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Making school a place where boys belong

By Peter West
May 3, 2004

Boys are bodies in perpetual commotion. The boy culture says: be tough, have big muscles, don't do anything girly, don't cry.

Boys' energy was once validated and channelled by fathers, schools, sport, policemen and churches. But today, society struggles in vain to contain boys' restless energy. Many boys grow up under-fathered, and schools have become a no-man's land.

Boys - like most girls - need teachers who engage them actively. OECD reports point repeatedly to disengagement from school, especially for boys.

So how do we get more male teachers and role models into schools? Despite much clacking of tongues about the need for more men in teaching, few have been able to answer this question.

When I taught at Wagga Wagga Teachers College in 1970-71, the primary education sections were almost equal in male-female ratios. This was possible because different cut-off points were used for males and females in school-leaving scores. Whether this could be done now is debatable. However, the matter could be solved at school level.

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In private schools, headmasters deliberately seek promising males and offer inducements, such as salary packages and accommodation assistance.

Private schools decide what kind of school they want: a busy, active place in which boys are engaged by a variety of teachers of both sexes.

In the process, boys create a mess, get untidy and crawl all over the place. They are engaged by people who understand male energy. This is probably part of the reason parents find private schools attractive: these schools use energetic males to channel boys' energy.

So why do boys need men in schools? Sebastian Kraemer suggests in the British Medical Journal that males seem more often to forgive boys' behaviour. They understand it and channel it: "Oh, you boys! Run down to the end of the playground and kick a football around for 10 minutes and get rid of all that energy!"

We need males in schools who can work with boys' energy, not punish them or suspend or expel them for being boisterous.

OECD research rightly points out that the top two factors in what makes the difference in schools are good relationships and discipline.

Values are caught, not taught, so boys learn masculinity by watching it enacted. They seem to need praise more than girls, but get less of it. Perhaps this is because teachers are scared of them and are warned against letting them misbehave.

The jokey and blokey banter between men and boys is part of this pattern of good relationships that keeps boys feeling that school is a place where they belong. But if all the teachers are female, boys see that learning is women's work.

Equally, middle-aged, middle-class female teachers don't have a lot in common with adolescent boys with rampaging hormones, erratic attention spans and bizarre interests.

Too often boys' jokes and off-beat humour land them in trouble in schools in which their wild, noisy, ratbag maleness is seen as dangerous to good order and the nice, sensible people who run schools.

Schools need to have the best young and energetic people who can challenge and meet boys' energy.

And if private schools can attract male teachers, others can, too.

Dr Peter West is head of the research group on men and families at the University of Western Sydney and the author of What is the Matter with Boys?