"mentoring young men towards responsible forms of cool"Mowibble,...

"mentoring young men towards responsible forms of cool"

Mowibble, I know we but heads a lot, but in this case i agree with you. Unfortunately, society doesn't position itself to allow this. Most of us grew up in a two parent family so we were fortunate enough to have a permanent male role model in the family.

However, many kids today lack a permanent male role model in the home and their experience is confined to once a week visits if they are lucky.

To make matters worse, primary schools are now full of female teachers so most kids don't encounter a male teacher until they reach high school. In my primary school years i had an even split of teachers and I can remember getting a boot up the a.se on a few occasions if I misbehaved. The male teachers would organise sport before school, during lunch and after school and we all spent a lot of time with the male teachers. Usually, if a female teacher had problems with a boy, she would call one of the male teachers (who he was familiar with) to have a chat with him. It's a shame that society has driven away male teachers or that male teachers are faced with the constant fear of being labeled or feel as though they are not protected enough.

The problem is, where can kids access positive male role models. Well, the easiest answer is through sport where they have access to coaches. It would never happen, but i would like to have compulsory after school sports competitions for all students, which is not that different to most private schools. I think that could be a start with teachers being aware that their role encompasses the "positive male role model" experience.

From grade 7, my old man would always drive people around. Part of my teens was spent in a lower socio economic area where crime was rife. My old man would drive around for 30min picking up kids whose parents either couldn't take them to training or didn't give a stuff. It would take us 80min to get to training 3 times a week + 1 day sunday to drive to a place that should have taken 30min. My old man had a HUGE influence on a number of those kids. One of them turned to trouble at 16, so my old man got him to work with him, drove him to training and this bloke went on to play for Australia in his chosen sport.

Sport is a start!!!