Boys Don T Try Rethinking Masculinity In Schools

There is a significant problem in our schools: too many boys are struggling. The list of things to concern teachers is long. Disappointing academic results, a lack of interest in studying, higher exclusion rates, increasing mental health issues, sexist attitudes, an inability to express emotions.... Traditional ideas about masculinity are having a negative impact, not only on males, but females too. In this ground-breaking book, Matt Pinkett and Mark Roberts argue that schools must rethink their efforts to get boys back on track. Boys Don’t Try? examines the research around key topics such as anxiety and achievement, behaviour and bullying, schoolwork and self-esteem. It encourages the reader to reflect on how they define masculinity and consider what we want for boys in our schools. Offering practical quick wins, as well as long-term strategies to help boys become happier and achieve greater academic success, the book: offers ways to avoid problematic behaviour by boys and tips to help teachers address poor behaviour when it happens highlights key areas of pastoral care that need to be recognised by schools exposes how popular approaches to "engaging" boys are actually misguided and damaging details how issues like disadvantage, relationships, violence, peer pressure, and pornography affect boys’ perceptions of masculinity and how teachers can challenge these. With an easy-to-navigate three-part structure for each chapter, setting out the stories, key research, and practical solutions, this is essential reading for all classroom teachers and school leaders who are keen to ensure male students enjoy the same success as girls.

Following on from the huge success of Boys Don’t Try? this essential new book answers nine key questions about how teachers and schools can best tackle boys’ academic underperformance. For decades schools have grappled with the most significant barriers to male academic success: a lack of motivation to succeed, poor attitudes to learning, lower literacy levels and a reluctance to read for pleasure or write at length. In this compelling book, Mark Roberts provides clear answers about how teachers can tackle ‘The Boy Question’. Each chapter answers a frequently asked question about how best to teach boys, outlining the issue and demonstrating what can be done about it. Informed by a wealth of research and the author’s personal experience of successfully teaching boys, this book offers an abundance of practical advice for the busy classroom teacher. It will shine a light on what makes boys tick and how we can design effective curriculums to ensure they can best acquire powerful knowledge. With practical advice and examples to help address anti-social attitudes and stem the cycle of boys’ underachievement, this is essential reading for all teachers and school leaders.

Draws on eighteen months of research in a racially diverse working-class high school to explore the meaning of masculinity and the social practices associated with it, discussing how homophobia is used to enforce gender conformity.

Big Gay Adventures in Education is a collection of true stories by 'out' teachers, and students of 'out' teachers, all about their experiences in schools. The book aims to empower LGBT+ teachers to be the role models they needed when they were in school and help all teachers and school leaders to promote LGBT+ visibility and inclusion. The contributors range from trainee teachers to experienced school leaders and leading figures from the community across the LGBT+ spectrum, as well as LGBT+ students whose lives were improved by having an openly LGBT+ teacher. Each story is accompanied by an editor's note reflecting on the contributor's experience and the practical implications for schools and teachers in supporting LGBT+ young people and ensuring they feel safe and included in their school communities. Compiled by the co-founder and director of LGBTed, the inspiring stories in this book are essential reading for LGBT+ teachers and allies. Let's be the role models we needed when we were at school and show our students that they can be successful and happy as an LGBT+ person.

In this stirring follow-up to the award-winning Fostering Resilient Learners, Kristin Van Marter Souers and Pete Hall take you to the next level of trauma-invested practice. To get there, they explain, educators need to build a "nest"—a positive learning environment shaped by three new Rs of education: relationship, responsibility, and regulation. Drawing from their extensive experience working with schools, students, and families throughout the country, the authors Explain how to create a culture of safety in which everyone feels valued, important, and capable of learning. Describe the four areas of need—emotional, relational, physical, and control—that drive student behaviors and show how to meet these needs with interventions framed around the new three Rs. Illustrate trauma-invested practices in action through real scenarios that identify students' unmet needs, examine the situation from five stakeholder perspectives, and suggest interventions to support students and their families. Offer opportunities to challenge your beliefs and develop deeper and different ways of thinking about your role in your students' lives. Educators have a unique opportunity to influence students' learning, attitudes, and futures. This book will invigorate your practice and equip you to empower those you serve—whatever their personal histories.

Eighteen months of fieldwork in a racially diverse working-class high school this is an exploration of the dynamics of masculinity among boys.

A 2016 Coretta Scott King Author Honor book, and recipient of the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature. In this New York Times bestselling novel, two teens—one black, one white—grapple with the repercussions of a single violent act that leaves their school, their community, and, ultimately, the country bitterly divided by racial tension. A bag of chips. That’s all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad’s pleadings that he’s stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad’s resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad’s every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered. But how can you stay still when someone is pounding your face into the concrete pavement? There were witnesses: Quinn Collins—a varsity basketball player and Rashad’s classmate who has been raised by Paul since his own father died in Afghanistan—and a video camera. Soon the beating is all over the news and Paul is getting threatened with accusations of prejudice and racial brutality. Quinn refuses to believe that the man who has basically been his savior could possibly be guilty. But then Rashad is absent. And absent again. And again. And the basketball team—half of whom are Rashad’s best friends—start to take sides. As does the school. And the town. Simmering tensions threaten to explode as Rashad and Quinn are forced to face decisions and consequences they had never considered before. Written in tandem by two award-winning authors, this four-starred reviewed tour de force shares the alternating perspectives of Rashad and Quinn as the complications from that single violent moment, the type taken directly from today’s headlines, unfold and reverberate to highlight an unwelcome truth.

Boys Don't Cry is a book that will make sense of depression and anxiety for people who might not recognise those feelings in themselves or others. Suicide is the single biggest killer of men aged 20-45 in the UK. Depression and undiagnosed mental illness are huge contributors to these deaths as they're often more difficult to diagnose in men. And those men don't tend to talk about the typical symptoms or visit their doctor. Meet Tim. For nearly a decade he kept his depression secret. It made him feel so weak and shameful he thought it would destroy his whole life if anyone found out. And Tim is not alone. After finally opening up he realised that mental illness was affecting many men around the globe - and he knew that wasn't ok. A brutally honest, wickedly warming and heart-breaking tale about what it really takes to be a 'real man', written by one who decided that he wanted to change the world by no longer being silent. This is Tim's story, but it could be yours too.