School Spirit

Ever noticed how, whenever there’s a few old fancy clothes and things lying around, it’s usually the boys who can’t help themselves and end up prancing around with some frilly lace thing on their head or twist their ankle falling from Mum’s high heel shoes? When they grow up, it usually ends up being an apron while they’re drinking around the barbecue, and a lamp shade when they’re finished. I suppose not a lot tends to change for boys from childhood to backyard boganhood, eh?

I found myself thinking about this thanks to a picture on another blog recently. This one features this little feller dressed in a stunning little pink ballerina number. Okay, the little tyke’s all of a few years old and has to stretch up to scratch his head, but he’s a little bloke wearing a pink tutu! Yes, his sister dressed him in it and he’s too young to know any different, and besides, it’s all fun and games when you’re that little, but still!

To be honest though, I found the picture rather cute and amusing, and I reckon it’s great! If any male in the country claims to have never worn female clothing in their life then they’re just out and out lying! When you’re a kid you do stuff like that. You totter around the house in Mum’s high heels that she hasn’t worn since Cocky was an egg. Your big sister attacks you with a box of hair clips. You come home from Nan’s place one afternoon to proudly show Dad your newly painted fingernails in the latest pensioner colours. You’re a kid. It’s fun

In fact, it’s typical developmental behaviour. A kid with a healthy upbringing and imagination does stuff like this. According to this American doctor with more credentials than me and letters after his name that probably actually mean something, this is all standard stuff and nothing to be worried about. Dad’s can be embarrassed though, that’s fine. Just take young Jack out into the shed later on and give him another manly lesson in the noble art of burping. That’ll sort out any gender imbalance you may be concerned with.

I remember much the same happening a few years back… but this was with nine year olds…

I don’t know where the dress ups came from, but they appeared one Friday afternoon from the back of some cupboard in the classroom during Free Time. The girls weren’t interested at all. As for the boys though… you’d think it was Christmas. They were prancing around in all sorts of dresses thrown over the top of their uniforms and mincing back and forth on display to anybody who’d look and giggle in little soft shoes and parasol hats. The cheeky little showboats even willingly posed for photographs when I slipped out the camera, complete with super model postures, although somewhat mismatched by their frumpy choice of clothing.

But then one of their mums turned up to take the kid home early.

Fair dinkum, it was the quickest change of outfit I think I’ll ever see a boy make! He was out of those clothes so fast he almost took his own off as well and was back in front of mum in a flash with a slightly flustered look on his face, his bag on his back, and hurrying mum out the door before she had time to inquire as to why everyone was laughing.

Just a pity he’d forgotten the clip on earrings…

I read an article today in the current edition of the Herald Sun talking about the number of women now in principal positions in Victorian government schools. Seems that, for the first time, more than half of the principals in Victorian government schools are now female. Well, to be totally precise, 50.9% of them are female. So, yes, there are more female principals than male principals, but it’s pretty close, eh?

I suppose the article jumped out at me today for two reasons. Firstly, we’ve had a change of principal ourselves for this year, and yes, she’s a woman and she’s replaced the man who held the job for 13 years before her after his retirement. That’s all well and good, but to be honest, I’d never really thought about the gender change in the role until this article popped up in the paper. Which probably leads on to the second reason this article popped out at me anyway.

It never even occurred to me that people would keep track of the balance of men and women in principal roles! Yet another apparently important statistic about the profession I was blissfully unaware of! Why hadn’t I thought about it before, I was thinking to myself. Because, I replied with a shrug (I shrug a lot at stuff like this), there’s a bucketful of other things I need to concentrate on first, eh?

It’s good news that there’s real balance in the roles now, don’t get me wrong. From my own point of view, if there’s a woman or a man in the principal and leadership roles at this stage, it makes no matter provided it isn’t me! I was asked the other week by our principal if I was interested in leadership opportunities and various related options in the near future and I pretty well laughed and implies ‘you’ve gotta be kidding me!’ Knowing how I organise my room, my kids and myself, I know I’m better suited in the classroom with 25 kids rather than organising 350!

I can’t see the top of my desk already after four weeks! I’d lose my office if I was a principal!

The other little statistic that slightly surprised me was the balance of female and male teachers in the state. I know it’s imbalanced, but I was surprised the percentage was still as high as it apparently is. One in five teachers are male. I thought it would have been lower. Again, this is from my own experiences, which involve two schools in one country town, not 1500 government schools across the entire state! We’ve got four males on staff (all classroom teachers) out of a collection of 16 grades and three specialists.

Hey… that’s four out of 19… which is pretty well one out of five. Hmm… guess I shouldn’t have been surprised after all!