U of Manitoba Education faculty - 45% students slots for five "diversity categories"

[WinnipegFan]

Originally Posted by 2Stonedbirds

Could you expand on this please?

Yes, running around town right now but I will later today.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

The backlash is definitely picking up steam, so there's reason for optimism. That is, until the backlash inevitably swings the pendulum too far the other way... yeah, never mind, we're doomed to repeat this cycle forever.

Frustrating, isn't it? There seems to be something innate in the human mind that makes people respond to one type of excessive dogma that pits one group against another by fostering another excessive dogma that pits one group against another. Some people simply don't want to think, they prefer a model where they can make quick and easy judgements based on who is making an argument, rather than the content of the argument itself.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold...
the best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Some people simply don't want to think, they prefer a model where they can make quick and easy judgements

Not just some people. There have been studies that demonstrated (based on neurotransmitters / brain chemistry stuff I don't understand) that when presented with statements that are easy to immediately agree or disagree with, without having to consider them, people feel pleasure. Meanwhile, statements that create cognitive dissonance, or even require some reflection, cause discomfort.

Human beings are actually wired to be dumb in this way.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Not just some people. There have been studies that demonstrated (based on neurotransmitters / brain chemistry stuff I don't understand) that when presented with statements that are easy to immediately agree or disagree with, without having to consider them, people feel pleasure. Meanwhile, statements that create cognitive dissonance, or even require some reflection, cause discomfort.

Human beings are actually wired to be dumb in this way.

The advent of social media now suddenly requires everyone have steering opinions on everything. So the ability to not have an opinion if not informed is gone

[Derek Sutton]

The feminists and womens groups should have a field day with this; When Worlds Collide.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Derek Sutton

The feminists and womens groups should have a field day with this; When Worlds Collide.

Why is that?

[SebC]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

They do still need to meet mandatory entrance requirements, so assuming those stay the same its not like they are lowering the bar for those students.

It is lowering the bar, because the actual threshold in a competitive environment is higher than the official minimum.

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by peter12

I first thought you said "MBA's" instead of "MRA's." The sentence still made sense.

This made me laugh. I had to look up what 'mra' stood for, but my first assumption was that it was a designation similar in spirit to 'mba'.

I don't really have a problem with any policy that isn't enforced among all of the provinces jurisdiction. If it doesn't make sense to implement this in all schools acrossManitoba, then it is probably fair to say that it is a bad policy.

It's also fair to transpose this over another situation involving different ratios of the same groups and ask if the policy would enforce a transgender Asian being denied access to higher education, 'because we already have too many of you'.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by SebC

It is lowering the bar, because the actual threshold in a competitive environment is higher than the official minimum.

It is lowering the bar but lowering the bar and improving program quality can, ironically, go hand in hand.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

The advent of social media now suddenly requires everyone have steering opinions on everything. So the ability to not have an opinion if not informed is gone

Social media is only a small part of the problem. Recommended:

[driveway]

Originally Posted by WinnipegFan

All I am saying is that if you want to engage young males in education then you need male teachers they can relate to. This is simply attention grabbing advertising parading as activism. The University of Manitoba Education program has always been inferior to University of Winnipeg program. This is an attempt to gain ground using pseudo-activism. The school system is spending significant amounts of resources trying to reconnect their young male population and determine the causes for their disconnect. They need male teachers to role-model that the definition of maleness needs to change. Without teachers, who see them for a large portion of their day, role-modeling this behaviour they turn to other male role models and propagate a stereotype that is degrading to all of us. This type of limitation does nothing to serve this cause, and is ridiculous. There is no more a lack of teachers who identify with these causes than there is a lack of male teachers in the system, especially in the earlier years of education.

There this version edited after I had a coffee.

For a teacher, you sure don't read well.

Exactly none of this 45% of spaces are closed to men.

The groups are: indigenous, racialized, LGBTQ, social/economically/geographically disadvantaged, and physically/mentally disabled. Men are represented in every one of those five groups.

There is nothing about this policy which makes it harder for men to get into the teaching profession. I'd argue that it makes it easier and is doing exactly what you claim is so necessary: provide identity role models to students who need them the most.

[driveway]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

So you would support reserving 50 per cent of the spaces in the Education program to men in order to address the egregious under-representation of men in the teaching profession?



There's every reason to believe this under-reprentation contributes to the endemic struggles boys are having in the education system today. Boys are far more likely than girls to be prescribed behavior-modifying drugs. They do worse than girls at every level. Are far more likely to drop out. They read less. They attend university in much lower numbers (only 40 per cent of post-secondary student today are male).

If you can present some data showing a change in the numbers of male teachers correlating with a change in male performance in schools this point might have some merit.

Absent that data it's not a good argument.

[Daradon]

Are men severely under represented in the school system?

It's been a while since I was in high school, but I'd day the split was even. Often clumped by subject. Science and math teachers were predominantly male, humanities teachers were predominantly female (though economics and current events were male).

Now that I think about it, there may have actually been more male teachers at my school! Even our drama teacher was male.



Another thing that I noticed growing up was that there were more female teachers in the younger grades, but as you aged, the male teachers evened out.

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

It is lowering the bar but lowering the bar and improving program quality can, ironically, go hand in hand.

This is very true. In fact, if you lower the bar, you almost always have to improve program quality as you can't count on students being smart enough to fill in the gaps.

However, if you lower the bar, you make your university less attractive to the best students. This is fine if you wish to instead focus on doing the best job for those who need more help, but if your goal is to try drag lower performing ethnic groups up, it almost never works.

Some of the major high end colleges and universities in the US have to deal with this. Their students that join to meet their quotas often struggle from year to year, never really getting the concepts all that well. When they graduate, they continue to struggle since they never got the level of understanding they need.. On the other hand, comparable students that go to universities and colleges tailored to their intellect level, thrive after graduation.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by driveway

For a teacher, you sure don't read well.

Exactly none of this 45% of spaces are closed to men.

The groups are: indigenous, racialized, LGBTQ, social/economically/geographically disadvantaged, and physically/mentally disabled. Men are represented in every one of those five groups.

There is nothing about this policy which makes it harder for men to get into the teaching profession. I'd argue that it makes it easier and is doing exactly what you claim is so necessary: provide identity role models to students who need them the most.

My goodness, enough of this garbage.

[Daradon]

What do you have against that statement?

[McG]

as a parent, I want my children educated by the best teachers possible.

whatever happened to letting the best students into university regardless of subgroup?

surely the best teachers are the best regardless of anything.

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Are men severely under represented in the school system?

The school I am at has 20 female classroom teachers and 1 male.

[icecube]

Originally Posted by McG

as a parent, I want my children educated by the best teachers possible.

whatever happened to letting the best students into university regardless of subgroup?

surely the best teachers are the best regardless of anything.

There are many many more factors on who makes a good teacher than how high their grades are. That's one of the least important factors as far as I'm concerned.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by McG

as a parent, I want my children educated by the best teachers possible.

whatever happened to letting the best students into university regardless of subgroup?

surely the best teachers are the best regardless of anything.

I'm not sure how you can tell who the best teacher is going to be before they even take their first university class. I'd rather have an interested and involved teacher than one who aced a bunch of tests in high school.