Parents defend son's speech on boredom
School prohibits boy from reading essayNational Post, by Melissa Leong, Monday, February 26, 2007
The parents of an 11-year-old Mississauga student are charging that school officials violated their son's right to freedom of speech after the boy was prohibited from reading aloud a dissertation about classroom boredom.
Frank and Donna Trimboli say they were upset when their youngest son, Gianmarco, returned home from St. Sebastian Catholic School about two weeks ago with news that his speech was "unacceptable and derogatory." The teacher and principal asked him to produce another for his Grade 6 class, Mr. Trimboli said.
"I was really upset. You're taking my son's voice out of his mouth," he said last night.
The beginning of Gianmarco's speech makes reference to how bored he and potentially other classmates are in French class.
A spokesman for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board could not be reached last night but spokesman Bruce Campbell told The Mississauga News: "By speaking about class being boring, he undermines the authority of teachers.
"One of the prominent things we teach is respect for authority figures," he added.
Gianmarco had won last year's class speech contest with a piece about laughter. Ms. Trimboli, an artist and mother of three, said this time, Gianmarco worked on his speech for a few weeks; it was a topic she suggested.
"The essence was phenomenal," she said. "I thought, 'This is a really good message.' "
Mr. Trimboli added: "He was speaking out: 'I want to be stimulated. I want to learn. I'm not bad.' "
Gianmarco's speech also touched on facts about boredom gleaned from the Internet ("one-third of students are bored at school") and reflections on what constitutes a boring teacher and what makes for an engaging one.
"Boredom is misunderstood and labels children as lazy or misbehaving," he wrote. "We students need information and learning in our everyday life that sets our soul on fire."
After speaking with the school principal, Gianmarco was allowed to hand in his speech but he could not present it before his classmates. Ms. Trimboli said he received a mark of zero.She said Gianmarco, who enjoys math and science, is a smiley and out-spoken boy -- the latter quality used to get him in trouble in Grade 4.
The family said that although they will not pursue the matter further, they are disappointed the school board views the speech as "half-empty" rather than "half-full," and they hope more parents appreciate what children have to say.
Gianmarco likes his speech. He said he thinks his first paragraph makes the listeners want to hear more./p>
His motive: "So the teachers will make the class funner."
© National Post 2007
Study denouncing fathers sends danger signals
By Kathleen Parker, The Orlando Sentinel, USA, on July 18, 1999
Now is the time for all good fathers to come to the aid of the family.
But you'd better hurry; your days are numbered. In fact, if you happen to be a heterosexual male (further doomed by Caucasian pigmentation), your days are already over, according to a cover article in the June issue of American Psychologist, published by the American Psychological Association.
In their article, "Deconstructing the Essential Father," researchers Louise B. Silverstein and Carl F. Auerbach challenge one of the core institutions of our culture -- fatherhood. Read More .. less, fathers, as we've known and loved them, are obsolete.
The article makes numerous breathtaking assertions, but basically the researchers state that fathers aren't essential to the well-being of children Read More ...
REPORT: Children Need Dads Too: Children with fathers in prison
Quakers United Nations Office
July 2009
Children are heavily impacted by parental imprisonment and greater attention should be given to their rights, needs and welfare in criminal justice policy and practice. Due to a variety of reasons such as mothers often being the primary or sole carer of children, complicated care arrangements, the likelihood of women prisoners being greater distances from home and a host of factors explored in detail in other QUNO publications, maternal imprisonment can be more damaging for children than paternal imprisonment. However, it is important not to underestimate the damage that paternal imprisonment can have on children.
Children with incarcerated fathers experience many of the same problems as those with incarcerated mothers, including coping with loss, environmental disruption, poverty, stigmatisation, health problems and all of the difficulties involved in visiting a parent in prison. It appears that there are also some difficulties specifically associated with paternal imprisonment, such as a higher risk of juvenile delinquency and strained relationships between the mother and child.
The numbers of children separated from their fathers due to imprisonment is far higher than those separated from their mothers due to the vast majority of prisoners being men (globally over 90 per cent of prisoners are male. To ignore this group would, therefore, be to neglect the vast majority of children affected by parental imprisonment. Read More ..
Hammering it home: Daughters need dads
USA TODAY, June 10, 2003
It's widely recognized that boys benefit from having dads around as role models and teachers about manhood.
But does having a father at home make much difference for girls?
But even in affluent families, girls become sexually active and pregnant earlier if they don't live with fathers, according to the largest and longest-term study on the problem. It was released in May.
Compared with daughters from two-parent homes, a girl is about five times more likely to have had sex by age 16 if her dad left before she was 6 and twice as likely if she stops living with her dad at 6 or older.
The study of 762 girls for 13 years took into account many factors that could lead to early sex, says Duke University psychologist Kenneth Dodge, the study's co-author. Still, there was an independent link between teenage sex and girls not living with their biological fathers.
Divorced Dads:
Shattering the Myths
Dr. Sandford L. Braver and Diane O'Connell
This is the result of the largest federally funded 8 year study of the issues confronting parents and their children in the United States.
Shattering the Myths. The surprising truth about fathers, children and divorce.
Children seeing more of their fathers after divorce
The Sydney Morning Herald
February 3, 2005
Divorced fathers are Read More ..volved in their children's lives than conventional wisdom would have it, a new study shows.
It shows surprisingly varied and flexible care patterns among separated families, with "every other Saturday" contact giving way to Read More ..ild-focused arrangements.
Australian Institute of Family Studies research fellow Bruce Smyth has produced the first detailed snapshot of parent-child contact after divorce anywhere in the world. Published today in the institute's journal Family Matters, the analysis has implications for children's emotional and financial wellbeing.
Other research indicates children of separated families do best when they have multifaceted relationships, including sleepovers, sharing meals and doing schoolwork, with both parents.
Fathers 'have key role with children' after families split
The Telegraph, London, U.K.
Researchers say they found a direct relationship between children's behavioural problems and the amount of contact they had with their natural father.
The effect was more pronounced in single-parent families, particularly where the mother was a teenager. In such cases, children were especially vulnerable emotionally if they had no contact with their father.
Where's Daddy?
The Mythologies behind Custody-Access-Support
When 50 percent of marriages end in divorce and 43 percent of children are left with one parent, everyone is affected: uncles, aunts, grandparents, and friends, but mostly, the children. The devastation from our divorce practices is our most public secret scandal. Everyone whispers it, the whispers never acknowledged. It seems that as long as a villain can be created, society is content.
After three decades of research universally pointing to more productive options, why does Custody-Access-Support remain?
