Posts Tagged ‘Equality’

Should Boys be able to Play in All-Girls Teams?

June 20, 2012

Whilst I am sympathetic to the 13 year-old boy that wishes to play netball, I don’t think it’s appropriate for a teenage boy to play in an all-girls team. Not only will boys ruin the enjoyment that girls have for the sport but girls are entitled to raise concerns about the body contact that exists within the game.

MEMBERS of a junior netball club have slammed a VCAT decision to allow a 185-centimetre tall, 13-year-old boy interim permission to play in an all-girls’ competition.

Despite Netball Victoria discouraging teams from speaking out, the coach, parents and players from one of the boy’s rival teams, St Therese’s of Essendon, say it would be a disaster if VCAT made the ruling permanent that boys can play in the 15 and under matches.

They fear it would smash girls’ confidence on court, and spell an end to girls having the choice to play in a team of their own gender. St Therese’s head coach Dianne McCormack wrote to The Age saying it was not a personal comment on the boy, who plays for Banyule in the Parkville Netball association’s 15 and under C Grade.

A St Therese’s C-Grade player, Ally, 12, has written to the sports minister and Netball Victoria saying that when she played against the boy in the 13 and under competition, ”no one wanted to play a strong defence because it meant you had to put your body up against his”.Ally said when she got older she might want to play mixed, ”but now I just want to play against other girls”. ”Most boys I know are already bigger and stronger than me.

”Please stick up for me and all girls who play in girls’ competitions. I don’t think it’s fair for any boy to take away my right and any girl’s right to play in an all-girls’ competition.”

 

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There is no Need to Sort Out the Gender Imbalance in Teaching

December 26, 2011

There is a disproportionate number of female primary teachers to males and there always will be. Instead of manipulating the numbers and offering incentives for males to join up, how about we look for teachers based on quality rather than gender? As much as it would be nice to have more men taking up primary teaching, I am not certain it is a position which men have an interest in. Many of my friends would sooner collect the dole than sign up to be a teacher. Whilst I love my job very much, most men don’t understand how why I selected my profession over the myriad of alternatives I had to choose from.

I love the position male teacher, Rocco Marchionda, takes on this issue:

Rocco Marchionda is a bit of an oddity.

At a glance, his kindergarten classroom at Merrill Elementary School in Oshkosh looks like any other song-filled, activity-oriented room of 5- and 6-year olds.

The unusual part is Marchionda himself: He’s a man. Teaching kindergarten.

“Pretty much everyone I’ve ever worked with is female. I can’t imagine what it would be like to teach with another male,” he said.

But that doesn’t seem to bother local educators as long as the teacher does a good job.”At the end of the day, the point is how the teaching is getting done and how the students are learning,” said Marchionda, who has been in the profession 13 years.

Marchionda said he became a kindergarten teacher because “in no other grade have I seen children grow so much.”

While educators want better diversity in their schools, Inda said she doesn’t believe the imbalance is a problem.”The most critical piece in a classroom teacher is not whether they’re male or female. It’s their ability to be a great teacher,”Jean Inda (director of professional education programs) said. “The worst thing we could do is encourage more males to go into elementary education if they’re not comfortable there.”

I couldn’t agree more.

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Posted in Male Teachers | 2 Comments »