9-Year-Olds List What They Don’t Like About Being Boys

I had replied but it never went through. I live on long island, ny.

my Pre K, kindergarten, first grade, second grade and third grade teachers all currently make over $100,000 a year. My daughter's prek and kindergarten teachers do as well; it is public information. I should state that this is with 20yrs experience, but dont tell me there is no money for art or music if we can pay those salaries. Also, i had answered but it never went through, that i live on long island, ny and you pretty much have to make that to live here comfortably.

As a teacher, I would really like to know what district you live in! Teachers, all of them, making 100k a year?! Either you are seriously exaggerating or I need to move ASAP!!!

Agreed! My boys love smelling bad, they try and out smell each other and use sharpies to draw hair on their chest. They are all boy but have been taught to be kind and thoughtful towards others...

My son is in first grade. They barely teach handwriting for a week or two in kindergarten. If they don't get it, then they're behind. they don't make them copy letters over and over.

Where do your children go to school? Our children start learning proper Grammar in 1st grade. However, in their push to privatize schools, politicians want to make sure our children never enjoy 1 second of school and are doing away with many subjects like geography, social studies, science and many others so it's only a matter of time...

The hateful c**ts who forced these boys to this should be summarily dismissed and remain ineligible for any job besides toilet cleaner.

The list resembles the confessions ppl from "moneyed" families were expected to deliver to "popular committees" during the revolutions across Asia: grocers were murdered, their kids were expected to confess how evil their father, and they themselves, were, because of the supposed privileges their families had.

This is pure hatred directed against men using the methods of communism. Shame on you, Macy, for not making a scandal out of this.

Feminists, just reverse the gender of this post and be offended - time to get your equality claims to practice

Keep shaming boys because of your man hating and this is what you get

And what exactly about this says the teacher is encouraging androgyny? I believe the objective of the activity was to show how prescribe gender roles is a detriment to *both* genders, who feel put into boxes arbitrarily simply because of their genitalia instead of being allowed to develop interests and traits that they feel more comfortable with. That doesn't mean making everyone androgynous, but rather making everyone feel free and safe to pursue whatever interests and behaviors make the most sense to them, regardless of the gender that it's supposedly associated with. Whether that's a young girl who wants to be Iron Man for Halloween, a female bio major pursuing a STEM career, or a young man who wants to go into nursing (or heaven forbid, elementary school teaching) but is terrified of being ridiculed for entering a typically "feminine" career, or worse, accused of dysfunction or perversion for it.

Since gender is so arbitrary, why force it on kids before they even know who they are or who they want to be? Why force it on anyone at all?

Side note: I wouldn't necessarily use likelihood of "getting laid" as a reason to do or not do something, but even if I would, there are several folks who find androgyny attractive. But one's level of attractiveness is moot and irrelevant here anyway.

You are right about gender by definition being societal, which is why there really is no such thing as gender as we think of it. The word wasn't even used like that until 2nd wave feminism.

At any rate, regardless of whether or not sex roles are innate, androgyny (for either sex) is a wonderful way to never get laid in America, and this teacher is setting them up to be failures.

I would not be outraged at all. In short, I think an unbiased discussion of the joys and bummers of being a girl, boy, what have you could be educational; and it has been done before.

Also, until 100 years ago, "pink" was the color for baby boys, representing the color of blood, and "blue" was the color for girls to resemble softer things, like bluebells and the sky.

Alright, gladly. I was actually specifically referring to ancient Greece, where crying was a sign of manliness. Famous heroes that we put on pedestal today like Hercules, Odysseus, and Achilles were all said to have cried to show how much they cared, and many also had close male companions whom they expressed deep love and affection for (also manly, in Greek culture). You would say they accomplished a lot, wouldn't you? As for raising children, it is a common practice in Ethiopia today as I can tell you from first-hand experience, as well as many other African cultures for the men to raise the children, including Ghana, and, bonus fact, Ghana's primary ethnic group is matriarchal. Not to mention Iceland, who has the most progressive laws in terms of sex and gender and tops the world on almost possible chart.

But that's beside the point. The point is, gender isn't natural, it's societal *by definition.* Look up the word.

People throw around this "some cultures" term a lot, but they never actually name those cultures, or if they do, then it is some obscure aborigian tribe in the middle of nowhere that's never accomplished anything.

NCLB and Race to the Top are both insults to the field of education and a thorn in every educator's side, but I don't believe that's what's at play. These kids aren't writing for publication, they're taking notes on what looks to be either chart paper or a transparency (or a SMART Board). Kids writing with markers instead of pens or pencils means messier handwriting. It shouldn't be a judge of their capabilities. Also, if this was recent, keep in mind that these are newly made fourth graders (9, not 10), in a public school, from a variety of backgrounds, whose first language may or may not be English.

Common Core wants us to introduce multiplication in grade 2, and drill for mastery by the end of grade 3. In grade 2, the math goals include mastery of multi-digit subtraction and addition, place value, understand the values of coins and compute basic money exchanges, know basic fractions and equivalent fractions, and telling time on analogue clocks to the nearest five minutes. It's a little different than what I learned in grade 2, but not all that much.

I don't believe it's the standards that have changed all that much, but the society as a whole, the way education and educators are perceived, and especially the goals of education. But that's another conversation entirely.

Perhaps.. and perhaps i am just biased because when i was in grade 4 i was printing neatly, writing neatly.. all without aids or lines, and i was drawing and coloring within the lines.

Either standards fell or i was above average for my time. I'll go with the former because i'm too humble to believe i was extraordinary for a 4th grader.

If you know 5th graders that spell and write like that.. then i'd say no child left behind was a complete failure eh.

I'm not trying to sound like an ass, but it's probably generational. I know my parents thought my education was easy compared to theirs during communist WW2 era education systems back in eastern Europe where they were already dealing with multiplication in Grade 1. I didn't run into multiplication until Grade 3.

As an elementary school teacher with experience in grades 2-5, I can tell you I hear kids complain about these things - without coaching - all the time. I had a boy quietly admit to me that he LIKES Frozen, but is afraid to talk about it because of how others might perceive him. I watched a second-grade girl wistfully watch the boys playing soccer and basketball, too afraid to ask them to join for fear they'd reject her because she was a girl. There ARE gender issues among these kids, and not talking about it doesn't help. These boys don't hate their gender -- They hate society's expectations of them, and want to be themselves. Girls hate that, too. It's a commonality they share. I would LOVE to see what girls said about what they hated about being girls, and having a discussion with both groups about how they might make the world easier for each other.

That sporty girl? Thanks to some open-minded classmates, she plays soccer with them every day and is not once excluded because of her gender. Unfortunately, the secret Frozen fan still keeps that one secret from his friends. We need to stop demonizing the "feminine" in men AND women. The problems these boys face are caused by the same thing the causes the problem our girls face -- Society's unfair cookie-cutter expectations of what it means to be a "boy" or a "girl".

Have you ever seen a fourth grader write on a smart board or transparency paper without lines to guide them? Because I have. It looks a lot like that. Also, spelling patterns vary widely from student to student, grade to grade. Handwriting varies as well, especially in public school. I know fifth graders who could have written this, and with those common spelling mistakes ("supposed" is a VERY common spelling mistake, by the way).

BTW These kids show a fourth grade understanding of writing by the common core standards - consonant sounds? Check. Legibility? Well, you could read it, couldn't you? Different forms of writing? It's a list, not a story, and they seem to get that, so check there, too. So really, I don't know why you think this was fabricated, or why it's so far-fetched to believe a group of fourth grade kids actually wrote this. I hear fourth graders complain about this verbally all the time.

100k a year? Jeez, where do your kids go to school? I'd love to get 100k a year.

Also, exclusion has been a problem in school since the dawn of time. Just because you didn't exclude or bully as a kid/weren't bullied or excluded doesn't mean it didn't exist. I deal with this daily in my classroom... as well as gender issues, which, yes, children have. The boy who dresses up in his girl's clothes, the girl who loves to play soccer and basketball with the boys, and the boy who loves baking and is sensitive about his emotions.

If you're kids are being exclusionary, and you insist they aren't learning it from you, then they're learning it from their peers. I go by the Vivienne Paley model - You Can't Say You Can't Play. Students in my class find it fair and inclusive, so much that they extend it to kids who are excluded from other classes, always inviting them to play. But I still have problems with bullying. Teachers can't fix all social problems... especially if there are parents who choose to blame them for not noticing every tiny social interaction instead of viewing them as partners and working together for the benefit of all children.

Gender is not natural, it's societal. You're born with a sex, but gender norms are determined by society, not nature. In some cultures, it's considered masculine to cry, show emotion, and raise children. In others, it's less so. But that's not "Nature," that's Culture.

Gender is not natural, it's societal. You're born with a sex, but gender norms are determined by society, not nature. In some genders, it's considered masculine to cry, show emotion, and raise children. In others, it's less so. But that's not "Nature," that's Culture.

Yolette, a compilation of what I hate about being a boy is just as insulting to men as if a teacher asked a group of white people or black people why they hate being white or black. There may be individuals hints I hate about beings a guy (ear hair), but getting boys to have a group hate is irresponsible.
If girls were asked to do this, you would be outraged.

What? Now we aren't supposed to like the things that make us males? Did they ask girls what they didn't like about hair and makeup and bras and tampons?
This teacher ought to be fired. Nobody EXPECTS boys to be football players except stupid parents. Making them lost what they don't like about being boys as a group is encouraging ALL of them to hate the things that make boys what they are.
Anthropologicaly, boys need to be tough and competitive, while girls need to be nurturing. And while we aren't being forced to hunt for food anymore and gender roles CAN be reversed in the home, this continued shaming of male/female stereotypes is going too far.
Soon, we'll be suing our fathers for donating the wrong chromosome. GEESH.

I didn't know gender was a problem. That is, like, the way nature intended.