Boys Don't Try? Rethinking Masculinity in Schools

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Each chapter hammers home another area of our failure. We’re forced to dwell on the failure, re-live the stories and problems, and then we are treated to a well-explained and carefully written summary of research in the area, before getting solutions. These are not ground-breaking – they are simple and straightforward – but each is something we are (mostly) not doing well at the moment. Chapter 7: In the Classroom– Practical tips for the classroom. The seating plan section made me laugh… creating a seating plan really should feature on teacher education courses!

We’ve seen a shift in the gender gap over the last few decades from where it was the male students who went to university, to the females more likely to do so. That gap is now in favour of girls, in a number of domains. It’s not huge,” she says. There’s a danger of treating boys differently and patronising them, says Roberts. “So, for example, you’ve got a boy you think doesn’t like reading, so you decide to pander to his love of football and give him a book about that to read. But in narrowing your expectations, you’re narrowing his. It’s the same with, for example, teaching boys about Shakespeare by concentrating on the sword fights or the fighting: it’s like we’re hoodwinking them into learning, and it doesn’t work. What we need is a big shift in ethos: too many teachers believe boys can do less, they don’t think boys can succeed as well as girls at school. I don’t think it’s about watering it down: it’s about having high expectations for boys as well as for girls.”

We need to change the negative labelling of ‘masculinity’. The phrase ‘toxic masculinity’ is counterproductive and highly charged. Instead, the authors advocate language such as ‘tender’ and ‘non-tender’ masculinity. Tenderness carries with it connotations of sincerity, vulnerability, openness and strength. Too often, anti-social behaviour is described away as being ‘toxically masculine’, whereas it is simply anti-social.

Never try to ‘out-man’ the boys. Using your increased physical size or shouting to beat down bad behaviour is never going to work. Instead, when reprimanding a boy, avoid invading their personal space and remain calm and polite as you demand their compliance. This section for example, where Connell reflects on the behaviour of his male friend at school immediately reinforced the research on male relationships referenced in ‘Boys Don’t Try’:This modelling of reflection makes it impossible to read Boys Don’t Try without considering your own mistakes in and out of the classroom, but without apportioning blame either. So, in the spirit of the book, here are a few examples of times I too think I have fallen into these gender traps and how I am now ‘rethinking’ them. Similarly, the author makes a cogent argument for not making all boys’ learning “relevant”. First, he refers to cognitive social scientist Daniel T Willingham’s example of how content doesn’t always drive interest. For instance, we’ve all attended an event or lecture we thought would be boring but ended up being fascinating. Boys (and girls) have more respect for teachers who know their stuff. Being an expert in your subject (or subjects) is a must.