Leading view papers – Days 1 to 7

The Success for Boys project in Australia

 

In many countries around the world, there is concern that boys are falling behind. This is clear, not only from exams and assessments but in many other measures. Boys volunteer less often, they are not outstanding in many school activities (except for sport) and have many associated problems. Information supplied by the Australian Government demonstrates these problems clearly.

In Australia, over 12,500 students participated in the 2003 OECD Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The study found that:

• in Australia, the gender difference in favour of females in reading literacy was large (about 0.4 of a standard deviation, or 40 points). This was larger than the OECD average
• 73.5% of Australian 15 year old girls scored at, or above, the OECD mean for reading literacy in PISA 2003, compared with 57.4% of boys
• 7.1% of Australian girls, compared with 16.5% of Australian boys, performed only at the lowest proficiency levels for reading literacy.

The attitudes of female Australian students towards school were significantly more positive than those male students. Female students had:

• more positive relationships with teachers than male students did
• greater sense of belonging to their school than males did
• more positive views of their schools’ disciplinary climate than males did.

By 15 years of age, boys are three times more likely than girls to die from all causes combined - but especially from accidents, violence and suicide.

In some schools, boys account for eight out of every ten suspensions and exclusions.
Thus, boys, as a rule, feel that school is not for them. They tell us that they are told all day sit down, shut up, write this down.

Rampant defeatism

It would be easy to give up on this whole project. There are many variations on this hopelessness, expressed both by academics and practitioners in some of the following ways:

• ‘boys will be boys’
• boys are inevitably becoming men, and men rape, men commit most crimes, men are 90% of those in Australian jails
• it doesn’t matter, anyway, because men will end up earning more than women.

Some of these arguments are defeatist and certainly dishonest. Contrary facts can be produced to show that males suicide more often than girls and more successfully. Males die earlier than women and have high rates of mortality from cancers, heart and associated disease, and alcohol and drug abuse. If it were girls who were showing some of the above problems, there would be a national outcry.

Boys in Australian government schools are especially challenged. Teachers in Australian government schools are subject to state authorities. The Education Act of 1880 established government schools and public education that was supposed to be compulsory, free and secular. These bureaucracies were designed for the Victorian era and a much smaller system. They are often hidebound and bureaucratic and terrified of controversy.  Boys’ education is just one more problem to be dealt with, along with all the others. Private schools have somewhat more freedom. But many teachers seem weary and worn-out, especially towards the end of term. Teachers can be intimidated by pupils who know their ‘rights’. Many young teachers resign - males under 35 being one endangered group.

Having teachers in any system who are young enough, in mind and spirit, to deal with boys, is a challenge. Let’s face it – the Puckish humour of boys, their ability to mimic teachers, and their sheer noise can all scare teachers. And scared teachers are too quick to punish, reprimand and suspend boys. Thus, many boys feel that school is not for them, perhaps apart from sport.

The American experience

There has been a national debate about the underachievement of boys in the USA in 2006. But to date, progress on this issue has been confused by academics and others who bring large barrows of ideology to muddy the waters. This means that no progress is made. Boys continue to be disengaged from school, annoy girls and make life difficult for teachers. Boys in the USA are in danger of falling behind, while boys in China, India and other countries sail ahead. While US girls are attending college in larger and larger numbers, many American boys are having their heads filled with rap music, basketball and football. Parents despair while they see girls carry off most of the prizes on speech night, apart from some boys – perhaps from Asian and other ethnic groups. Black and Hispanic males are especially at risk of falling into patterns of disengagement, minor offences and going down the path that leads to trouble of various kinds. Much more must be done to help males of colour enjoy and profit from school. Who wins this struggle? Certainly not boys.

Success for Boys: an Australian success story

Yet we have had some progress in Australia. The full story of how boys’ education came to bypass years of ideological trench war is told in West, 2006, on the website: www.boyslearning.com.au .

In brief, a public enquiry was held and its report was published in 2002, titled Boys: Getting it Right. This can also be found on the web. Following this the national (federal) government began a program to help teachers understand boys and show them some pathways towards better results for boys.

The program, Success for Boys, began in 2006, and is continuing in 2007 and 2008. Schools put in requests for funds and these were examined by a national committee. Funds were then doled out to schools.

The Department of Education commissioned a university to write modules that were issued to schools. Consultants used the modules to educate teachers.

In the event, the Government decided to intervene directly with teachers. Teachers are brought along in large groups and are presented with the modules. Officially, this is supposed to happen by means of the consultant clicking through one slide after another. ‘Death by PowerPoint’ is one version of the above. It must be said that if the intention is to show teachers that boys need more active forms of learning, having 50 or 100 teachers passively looking at hundreds of slides on a screen seems very poor practice.

Fortunately, most consultants break up the PowerPoint with games, activities and discussions. Demonstrating ways of really engaging boys is one of our biggest challenges. We teachers get into patterns of teaching and it is difficult for all of us to re-learn. But the challenge is there.

What we have found

In reviewing literature on boys’ education, some general principles are apparent. The following are some findings to date. They reflect both an official report and the writer’s own experience as a consultant.  In brief - we want to use boys’ restless masculine energy and harness it for boys’ benefit. And ours!

A more active curriculum is indicated by a number of writers, including West. Teachers feel they have to sit students down in desks for most of the school day. Boredom sets in and bored students cause trouble – especially boys. Boys who are labelled as ‘troublemakers’ in long sessions at desks become interested and engaged seekers of knowledge, if teachers can shift the focus away from themselves and onto students seeking answers.

The teacher should not be the centre of learning. Teachers may well see themselves as people who enlighten, charge up and challenge students. But they are not primary actors, entertainers or performers. The focus must be on what students will do, not on teachers.

Teachers might do well to work towards a more talk-based curriculum but only if it is students doing the following: arguing, debating, summing-up, and so on.

Outdoor learning can transform boys who disrupt classrooms into boys eagerly running around seeking answers. Who said that people only learn when they are stuck in a desk? Is this where you learn most of what you learn? I bet it’s not.

Some remaining challenges

At the time of writing, the author is still giving workshops to teachers. It can be a challenge to shift teachers out of ingrained habits - such as the tendency to have 15 or 20 minutes of teacher talk at the start of a lesson. Many teachers fall back on old ideas, such as ‘boys need more role models’ and sometimes this is the prelude to the desire to ‘bring in a footballer’. Such ideas can rarely change classroom dynamics. In some cases, footballers make poor models, as one can see from the daily press, and some would even make poor role models for a sick cockroach, in this writer’s opinion. Many teachers are – I am afraid to say- all to ready to fall back on simple solutions such as single-sex schooling, and so on. The evidence suggests these will not work as blanket solutions. There are many simple solutions, and none of them will solve the complex difficulties that I have described above.

Don’t forget dads

A huge challenge is to enlist parents in the struggle to get boys learning. The children’s author, Mem Fox, has advocated a plan that would get parents reading to all their children once a day. It would make a huge difference if we could get boys choosing a book and then reading it together with an older male. This could be their dad, an uncle, an older brother or grandpa. We have forgotten the enormous influence that older males have on boys. We must enlist this in the fight to make our boys more literate. Mem Fox’s website has many ideas for parents (see: www.memfox.com).

‘Tell me what to do to make my boys learn!’

In my experience, this comment is one of the most frequent comments from teachers. Accordingly, some of the precepts that have been found useful with teachers appear below.

More precepts appear on the website: www.boyslearning.com.au

Ten things teachers can do to help boys learn

Talk less. Boys are not terribly good listeners. Cut the words you use down to the absolute minimum. Get boys active as early in the lesson as you can. Avoid a long preamble - it switches off boys (and many girls, too).

Get boys doing.  Focus on: what will boys do in this lesson? Most males are focused on action. It comes partly from their biology. And partly from what we expect of boys. Boys like a feeling of having achieved something.

Use humour. Use a joke now and then. It really helps to get boys on side and it discourages trouble from appearing because they are bored. Boys stay alert if there might be another joke coming in the next minute or so – they won’t want to miss it.

Get help. Use a teacher buddy to help you watch underachievers who slide under the radar.  Reach out through special attention or rewards, such as preferred activity time. Tell the class someone is coming in to give you a hand.

‘Can you do it?’ Challenge boys more. Boys say school doesn’t challenge them enough. Dare them to beat you, and they will do it and enjoy the challenge.

Get boys competing – against others, against themselves, and against teachers. ‘I bet I can do this faster than you …’. Many boys will do it, and enjoy proving the teacher wrong.

‘Sum it up, please, John’. The English writer, Gary Wilson, argues that we must get boys summing up what has been learned. Too often, this critical step is missed out altogether. Set aside at least five minutes and find ways of getting boys to sum up for a mate. Or make a quick note. Or get someone to answer questions from the class.

Help boys with their writing. One of the biggest differences between the achievement of boys and girls lies in writing. Boys write less, are less confident, and are easily discouraged. All these hit boys hard when it comes to assessing learning. Cut down writing tasks to what is absolutely necessary. Show boys how to write assessment items.

Use guidelines, rubrics and models. Work on what interests the boy in front of you. And don’t imagine that boys are all the same.

Being a man means … Get boys talking about what it means to be male. Women have a useful role to play because they have experience of men as husbands, partners and sons; don’t be afraid to give boys some help in getting on with other people. Men have a role, too. Guys, don’t try to be a big he-man. Show boys by example – read books, be gracious and thoughtful to female teachers. Look at examples of men in the media and help boys question them.

Keep it clear. Explain tasks simply, step by step. Put the steps up somewhere and refer boys to them.

Be brief – be positive – be gone. Go around and encourage boys with a quick word of praise. Give boys experience of success. Avoid carping criticism (who likes being criticised?). And move on to the next student. We all like some praise! Don’t you?

In summary

We can help boys learn. We can improve girls’ lives, too, and make our own lives as teachers easier. We just have to re-think some key matters of learning and teaching. You can do it! Go for your life!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Peter West is an educational consultant based in Sydney, Australia. He is well known for his research on improving the academic success of boys. He is a member of the Boys Project, based in the USA, and contributes to discussions on boys’ learning in many countries. He will be travelling in the UK, Germany and eastern USA in April and May, 2007. He is happy to exchange ideas with teachers or give seminars to teachers and parents. His latest book was West, P (2002). What is the matter with boys? (Sydney: Choice Books). For further practical suggestions and detailed research, see website:
www.boyslearning.com.au.

 

 Go to top of page      Go to online discussion       Go to Leading views menu