[quote=Zeitgeist]It is not popular, but separate classes for girls and boys is one suggestion. I also think the food we eat contributes to children’s dispositions. The crap sugar and hormone over loaded, fat choked fast food diet is not healthy. Boys are totally over diagnosed as ADD and medicated. Women dominate elementary teaching and they prefer tractable kids (girls) or boys who act like girls. Lastly, teachers are not allowed to discipline kids, so medication is recommended where teachers of old would actually lay hands on bratty boys. The whole idea that the sexes are the same is idiotic. They are not. Their brains are different and so are they. It is a DNA thing. That does not make one better than the other, but ask anyone who has one or two of each if they are the same. The same idea that brought equal pay for equal work (a good thing), brought the idea that equal means the sexes are the same and learn the same way (not a good thing). Teaching needs to change or it will go the same way as the print media and children will be taught by distance learning and maybe not by teachers. Many of the schools are failing to deliver despite massive amounts of tax dollars invested in them and the instituions of higher learning are almost unaffordable for many segments of society. Something has to change.[/quote]

Zeitgeist, I agree with the separate class suggestion. Anything that will help get our kids better educated has my vote, and I think this might help. There’s no question that the “food” we give our kids is a problem, and it’s compounded by our kids engaging in stationary activities using computers and other electronic play devices, with no time given over to anything resembling physical exercise. And ADD is, as you say, “totally overdiagnosed”, by unqualified and untrained health practitioners and education administrators. However, except for classroom segregation, these are all things that parents can, and should be changing. Today’s parents treat their pets better than they care for their kids. They’re afraid of their children, so they give them anything they want to eat, exert no discipline, and load them up with electronic devices so that they won’t have to interact with them. They misinterpret normal childhood exuberance and play as hyperactivity, and backed up with endorsements from their friends with similarly-afflicted children, they go to the doctor and demand an ADD diagnosis. Then they use that as an excuse to do nothing when their child misbehaves, and makes life for the rest of the civilized world a living hell.

Some day, when you are feeling particularly masochistic, watch an episode of Supernanny or Nanny 911, and observe how you feel and the level of your blood pressure after the show is over. Multiply the one or two Satan’s spawn you saw on the show by 8 or 9 (maybe more), and imagine being stuck in a closed room for 5 or 6 hours a day with them. Welcome to the lives of most of America’s elementary school teachers. And they’re the ones who have it easy: what do you think these monsters are like by the time they get to junior high or high school?

The schools have their problems, but the vast majority of them are being caused by irresponsible parents who palm their uncontrollable brats off on their local school systems, and refuse to take ownership of them and their problems. And I’m not sure when the last time was that you spent any time in a classroom during school hours, but the girls are far from easy to handle. They are foul-mouthed, insubordinate bullies who learn how to work the system in their tender years.

I’m tired of paying high taxes, and having nothing to show for it. When all those little monsters misbehave (and their parents threaten the school for attempting to discipline them in any way), they’re violating my child’s right to an education. Like I said, the schools have their issues, but nothing’s going to make a difference until their teachers and administrators have some recourse in handling these problem students.