fingers crossed that it works, as Mr Cuntstruck says if it turns them into clean shaven and reasonably polite benefits claimants it will be an improvement. If the school puts them through the DOE that might actually have a good effect on the little darlings and at least get them into a job interview.

Twenty_Rothmans said...

Oh, that's just great.

I wish my teachers had taught me how to pick up girls and manage money.

Especially as many of them were shirt lifters and as poor as a church mouse.

How shall we train teachers in these fine arts? They are unlikely to recruit Ron Jeremy and Warren Buffet.

boys who do not have a positive male role model in their lives
Bastards, in other words.



Anonymous said...

So the girls learn practical skills to help them on the career ladder and boys learn about things to do to fill in their time between signing on days.

JuliaM said...

"You can mock, but a lot of this I could have done with..."

I'm sure there's a few people in every school who could, yes. But is that really the purpose of a school?

Especially when so many of ours can't seem to teach kids reading and writing?

"It's almost as though she is saying that they are never going to learn to read, write and add up, so the school may as well send them out into society with something"

I believe that's exactly what she IS saying..!

"They have to learn from somewhere."

But what do we drop from the curriculum to cram it in?

And...what are parents supposed to do, if school does it all?

And as IanB points out, what are the consequences of allowing the sort of people who become schoolteachers to do this?

"I don't really see how shaving, dressing as if you wanted the job and managing a bank account is 'impractical feminist ideology'."

I'm sure it doesn't seem that way. At first.

JuliaM said...

"And how long will it be before the Daily Hitler is screaming out that "PEDO SIR GROOMS SCHOOLBOYS" because some little darling misunderstood the fatherly advice given him? "

I give it a month...!

"Fingers crossed that it works..."

Sometimes, the things we think are such a good idea turn out not to be. This is, I fear, one of them.

"Bastards, in other words."

Or as good as, given the mother's inability to remember which of the local studs is the sire...