Hello BIG TL. When I was in the 9th/10th grade I used to sneak into the girls residence (I attended a private school – boys and girls) and the school principal was female. A nasty one. So nasty that when she died, none of her subordinates (teachers under her regime) cared to go pay their respects. She made me feel like there was something wrong with me because I liked to fraternize with the pretty girls… and she strongly recommended a “social worker” shrink to “help me” and she called me a “problem child”.
A “problem child”.
I flatly refused and said “I may be a child with problems (who isn’t?), but don’t you ever call me a problem child”. I wasn’t a “problem child” or a child with problems. I was a very good student just not very controllable outside the classroom and I didn’t like quacks running around in my head. One of the worst things I ever did was sneak out to play video games at night at an arcade. That was THE WORST thing I ever did. Other kids smoked pot and even snuck out to a Phil Collins concert. I wanted to be treated by my class performance ONLY and not graded because of my “personality” or what someone thought of me as a person.
To this day I don’t know how I had the cojones to say that to her and I was pretty sure I was going to be expelled after that… but I wasn’t. I ended up graduating a scholarship student. It was a feminist infested s~~~hole mostly run by bitter and miserable middle aged unmarried women. As I reflect on it, I think the female teachers out numbered the males by maybe 8 to 2.
The male teachers were fair and in my corner. The females were not. They were real bitches and were totally unfair.
The male teachers would give me proper s~~~ if I was bad, and tell me I was good if I was good. The female teachers would be random. If I was slacking and she was in a good mood, I still heard “good”. If I was working my ass off and she was on the rag, I would get some f~~~ing lecture for some s~~~, and told I wasn’t good enough. It was totally unpredictable and dependent on how she felt that day. It never depended on if I worked, tried harder or paid attention. REALLY random and inconsistent.
The female “way” is to tell you you’re s~~~ and deflate you so much, they think this will bring out the BEST in you. The MALE way is to not praise you unless you did a REALLY good job. Backwards approaches. Polar opposites from what I observed. I noticed this even more when I later became a coach of students for almost 5 years.
If you’re working with young men and boys, be consistent and fair.
It’s the only way they will have any respect for you.
I think the WORST thing you can do for boys ages 12-16 is give them a female teacher. I think that’s the most delicate age group and the toughest to control or keep command of a classroom. But if you knew what you are doing, you can make a lasting positive difference in their lives.
If you keep doing what you've always done... you're gonna keep getting what you always got.
