Boys Don't Try? Rethinking Masculinity in Schools

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The focus was on supporting their children through online learning but we hope to continue with other events as time goes on. 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.

A “good student” is seen as a compliant one, with boys more frequently sanctioned and girls spending more time on homework. Competitive lessons create losers not just winners, leading to boys’ withdrawal from academic competition as a self-protection strategy: “if I haven’t tried, I haven’t really failed”. This is a pretty a-historical account, and there is much written elsewhere on the issue of boys in education, from at least Socrates on! The overarching message of ‘Boys Don’t Try’ is that it’s time for teachers and leaders to try a bit harder.To get boys putting pen to paper, teachers need to have relentless high expectations when it comes to what you want them to produce. In fact, an Australian study by Josephine Infantino and Emma Little found that of 350 pupils sampled, 78% felt that a private rebuke was the most effective method of dealing with inappropriate behaviour. This reminded me of advice given to me as an NQT by a former SLT member about how I should teach Shakespeare to a year 8 group with some challenging boys: “You need to link it to rap or something obviously”. The authors also explore the intersectionality of gender, class and disadvantage, framing the debate from a stance that “our education system is centred on middle-class values”, addressing the underachievement of all disadvantaged students and interrogating ability setting.

Chapter 1: The Engagement Myth– The first chapter is already really thought-provoking and I have added Why Don’t Students Like School by Daniel T Willingham to my “Want to read” list! Boy-friendly texts perpetuate gender stereotypes: “boys are not a uniform, homogenous mass” and limit exposure to new ideas. Teachers are not only fighting their own internal prejudice, but social stereotyping that features “a dominant strand of masculinity that sees school work and high achievement as effeminate and uncool”. He says there is a degree of under-performance in boys, but this does not mean they are no longer achieving. 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.It’s a brilliant novel which resonated with me personally, but it also served to highlight the messages Roberts and Pinkett make in their great new book for teachers. 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. Be clear on exactly what you want everybody to produce and praise boys discreetly when they meet your demands. He then reviews government guidance on the topic, looks at reasons why sexist behaviour might not be challenged in schools (teachers have become immune to it, they’re unsure where the boundaries lie, there’s a lack of support from senior leadership teams). There is something for everyone here, whether you read this as a classroom teacher, determined to do better for all the students in every class, or as a headteacher more worried about whole-school strategy, vision and ethos.