I vividly remember the anti-male attitude of my some of my son’s pre-school teachers, who fully expected the boys to fold their hands and sit quietly just like the girls. If they didn’t, a recommendation for Ritalin was made. In one of his classes, the teacher (female) had every boy on some sort of restriction, and the girls were all blameless (of course).
When I brought this matter to the attention of the administrators, they were concerned, and called this teacher in while I was on the phone with them. She actually became hysterical when her methods were questioned, I could hear her screaming in the background. She was gone soon afterward.
I wish all educators had the decency not to overlook the personal agendas of these single issue activists. But since the “end justifies the means” these days, I don’t have much hope.
In my son’s Kindergarten, the teacher singled out 11 boys and funneled them into a special 1st grade which would be taught by a male teacher and the kids would not be taught to read. When I questioned why my very smart little boy was among them, I found out that every one of those chosen 11 was left handed. One of the criteria that the teacher used was that these kids could not cut a decent circle freehand out of paper with right handed scissors. His other point of failure was that when asked to draw a cross, he drew a Christian cross.
I took him out of public school and put him into Catholic school — from a class of 11 into a class of 40. He was reading by Christmas, won the school science fair by 2nd grade, and holds a PhD in Engineering from a major University and works in nuclear science today.