Goodbye

[Paul Barker]

When i trained we did all four branches for 18 months, then our specialism (mine paediatric) for 18 months.

On the acute psychiatric wards i found quite often a staff nurse in charge, usually the female ones, who had a nack for winding up the clients (and a mission to) until physical force had to be used to restrain them. The nurse was the problem, not the client, but she could manipulate situations like a yachtsman stear's a boat. Listening to such a nurse talk to me about her home life, I was in no doubt who in that place was most mentally I'll.

In psychiatric elderly care I saw systematic verbal and physical abuse. It was'nt that long ago. 1993 to 1996. Possibly it's worse today.

My advice to anyone losing their mind, and I have had that struggle myself, is stay the hell away from that system. Do everything you possibly can yourself to recover your mind. They will make you worse in care.

[Paul Barker]

The worst thing was the drug dependency. In fact some of the clients had this problem too!

One ward the staff nurse even said to me as she popped her pills off the drug trolley "is their anything you want?"

Not just restricted to psychiatric. Theatre nurses were busted in Scarborough, taking opiates themselves and giving patients saline. Pain statistics inspired a police operation, they were caught on camera in the toilets.

I participated in ect. Take a normal person with a natural reaction to lives tragedies. Tie then to a couch, drug them so they can't move attach electrodes, turn a handle on a box looking like it was made in the twenties, and change a normal person into a zombie with no memory.

As long as they no longer risk killing themselves your achievement of government targets is positive. doesn't matter about the wellbeing of the individual.

You think I am melodramatic don't you?

[Cressy Snr]

Re your experiences with some female colleagues, there was a kid in our school who had behavioural problems. I was brought from my class to sort out a situation where he had thrown chairs across the room after getting into a confrontation with the class teacher and had locked himself in the toilets, refusing to come out. This was after he had called me a fscking four eyed fat tw*t ( I felt like telling him not to beat about the bush and tell me what his real feelings were' I wasn't fat either)

I spent twenty minutes outside the door of the cubicle, gaining his trust and getting him to open up about what was bothering him. He had calmed down and was about to come out when the (female) Head suddenly appeared, shouldered the door open, and attempted to drag the by now totally out of control child out. He broke free, looked at me with pure hatred, shouted "I thought you were different from them you fscking bastard " before haring off down a corridor and through an emergency exit into the street. The cops had to then waste an hour of their time getting him back.

IME some women senior staff seemed to have an uncanny knack of winding up boys with emotional/behavioural problems until they did something to warrant permanent exclusion before they reached Y6, maybe that was the plan all along, after all boys like that depress the SAT results and we can't have at can we?

The incident above was the beginning of the end.

This is not a misogynistic post, I have met many wonderful women in my time in schools, too many to list, but unfortunately I managed to cross swords with one or two psychopaths. Interestingly, the ones I came across no longer work in education having been booted out on their collective arses some years ago.
This went some way to restoring my faith in human nature and as I said I thoroughly enjoy my nomadic life as a supply teacher, though financially I am a whole lot poorer than I would have been had I not met these nasty pieces of work.

The sad thing is that I was never directly employed by any of these people. I had been employed by a Head who has then retired and somehow the Governing bodies had been taken in by these expert manipulators.
Consequently the said governing bodies had had cause to regret their appointments.

An old hand senior staff member in one of my supply schools had a saying, "if you are in a senior position and the boss leaves, you leave too"
Wise words.

[Paul Barker]

The problem of female teachers (having drummed men out of children's work, now the majority) is very close to home. My 15 year old boy suffers badly at their hands. His was so bright and capable and responded so well to praise. But all he gets from these females is hatred and control and he rebel's against that. consequently his results will be a shaddow of they would have been with male role models who were positive in attitude towards him.

When I was in children's work mostly my senior female colleages saw it as their mission to get rid of me because I was male. that happened on every ward. Some parents (female) would prefer me to be invisible. Some colleagues were brasen in their prejudice (because they can, nobody monitors sexual discrimination in reverse). I managed to stand through all of that prejudice, but in the finish it was bold faced lies of a senior colleague that did the job of finishing my career.

[Paul Barker]

the feminist arty lady across the road with two small boys said to me in conversation. "It is such a shame they have got rid of the majority of men from junior schools, my boys won't get as good an education!" She is a feminist and she can see it.

But when I repeat this to other women they are like "you fascist male chovenist pig" just as they always have.

The weaker sex (men) had best rise up against this prejudice for the sake of our sons. Though I say this I can see no way we can, and I am not able to lead the fight back.

[Cressy Snr]

I would not want to tar all female teachers with a same brush. 99.9% of them are wonderful hard working professionals. Unfortunately as you say Paul, that 0.1% do far more damage to the self esteem and confidence of boys than their small number would appear to suggest.

The biggest problem for men in education is rarely being outnumbered by females, particularly in primaries, it is much more the fact that, men will not enter into a minefield.
This minefield is where a man dare not comfort a crying child, dare not lay a hand on the shoulder of a little girl, who has lost a favourite comfort doll or upset that no one will play with her, lest he be accused of child molestation or labelled a pervert by some busybody.

I myself rebel against this creepy male perv created by the press, by openly taking the hand of a small child when it is offered, ushering small children in at the beginning of the day in front of parents, with a guiding hand on the shoulder, counting children onto a school trip bus with a touch on the head again in front of parents. I don't give a monkeys TBH.
I have never had a problem and have lost count one number of letters I have had from parents thanking me for being a steadying influence on their sometimes rather shall we say exhuberantly behaved sons.

Oh I tell a lie, I did have a problem once with a female local authority behaviour 'expert' who pulled me up for touching a lad who was not behaving himself. I got down to his level and with a hand on the shoulder, told him firmly that he was risking a missed playtime if he did not refrain from continuously poking the child next to him. I then led him by the hand after telling him what I was about to do, to sit at another table where he was no trouble for he rest of the lesson.

Just a friendly warning she said, after the lesson, will you not touch children please. When I asked what her beef was she told me that this kid might have a sexually abusive dad or mum's boyfriend, who touched him and led him around before carrying out some act against him. I asked her if she had a shred of evidence that this child was being abused. Of course not she replied, it is just a warning that's all, don't take it personally. When I challenged her about this attitude and asked if she would have given a female teacher such a warning, the answer was no, that's different and you of all people should know it. I politely told her I would make a note of her concerns. What I wanted to say is not repeateable for young ears.

The press are largely to blame for this state of affairs. IMO no man in his right mind would enter primary education, and it is this area unfortunately that has seen the biggest drop in the numbers of male teachers. It is 10 to one in favour of women in primary and 50/50 in secondary.
I am in an even smaller section of the primary phase ie Key Stage One. The ratio there is around 250 to one in favour of women. I have lost count of the number of KS1 in service courses I attended where the other participants thought I was the lecturer.

The result of this, is that by the time they get to secondary school most boys have never been taught by a man and a small minority of them are in a state of rebellion, another larger percentage of them have lost interest and want to do nothing but muck about. It is then left to the increasingly beleaguered secondary phase to sort out the lads. Trouble is for some is that they only have to come across some nasty spiteful teacher or teachers on the distaff side and they simply switch off education altogether.

Unfortunately despite the efforts of well meaning agencies to try to encourage more men into primary education, there will be no change unless this fear of the bogey man in the dirty raincoat sneaking into classes of young children by the back door is somehow got rid of.

[Paul Barker]

I know exactly where you are coming from brother I was outnumbered 1000 to 1. Although when I was a nurse it was 100:1 in medical in childrens only 1% of that 1% made the grade.

I was trained to a high level in child protection, the most senior wherever I worked. but when I went on courses usually led by colourfully hippy style dressed feminist social workers, the first thing out of their mouth was "let's get something straight, most men enter children's work to gain access to abuse children, whilst looking at me pearcingly". Can you picture such statements being alowed in a meeting male dominated directed at the minority woman in the room? She would be paid off with a £250,000 compensation package! Me as was the case evry where I went, I was made to know that I was not welcome.

[Cressy Snr]

The strange thing I find, is that as a supply teacher, I never come across this man-hating crap. In fact I got over 100 thank you cards from both staff and kids when my last contract ended this July.

Odd.

[Paul Barker]

you were no longer a threat, women have the misconseption that all men in all places of work have an unfair advantage for promotion. Many explicitly tell you. but in female dominated work place the inverse is true. but women do not recognise it, and will always see the presence of a male as a threat.

Demographic studies reveal in fact the who thing is a falacy. It is not all men who achieve promotions, it is TALL men who achieve high positions above both women and all other men. This is a fact.

Men per se have no advantageous promotion capability. Tall men do. But because those men who are promoted unfairly are men, women blaim ALL men.

It was a statistical fact which I learned as I studied the sociological element of nurse training.

Here are some fact from an American study.

Among the CEOs, 58 percent were 6 feet or over

In the United States, 14.5 percent of men are 6 feet or over

Some 30 percent of the CEOs were 6'2" or taller

Only 3.9 percent of U.S. men are 6'2" or taller

Those with children were, on average, 1.2 inches taller than childless men

Married men were an average of 1 inch taller than bachelors

[Mike H]

Interesting!

[Paul Barker]

I~n our modern PC world what we would therefore expect now is positive discrimination towards average height or smaller white males.

FAT CHANCE!

PC is not about equality it is about politics.

[andrew Ivimey]

I didn't grow by one inch when I got married!!!

[Nick]

[quote="Paul Barker"]you were no longer a threat, women have the misconseption that all men in all places of work have an unfair advantage for promotion. Many explicitly tell you. but in female dominated work place the inverse is true. but women do not recognise it, and will always see the presence of a male as a threat.

Demographic studies reveal in fact the who thing is a falacy. It is not all men who achieve promotions, it is TALL men who achieve high positions above both women and all other men. This is a fact.

Men per se have no advantageous promotion capability. Tall men do. But because those men who are promoted unfairly are men, women blaim ALL men.

It was a statistical fact which I learned as I studied the sociological element of nurse training.

Here are some fact from an American study.

Among the CEOs, 58 percent were 6 feet or over

In the United States, 14.5 percent of men are 6 feet or over

Some 30 percent of the CEOs were 6'2" or taller

Only 3.9 percent of U.S. men are 6'2" or taller

Those with children were, on average, 1.2 inches taller than childless men


So the Americans are selecting by height rather than other characteristics like intelligence. It would be interesting to see how that works out after a few generations.

[Paul Barker]

It's not just American's that was the data which came up quickly from Google.

I learned of it studying Sociology in England relative to England during my nurse training.

[Greg]

I didn't grow by one inch when I got married!!!

Clever

Actually, after I got married, I started to lose height