From
A Revolution in Schooling
Steve Biddulph
Many schools today are a battleground. Teachers are overstressed and underpaid; kids have less and
less socialization from home (good manners, calm influences, feeling wanted and loved). The
number of men in schools has plummeted. More and more it is women who have to front up to
physically intimidating and disrespectful boys. The classroom becomes a battle for survival with only
two goals- getting the girls to achieve and getting the boys to behave.
So boys create stress, but they themselves are suffering, too. Girls outperform boys in almost every
subject area. Something has to be done about boys’ motivation, for everyone’s sake.
From what we have already described [previously in the book] about brain differences, hormones
and the need for male role-models, it’s clear that schools can and must change if they are to become
good places for boys. Here are some starting points:
1. A later starting age for boys
The slower development of boys’ fine-motor skills, and their cognitive skills generally, suggests
they would benefit by starting school later – and so move through school a year after girls of the
same age. (Some schools already encourage this and find it very beneficial.)
This needn’t be done rigidly. It can be based on some simple screening of fine-motor skills and in
consultation with parents and school staff. Many schools today have to dissuade parents whose
attitude to education is to see it as a race, and wish to enrol children earlier and earlier as if they
can get a head start!
Thoughtful parents will understand the benefits of a delayed start for boys, once these are
explained. Since birthdays fall all through the year, the starting age is already a matter of some
flexibility, and this can be made more flexible based on actual ability – a far more rational
approach. Some slower developing girls may also benefit from a year’s delay.
2. More men in schools, of the right kind
Because of divorce and single motherhood, up to a third of boys have no father present at
home. The six-to-fourteen age range is the period when boys most hunger for male
encouragement and example. So it’s vital that we get more men into primary school teaching.
Not just any men- they have to be the right kind of men.
I have asked many teachers to describe the right kind of man to work with boys. Two qualities
come up again and again:
(i) A mixture of warmth and sternness. Someone who obviously enjoys youngsters and
gives praise where it is due. A man who doesn’t need to be ‘one of the boys’ but has a
slightly gruff, no-nonsense manner! This means that order prevails, and boys can get on
with the work, excursion, sport or whatever. But he must have warmth and a sense of
humour.
(ii) Undefensiveness. A man who is not only in charge, but does so in a way that doesn’t
issue a challenge to every testosterone-boosted boy in the room. He doesn’t need to
prove anything and doesn’t feel threatened by youthful exuberance.
One wise woman put it like this:
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‘Every boy who has been expelled while I was at this school did so in the following way.
They got into a fight with a man teacher, who sent for another man teacher, who still
just irritated the boy more. It became a battle of wills with no room to back down’.
3. Discipline problems call for our involvement
Boys make trouble to get noticed. In schools all around the world where I have consulted, there
is a proven equation: an under-fathered boy equals a discipline problem in school. Under-
fathered boys unconsciously want men to be involved and address the problems in their lives,
but don’t know how to ask. Girls ask for help, but boys often just act for help.
If we get men teachers involved with under fathered-boys (ideally before they make trouble)
then we can turn their lives around. And if boys do get into trouble, men teachers should work
with them to guide and help them.
Recent studies have found that boys in school who act as if they don’t care, really do want to be
successful and included. We have just made the slope too steep for them. We punish them, but
we don’t offer leadership. Leadership is not just something that comes from the podium at
assembly. It has to be personal.
Too many timid men and women are in charge of schools. These people have long ago
suppressed all their own energy. Boys’ vitality is seen as a threat, and needs to be squashed. The
squashing was once done by caning and tedious, grinding work. Now it is done by suspensions,
or time-out rooms, or by tedious and bureaucratic ‘report’ systems. One teacher described to
me his school’s disciplinary report system as ‘lingering, inconclusive, and impersonal’. This is all
based on a psychology of distance, not closeness: ‘If you’re bad, we’ll isolate you.’ It should be:
‘If you need help that badly, we’ll get involved with you.’
Biddulph, S. (1997). Raising Boys. Finch Publishing, p. 133-136
1. What kind of evidence is used to support the writer’s points?
a) Quantitative data
b) Anecdotal evidence
c) Personal experience
d) Survey data
2. What word best describes the writer’s tone in the introduction?
a) Cautionary
b) Authoritative
c) Persuasive
d) Urgent
3. Who is the primary intended audience of this text?
a) Teachers
b) School leaders
c) Parents
d) All of the above
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4. Which of the following is not described as a contributing factor to misbehaviour in
boys?
a) Under-involved fathers
b) Boredom
c) Hormones
d) Inadequate discipline management
5. ‘We have just made the slope too steep for them.’
The sentence above is an example of what?
a) Metaphor
b) Simile
c) Personification
d) Hyperbole
6. ‘So it’s vital that we get more men into primary school teaching.’
Which of the following is not a synonym for ‘vital’?
a) Crucial
b) Complementary
c) Imperative
d) essential
7. Which of the following statements is true?
a) The writer compares girls’ progress in school to boys’.
b) The writer argues discipline of misbehaving boys needs to be harsher.
c) The writer thinks male teachers need to be firm but friendly.
d) The writer thinks girls are smarter than boys.
8. What issue is the writer’s suggestions trying to address?
a) Boys’ misbehaviour at school.
b) The imbalance between the sexes at school.
c) The absence of male role models in boys’ lives.
d) Boys’ motivation at school.
9. Why doesn’t the writer favour discipline measures such as suspension or time out?
a) It suppresses boys’ energy
b) It involved detachment
c) It is impersonal
d) all of the above
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ANSWERS
1. B
2. D
3. C
4. B
5. A
6. B
7. C
8. D
9. D
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