Teaching Masculinity
We must learn to teach boys
healthy masculine ideals.
The kind of men society breeds depends on what and how we teach boys.
Today, there’s a trend that boys are failing to learn.
In 2012, StasCan found that by 15, boys “trailed behind” girls in their performance at school.
They show weaker results than girls in standardized testing who made up a greater number of students with the highest scores.
Boys also do more poorly over all.
In a class, almost 39 per cent of boys have an 80 per cent average, while a higher per cent of girls attain the same grade or higher. On the opposite end of the spectrum, boys account for a higher percentage of students achieve 60 per cent or lower.
Jennifer Oungphonxay is a teacher and mother of two. She has been teaching for two years now spending her time divided between her job and caring for her two boys. Her eldest is six and the younger is only five months old.
Oungphonxay finds her male students to be more hands-on learners.
“They like stuff that captures their attention,” she says. Oungphonxay gears her lesson plans to capture attention and integrate it into the lesson to keep some of the boys focused.
The ones who tend to do the worst in school are aggressive she says: “They can’t focus as long or have a low attention span.”
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The Center for Disease Control and Prevention finds that boys between the ages of five and 17 are over two times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than girls.
In the U.S. boys are two times more likely to be suspended and four times more likely to be expelled from school.
With their low performance in school and the increasing aggressive nature (both at school and away) in boys, we have to wonder what the problem is.
At a young age, boys and girls are looking for an identity.
Psychologists, educators and advocates suspect that forced identities of femininity and masculinity found in a gender binary can encourage negative effects in various aspects of children’s lives.
For example, the themes of hyper masculinity or strict ideals on what it means to be a man can be problematic for how young boys respond to their education and the resulting habits they develop in school.
Young men internalize concepts of masculinity through images such as these.
Diane Yip holds a Masters in Psychology and works at Centennial College’s Morningside Campus as a counselor.
She says teaching exclusively male traits can limit a boy’s development. The hyper masculine traits like “boys don’t cry” and “boys are tough” can repress attributes like empathy and other emotions.
#mrmag explores how we're teaching masculinity.​
The internalized stigma, when implemented strongly enough, can affect men’s mental, physical and emotional well being.
“They’re not expected to express [their] emotional side,” Yip says. “They’re being encouraged to be ‘manly’.”
Urban street dancer and dance teacher, Paul ‘Kaze’ Thurton doesn’t believe teaching boys to be men is harmful to them. “The sooner they can find an identity the sooner they have time within themselves to conquer whatever it is they need to conquer,” says Thurton, who opened his dance studio, Simply Swagg in Scarborough in 2009.
“It helps build identity and can boost self-esteem,” says Yip. “It’s the consequences of the super-masculine way that can put them at risk.”
Outside the classroom, Ounphongxay finds that boys are generally more aggressive when they play with each other. They like wrestling or acting out certain things like video games or television shows with some type of violence.
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Whether it’s in academics or athletics, boys are bombarded as girls are with images – images they are meant to or feel pressured to adhere to. But many boys feel stuck in a rigid identity that conflicts with their own personality and interest.
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“Usually there are a few odd boys [who] don’t participate,” Oungphonxay says. “They tend to play with the girls.”
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In her own five-year-old son, Oungphonxay encourages him to explore without strict rules on what can and cannot play.
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“For me, I allow my son to just play with whatever he wants,” she says. “Sometimes he’ll gravitate to want to play with girls’ stuff.”
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As a result of exploring, some kids are bullied for expressing themselves.
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“In the younger grades, they’re so young so they kind of accept them, but there is some division,” says Oungphonxay. “As they get older that’s when they start dividing themselves and not playing with the other boys.”
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Anyone can attest to how difficult it is to create an identity and it doesn’t help when there are standards to live up to. Especially standards you may not agree with.
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Though Thurton may believe men should be men and women should be women, he wants to create a space for kids free of judgment to develop into who they are.
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“I let them be who they are. Let them know you can be strong,” says Thurton. You’re trying to build a strong man, not an arrogant man or a barbarian, Thurton says.
Web Exclusive: meet Paul 'Kaze' Thurton
