Logically illogical

The logic behind defensiveness doesn’t stack up.

If we’re wrong, do we really want to defend a bad idea or position? If we’re right, will being defensive increase or decrease the strength of our position? Will it hurt or help the odds that others will give up their position in favor of a better way? Will defensiveness foster better listening, on either side? Will our defense or denial of our weaknesses make us stronger.

While there’s no rationale behind the tactic of being defensive, there’s plenty of emotion. Fear is the mortar that holds together the wall of defensiveness. We fear that

• We weren’t smart enough to see it first.
• We risk losing what we have or who we are if we change.
• If we admit we’re wrong, we’ll lose face.
• The world is changing and we don’t want it to – so we defend the “old world”, under the illusion that if we hold to our position long enough, the world will adjust to us.
• The past has been different from what we thought it was, and the future might be different from what we want it to be.
• We are the feedback we’re getting.

Excerpt from "Egonomics" by David Marcum and Steven Smith

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Sex education: solution or problem?

Malaysia is considering sex education in the National Service - I heard this on the radio a couple weeks ago.

clipped from www.cbsnews.com

AP) Malaysia's government is worried that high school graduates may not know enough about sex.

Authorities in the conservative, Muslim-majority nation are considering teaching sex education to teenagers when they undergo national service after leaving school, Abdul Hadi Awang Kechil, director general of the National Service Department, said Wednesday.

High school graduates may not know enough about sex? Never underestimate teenagers!

The question is "what is sex education?" What is the curriculum? Will knowing more about sex drive up or down the sex activities among teenagers?

I found another article from John J. Macionis interesting.

Most schools today have sex education programs that teach the basics of sexuality. Instructors explain to young people how their bodies grow and change, how reproduction occurs, and how to avoid pregnancy by using birth control or abstaining from sex.

Half of U.S. teenage boys report having sex by the time they reach sixteen, and half of girls report doing so by seventeen. These numbers are much the same in most high-income nations; what accounts for the higher U.S. teen pregnancy rate is less use of contraceptives. "Sex ed" program, then seem to make sense. But critics point out that as the number of sex education programs has expanded, the level of teenage sexual activity has actually gone up. This trend seems to suggest that sex education may not be discouraging sex among youngsters and, maybe, that learning more about sex encourages young people to become sexually active sooner. Critics also say that it is parents who should be instructing their children about sex, since, unlike teachers, parents can also teach their beliefs about what is right and wrong.

But supporters of sex education counter that research does not support the conclusion that sex education makes young people more sexually active. More generally, they argue that it is the larger culture - one that celebrates sexuality - that encourages children to become sexually active. If this is the case, the sensible strategy is to ensure that they understand what they are doing and take reasonable precautions to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

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The twenty-first-century campus: where are the men?

I want to hire five management trainees. Through our HR partner, we received 180 resumes, out of which 35 were shortlisted as potential interviewees.

When I went through these resumes, one "unbalance" was apparent: the proportion of female candidates is higher than male candidates.

I may be old-fashioned, though, for having this kind of thought - especially when we focused on getting engineering-background management trainees. My biased reference is the three females we had out of 130+ students in my Mechanical Engineering class (but that was in the twentieth century, quite some time ago!) :)

This is, however, pretty much similar to an article I read in a Sociology textbook by John J. Macionis about the decreasing number of male students in the U.S. universities (or the rise of the number of female students?) In 2000, men accounted for 44% of college students in the U.S.

Some of his interesting discussions:

Out of class, many women soon complained that having so few men on campus hurt their social life; not surprisingly, most of the men felt otherwise about their own social life. (yeah, right... you go boys!)

Some suggest that young men are drawn away from college by the lure of jobs, especially in high technology, a pattern sometimes termed "Bill Gates syndrome".

Anti-intellectual male culture. While young women are drawn to learning and seek to do well in school, young men are more likely to see studying negatively and to dismiss schoolwork as "something for girls".

Or yet a more simple, possible explanation: the male students aren't smart, or impressive, enough to make the shortlist.

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