*Ø* Blogmanac | Brendan Nelson's modest proposal
The bouquet
I hope you'll excuse me while I munch on this bowl of sugar topped with honey and treacle, but you'll understand that I always do it, to get the bitter taste out, on the few occasions I give a bouquet to Australia's so-called Liberal Party government. (English-speaking people will have to try to comprehend, with us mere Aussies, that in Australia the arch-conservative party is called the Liberal Party. Don't ask me why. We haven't come as far as calling the Labor Party the Bourgeois Party, but we're obviously as silly as a two-bob watch so it's high time we did, and who could argue against it anyway? But back to my point.)
Excuse me. (Munch, munch.) The point. I dips me lid – otherwise doffs me hat – to that terrible conservative Dr Brendan Nelson, Liberal Minister for Education, who has sensibly announced he is at last going to do something about the appalling shortage of male teachers in the states' education systems. Good on him. He says that 14 per cent of boys in this country will finish their school years without ever having had a significant male role model in their lives, whether father or teacher. We know that boys suffer major educational disadvantage as evidenced by truckloads of reports into literacy, numeracy and virtually every other yardstick. We know that by these yardsticks boys were doing better 35 years ago.
Most of us have no doubt that lack of male mentoring for boys is at a crisis level. For example, the single most predictive factor in male imprisonment is fatherlessness – not ethnicity, socio-economic status, place of residence, not educational attainment, literacy nor any other factor known to the Chardonnay set. We know that male teachers are outnumbered by females in the order of about seven to one; who can doubt what an outcry there would be if the figures were in reverse?
We know that boys leave school earlier, no doubt discouraged, probably to spend the rest of their short lives dodging injury from lumps of steel, industrial equipment, fumes, dirt, dust, alcohol and the rest of the grunge that kills men nearly ten long years before their sisters. We know that our boys have far higher rates of suicide, illiteracy, injury, death, drug addiction, mental and other illnesses, and many other ills – evils that are called, in the PC Handbook, 'disadvantage' when found to afflict any other minority.
Brendan (munch, munch, ptuii, munch, swallow, gulp, munch) Nelson wants something that a man with a cork eye (probably a timber worker – count his fingers, too) can see is needed in this country: incentives for males to enter the teaching profession. Nelson proposes scholarships for men to study education. No big deal. Not a big plunge into the taxpayer's pocket, compared to some of the crap we fork out for.
The brickbat
That, dear reader, is the (munch, ptuii!!) bouquet. Now for the brickbat. I hurl it to, at, above, under, around or through Ms Jenny Macklin, the Labor Party's Shadow Minister for Education – Dr Nelson's political opponent. What does she think of this idea for boys? "Discrimination!" she cries.
Good idea, dear reader. Let's all pause for breath. Isn't what Ms Macklin calls 'discrimination' properly called 'affirmative action'? That's what the Ms Macklins of the country have argued so vociferously for – and won – in a host of segments of our society. One struggles to recall any Ms Macklin on any soapbox in this wide, brown land calling for 'discrimination' for women. Come to think of it, Ms Macklin's Labor Party has what it calls an 'affirmative action' program of its own, to ensure that female members of Ms Macklin's party gain preselection for electoral candidature. (The fact that, without having such a policy, the conservative Libs have more women in Parliament than Labor is an embarrassing detail we won't go into here, due to a shortage of brickbats.)
Will Ms Macklin, who is so intent on opposing Dr Nelson's modest proposal, put a motion at the next Labor Party gabfest at whichever beach resort (blue cocktails, pink umbrellas) that in future they strike out 'affirmative action' from its tons of documents, and insert the synonym 'discrimination'? The Labor Party has roomsful of inkpissers so they could knock the job over in a few days. Hell, here's an inkpisser who'll help 'em. I could use a few days on a banana chair.
Nelson's solution to the sad lack of males teaching our males is, one hopes, just one plank in a much-needed platform of creative ideas. Australian schools will keep getting monkeys of both sexes until the state governments (all but one of them Labor) stop paying peanuts to educational professionals. We will need support for males entering such an inordinately female-dominated workplace. We need policies to turn around the culture of suspicion and enmity that have been engendered, for yawningly obvious power purposes, with regard to males. Men need a chance to start believing that Australia's rampant culture of false accusation will not squander their talents or bank accounts. This will take a lot, most especially from the many women of goodwill in the staffrooms, but I believe they can come to the fore, for the sake of their pupils. It will take women teachers not to feel that their skills are being negated if men are given a break, for most of the women excel at their under-rated profession, and the uplifting of boys is, however unfashionable, not a threat to women or girls. In fact, it will clearly be a boon.
Most of all, however, we need the Labor Party to submit to an autohypocrisyectomy and to develop a touch of bipartisanship on this important issue, rather than playing political rugby with our children's lives. I believe the parents of Australia want what Brendan Nelson is proferring. As he (ptuii!!, munch! more honey!!!) himself found when for four years he was working on gender-related educational outcomes, travelling the country and meeting people, he had many mothers, in tears sometimes, pleading with him to help find a way to get male role models in the lives of their struggling sons. As a rule, I wouldn't believe a politician if they told me they were a liar. But Nelson has the ring of truth on this one, and it's long overdue.
Would someone please pass the lemon?
The bouquet
I hope you'll excuse me while I munch on this bowl of sugar topped with honey and treacle, but you'll understand that I always do it, to get the bitter taste out, on the few occasions I give a bouquet to Australia's so-called Liberal Party government. (English-speaking people will have to try to comprehend, with us mere Aussies, that in Australia the arch-conservative party is called the Liberal Party. Don't ask me why. We haven't come as far as calling the Labor Party the Bourgeois Party, but we're obviously as silly as a two-bob watch so it's high time we did, and who could argue against it anyway? But back to my point.)
Excuse me. (Munch, munch.) The point. I dips me lid – otherwise doffs me hat – to that terrible conservative Dr Brendan Nelson, Liberal Minister for Education, who has sensibly announced he is at last going to do something about the appalling shortage of male teachers in the states' education systems. Good on him. He says that 14 per cent of boys in this country will finish their school years without ever having had a significant male role model in their lives, whether father or teacher. We know that boys suffer major educational disadvantage as evidenced by truckloads of reports into literacy, numeracy and virtually every other yardstick. We know that by these yardsticks boys were doing better 35 years ago.
Most of us have no doubt that lack of male mentoring for boys is at a crisis level. For example, the single most predictive factor in male imprisonment is fatherlessness – not ethnicity, socio-economic status, place of residence, not educational attainment, literacy nor any other factor known to the Chardonnay set. We know that male teachers are outnumbered by females in the order of about seven to one; who can doubt what an outcry there would be if the figures were in reverse?
We know that boys leave school earlier, no doubt discouraged, probably to spend the rest of their short lives dodging injury from lumps of steel, industrial equipment, fumes, dirt, dust, alcohol and the rest of the grunge that kills men nearly ten long years before their sisters. We know that our boys have far higher rates of suicide, illiteracy, injury, death, drug addiction, mental and other illnesses, and many other ills – evils that are called, in the PC Handbook, 'disadvantage' when found to afflict any other minority.
Brendan (munch, munch, ptuii, munch, swallow, gulp, munch) Nelson wants something that a man with a cork eye (probably a timber worker – count his fingers, too) can see is needed in this country: incentives for males to enter the teaching profession. Nelson proposes scholarships for men to study education. No big deal. Not a big plunge into the taxpayer's pocket, compared to some of the crap we fork out for.
The brickbat
That, dear reader, is the (munch, ptuii!!) bouquet. Now for the brickbat. I hurl it to, at, above, under, around or through Ms Jenny Macklin, the Labor Party's Shadow Minister for Education – Dr Nelson's political opponent. What does she think of this idea for boys? "Discrimination!" she cries.
Good idea, dear reader. Let's all pause for breath. Isn't what Ms Macklin calls 'discrimination' properly called 'affirmative action'? That's what the Ms Macklins of the country have argued so vociferously for – and won – in a host of segments of our society. One struggles to recall any Ms Macklin on any soapbox in this wide, brown land calling for 'discrimination' for women. Come to think of it, Ms Macklin's Labor Party has what it calls an 'affirmative action' program of its own, to ensure that female members of Ms Macklin's party gain preselection for electoral candidature. (The fact that, without having such a policy, the conservative Libs have more women in Parliament than Labor is an embarrassing detail we won't go into here, due to a shortage of brickbats.)
Will Ms Macklin, who is so intent on opposing Dr Nelson's modest proposal, put a motion at the next Labor Party gabfest at whichever beach resort (blue cocktails, pink umbrellas) that in future they strike out 'affirmative action' from its tons of documents, and insert the synonym 'discrimination'? The Labor Party has roomsful of inkpissers so they could knock the job over in a few days. Hell, here's an inkpisser who'll help 'em. I could use a few days on a banana chair.
Nelson's solution to the sad lack of males teaching our males is, one hopes, just one plank in a much-needed platform of creative ideas. Australian schools will keep getting monkeys of both sexes until the state governments (all but one of them Labor) stop paying peanuts to educational professionals. We will need support for males entering such an inordinately female-dominated workplace. We need policies to turn around the culture of suspicion and enmity that have been engendered, for yawningly obvious power purposes, with regard to males. Men need a chance to start believing that Australia's rampant culture of false accusation will not squander their talents or bank accounts. This will take a lot, most especially from the many women of goodwill in the staffrooms, but I believe they can come to the fore, for the sake of their pupils. It will take women teachers not to feel that their skills are being negated if men are given a break, for most of the women excel at their under-rated profession, and the uplifting of boys is, however unfashionable, not a threat to women or girls. In fact, it will clearly be a boon.
Most of all, however, we need the Labor Party to submit to an autohypocrisyectomy and to develop a touch of bipartisanship on this important issue, rather than playing political rugby with our children's lives. I believe the parents of Australia want what Brendan Nelson is proferring. As he (ptuii!!, munch! more honey!!!) himself found when for four years he was working on gender-related educational outcomes, travelling the country and meeting people, he had many mothers, in tears sometimes, pleading with him to help find a way to get male role models in the lives of their struggling sons. As a rule, I wouldn't believe a politician if they told me they were a liar. But Nelson has the ring of truth on this one, and it's long overdue.
Would someone please pass the lemon?
Pip Wilson posted item above at 9:12 PM | Permalink
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