[Nonpareil]

At first I had high hopes, then I read the article and remembered that it's Toronto, still the vanguard of wacky ultra-liberal blank-slatism.

Also it's clear that every kid, going off their name is a first-generation Immigrant...Diversity yay!

Quote:

Sure boys can be “distracting” and “disgusting,” but what the students at the Girls’ Leadership Academy really like about their program is the sense of sisterhood.

Lots of friends to talk to, play with at recess and work with in class. If another kid is giving them a hard time, an older classmate will stick up for them. Spill their drink at lunch? A friend will rush to get a paper towel to clean it up.

“At first I was scared, but it turned out everyone is really nice,” says 10-year-old Zoya Khan, a Grade 4 student who changed schools last fall to attend the academy.

“Miss Colby is really nice, and I felt really welcomed. When I went to my other school — no offence to boys, but some boys are really disgusting,” she says, noting she’s seen some bite off erasers and spit them at others.

‘We take care of each other. We are like sisters in a family.’

“I felt more comfortable being with all girls . . . we take care of each other. We are like sisters in a family.”

The school , in its first year at the Toronto District School Board, is located on the second floor of Highland Heights Junior Public School near Birchmount Rd. and Finch Ave. in Scarborough.

While boosting girls’ self-confidence and breaking stereotypes, teacher Denise Colby’s main mission is to get her 25 Grade 4, 5 and 6 girls talking about social justice and thinking about themselves as leaders and what role they can play in their community.

And, she jokes, “being a leader does not mean being a diva. Not Beyoncé.”

The girls often work in small groups, sometimes divided by grade but also mixed. They read about activists and leaders — both male and female — discuss books and also have “silent conversations,” where Colby writes a question on a big sheet of paper taped to the chalkboard, and girls walk up and write their answers as music plays in the background.

They spend a lot of time on their laptops — there’s a class set — and their math is done online, no actual textbook. They post their work on virtual portfolios. They use the video game Minecraft for science, planning and building bridges or Mayan temples — something they liked so much, they ended up doing much of it on their own time.

Next fall, the academy expands to Grade 7 and will have more than 35 students and an additional teacher.

At the start of the year, the girls talked about what beauty is, and later they created a public service announcement about being a girl that included the lines: “We will not let boys have all the sports . . . We will not dump our friends just because someone says they are not cool . . . We will not be shy when we have something to say.”

And as the year progressed, the girls have had more to say, and are more confident.

Colby encourages talking most of the time — as long as it’s about school work.

“People always ask me that — is it different having all girls? It’s not; they are kids. There is pushing and shoving. People say, ‘It must be nice and quiet.’ It’s not. But if they’re not talking, that’s not good.

“But when they start talking about Justin Bieber, I shut that down.”

As for the stereotype of girls being more compliant than boys, she responds: “If I have a bunch of compliant kids, it’s not a girls’ leadership academy.”

Colby applied for the academy because it was such a unique opportunity. “I like the social justice focus, I’ve always been interested in social justice.”

She sees herself as non-traditional and independent, a teacher who loves using technology. She arranges visits from female politicians, educators and dancers to inspire the girls.

Three sisters are in the class — 11-year-old twins Onika and Tianna Leveridge, and big sister Kiara, who is 12.

“I thought it would be weird with all girls, and being with my sisters all the time,” says Kiara. “But I ended up liking it; it teachers you leadership . . . the conversation is more on female leaders, female role models.”

When boys are around, they try to get the girls’ attention and distract them, she adds. The academy provides a place where “no one will judge you if you say anything,” adds Kiara.

That’s not to say the class doesn’t deal with girl drama or friendship issues, but one of the most popular things each week is community circle, where they talk about what went right, and wrong, both in school and socially.

“The girls request it,” says Colby. “We have frank discussions about behaviour in class. They don’t mention names but they are pretty honest.”

All of the students have jobs within the school — from running a homework club to helping the full-day kindergarten kids at lunch — and are expected to volunteer outside the school as well.

And as they learn about leading, Colby says she also sees how it affects them personally.

“At the start of the year, one girl refused to say she liked herself. A couple of weeks ago, she was talking about how much she loves herself.”

http://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/educa...ademy.html

We have girls, learning that they can trust each other (), learning using electronics and no actual academic resources and bullshit hippie methods ('community circle'? What in the fuck is that?) and trying, once again using just a female sample group, to create a zone free of judgment (did I mention, ).

I'm not against girls getting a chance to learn new skills, but at the same time I know one thing; No man respects a female leader any more than any woman respects a man who spends his day raising kids and working in the kitchen.

Which is a relevant quote, behold, the double feature...

Quote:

They get gym more often than most co-ed classes, can move around more while they work and the 48 young gentlemen in Toronto’s first all-boy public school program are even learning yoga, like some of their NBA heroes.

Their reading corner reflects a male sensibility: Race Car Drivers — Start Your Engines!, How Strong is It? A Book about Strength, and Wonders of the Spider World.

Here at the Toronto District School Board’s Boys’ Leadership Academy in Rexdale, Grade 4 to 6 boys and their male teachers talk a lot about what it means to be a man, busting the macho stereotype through posters, plays and pasta-cooking lessons.

“We all have this mental ‘man box’ full of ideas of what a man is: don’t show emotion, don’t ever cry, it’s OK to beat somebody up — but we’re learning to move away from that.”

“We all have this mental ‘man box’ full of ideas of what a man is: don’t show emotion, don’t ever cry, it’s OK to beat somebody up — but we’re learning to move away from that,” said Zhakor Young, a Grade 5 student in this program tucked on the top floor of Elms Junior Middle School near Albion Rd. and Finch Ave. W.

“When someone cries it actually shows they have emotions,” added Zhakor, 11, “and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

But what they like most is the freedom from sharp female tongues.

“I wasn’t fond of being in a mixed class,” confessed Grade 6 student Siraj Raja. “You don’t want to say anything wrong because the girls might make fun of you, but then if you get too many answers right they might make fun of you too.”

Ditto, said Grade 5 student Abdi Mohamoud. “If you put up your hand and you’re wrong, the girls laugh and call you dumb.”

Or they’re “distracting” with their chatter, added Mohamed Adam, 11. “If there were girls here, there wouldn’t be as much collaboration on work — there’s too much gossip.”

Research suggests boys need to move around more often than girls, have shorter attention spans and want more say in how the class runs, rather than following someone else’s instructions, said Grade 4/5 teacher Ahmed Omar, who found many of the boys proved to be “kinesthetic” (physical) learners on a survey last fall. He breaks up his lessons into chunks of no more than about 15 minutes.

“If I stood at the front and talked, most of it would go right past them. I have to sit down with them and ask, ‘What do you think of this?’ They have to have the opportunity to engage with each other.”

He also stresses collaboration as part of leadership.

“Everyone can be a leader but they take a different role. I want them to understand leaders aren’t just the people who say, ‘This is how it’s going to happen.’ In real life, a good leader will encourage other people to succeed.”

They spend time talking about what it means to be male, said program chair Donald Putnam.

“Boys are very aware from a young age that they’re different, but they’re bombarded by false stereotypes; the over-sexualization of females and macho-ization of males and if they don’t discuss these with someone, there can be confusion about roles,” Putnam said. “So we ask the students, what do you accomplish by being physical? You can still be a man by walking away. You can still be a man if you like gymnastics — so does (Ultimate Fighting Championship) star George St. Pierre.”

The boys also learned they could still be a man if they like poetry, he added. They studied the lyrics of “Dear Mama” by late rapper Tupac Shakur — the song includes the line “you are appreciated” — “to show them it’s OK to express gratitude.”

Grade 6 teacher Philip Maithi co-hosted a pancake breakfast last fall and some of the boys were surprised.

“They said, ‘Oh, a man can cook?’ We said, ‘Sure, men can cook,’ but we have to model for them.”

Omar’s students wrote essays about violence against women, tackling such questions as: What is your role as a male? Why should we care? What are you doing to contribute? “We’re trying to build leaders in society,” he said.

Maithi’s students drew posters about what it means to be a man, including “Being good to your country makes you a man.” “Having a brain makes you smart and that makes you a man.”

Mainstream media, especially music videos, bombards boys with images that don’t show glorify being smart or good in school, said Maithi. “It’s more a gangster image and we’re trying to fight that.

“There’s been a lot of work around having girls realize beauty is natural . . . We’re trying to create that same message with boys.”

http://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/educa...types.html

...Whereas the 'boys' leadership seminar contains cooking (a useful skill in its own right, but not something I'd teach were I running a leadership seminar for boys), deconstructing ideas from the 'man box' and White Knighting 101.

[wesker]

And the article is in the Toronto Star which is the ultra-liberal paper for Toronto.

[2Wycked]

These types don't create confident men, but anxious, low-energy men who fit what an "equal" society needs of men.

[Andy_B]

As someone in the comments section said, these are mostly immigrant students from countries where segregated education was likely the norm.

[Volk]

That was tried in Colombia between the 70s and 90s. Backfired amazingly. The schools that were all-guys became violence-ridden holes, while the all-girls ones put the red light district to shame, some of them even becoming hot spots for high end prostitution.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

What the fuck? While there is no violence here, the entire aspect eerily reminds me of North Korea's "thought education camps".

[augen sehen]

You just know that no matter what they do, the PC blowhards in any Anglophone country are going to fuck boys up even more than they are already.

Cooking in a boy's class? What in the fuck? Show me one 10 year old boy who is interested in cooking. Sure, its a useful skill to have, its good game, it'll get the bitches to your pad but come on, if that's not a transparent attempt at feminizing boys I don't know what is.

A school for boys should look like a cross between a jungle gym and a science lab.

[Soma]

Reminds me of "Openings," the new-age feel-goodery, on Arrested Development (couldn't find video).