Boys Don't Try? Rethinking Masculinity in Schools

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Teachers are confronted with proof of our own negative bias against boys - “a simple tally of comments revealed 54 positive comments about girls compared with 22 negative […] 32 positive comments about boys compared with 54 negative comments” - alongside our prejudice against children from low-income families: “It’s us we need to focus on”, because with hard-to-reach families “perseverance - not prejudice - gets results”. And those results might include, but not be restricted to, the narrow criteria of attending Russell Group universities. Boys (and girls) have more respect for teachers who know their stuff. Being an expert in your subject (or subjects) is a must. As Roberts and Pinkett make clear throughout Boys Don’t Try, high expectations are far more useful to build student self-esteem. Similar classes I’ve taught more recently have completed the same tasks as top sets, with often just as good results. Again supporting Roberts’ assertion that setting is rarely just about ability. Plan time into your week to develop and strengthen your subject knowledge. It’s far more valuable than filling in spreadsheets and writing to-do lists! Chapter 5: Expectations– Unsurprisingly, I’ve now decided I need to buy a physical copy of this book. I also need to read up on Mary Myatt’s work highlighting changing the language from “ability” to “attainment”. I found the whole mixed ability over setting section really interesting. As highlighted earlier, I would love to find out about secondaries that are making this work as I use this mixed ability approach in my primary class. (If you know of any secondaries that use a mixed ability approach – please let me know!)

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.

Why should NACE members read/be aware of this book?

Other chapters look at mental health, violence and aggression, or the problems caused by “banter”– offering ways to develop more positive relationships in lessons.

We are forced to reflect on our own practice to see just how much we are doing that might be just as damaging. Teachers’ high expectations of themselves and their students, in subject knowledge and behaviour for learning, trump gender considerations (such as single-sex classes, or male students being taught by male teachers) every time. The language is alarming for parents and teachers of boys. We hear of “a crisis in masculinity” in schools and about how “failing boys” are not reaching their academic potential.

Schools may not be able to change the world, but they can challenge, encourage, and widen horizons.” 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. One of the most fascinating parts of the book relates to engagement myths. Teachers commonly believe – with good reason, perhaps – that boys like lessons involving competition, physical activity and topics that are relevant to their own lives, among others. The two schools-based authors write chapters in turn. In chapter one, Mark Roberts tells of his early success as a teacher with a reputation for teaching boys well and describes his popular classroom strategies.

Chapter 4: Mental Health– Another thought-provoking listen with chilling statistics. Pleased to know that a number of the recommended strategies are already in place in my setting. Appreciated the mention of teacher modelling openly talking about their emotions and shoulder-shoulder talks, which made me think of a Pivotal podcast that I listened to in my first year of teaching and has stayed with me since.. Secondly, Roberts invokes Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital to argue that teaching boys content they find relevant does them a disservice by not giving them access to “certain knowledge, behaviours, and skills” that are “highly valued in society”. Teaching only highly relevant content also reinforces low expectations of what boys can and need to learn. In their new book, Boys Don't Try? Rethinking Masculinity in Schools, teachers Matt Pinkett and Mark Roberts examine the research and drill down to a core conclusion: boys are not hitting their heights because of a fear of failure. Some boys, believing that they’ll never get recognition for any academic output, will try to seek attention by playing up in class.I thought things would be different in Devon – but it’s not so different, and it’s not all to do with class. There’s also this anti-school mindset fuelled by stereotypical masculinity – like the stereotype that schoolwork is something girls ‘naturally’ do best,” he says. I was teaching poetry to a low set year 9 class, many of whom had previously expressed very negative ideas about the police, often in reference to their own dealings with them at the weekend. As a department we had already selected a collection of ‘disturbed voices’ poetry, perhaps in an unconscious attempt to engage some key boys in the year. In this lesson, I decided to get students to respond to Armitage’s ‘Hitcher’ in the form of a police interview. I asked their opinions and they helped me rephrase the writing frame to make it ‘more realistic’. As I had hoped, the boys showed interest and produced more writing than they often did. Yet, clearly I was guilty of the becoming a ‘cultural accomplice’, merely reinforcing the idea that they, as disadvantaged boys, were natural ‘troublemakers’, certainly not analytical thinkers or, god-forbid, the kind of students who might actually like poetry. The inspector, incidentally, told me that the task was excellently engaging, but clearly judged the students for their in depth knowledge of police procedures. Schools are not the only drivers with regards to societal norms around gender but they certainly have the opportunity to dispel archaic workplace gender stereotypes.”

In the book, he and Roberts push the idea of “tender masculinity”, which they counter not with “toxic masculinity”, a term they find unhelpful, but with “non-tender masculinity”, since that implies the absence of something better, rather than the presence of something poisonous. Hi Hannah, thanks for your comment and for sharing the video. I think Laurie A. Couture’s new book sounds really interesting. Author Mark Roberts was one such teacher, but, as he explains through anecdote and research findings, a raft of unintended consequences stem from creating a hyper competitive environment for boys and endeavouring to make all learning “relevant” to their lives. What we do know is that for some boys, public praise is not welcomed, because being praised publicly, in front of other boys, could damage their valuable masculine status.

Research School Network: Boys Don’t Try – Rethinking Masculinity in Schools The Engagement Myth 7 June, 2019 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!