Boys Will Be Boys--But Should They Run Banks?

Robert Peston lends his usual wry wit to the ongoing debate about how best to go forward from the smoldering ruins created by the latest financial bubble.

He observes that all of the geniuses that created the mess are men, and wonders out loud if that is part of the problem.

He may have a point.

Take Kuhlifornia, for instance--please, take it!

But there is a glimmer of hope, in that Meg Whitman, who led eBay to such success during her tenure, is considering a run for the governorship.

Peston observes: ...in my experience - men are more prone than women to simply run like a train at the goal, and never mind who's flattened along the way.

I'm not certain the issue is gender so much as it is about approach to the education of boys.

Yet one more argument against the obsession with football(US) or rugby(UK) at school.

If, instead, these boys were handed an orchestral instrument, a set of golf clubs, and a schedule that began with singing in choir every morning, they might learn:

1. That the process of learning a skill well requires humility, patience, and the willingness to be taught, and

2. That real success often involves cooperative effort in pursuit of a objective and higher common goal--i.e., a moving performance of a Tallis motet.

What if our future titans of business were trained in this fashion?

(I've seen it happen, and the results are impressive. But those boys tend not to end up in banking, because they weren't on the football team. It's a chicken and egg sort of quandry.)

Add in daily swimming or cross-country running for physical exercise; and make the boys carry their own clubs on the course(and caddy for the grown-ups), and they'll get plenty of exercise.

And they won't need knee surgery in their early 40's...

So, young mothers, when that invitation to 'try out' for PeeWee League football arrives in Junior's school bag: Shred it, and find the nearest children's choir program immediately.

You'll thank me later...