Teaching Boys: Organisation And Odd Socks

There was a short advert that you may have seen aired on TV during the coverage of the recent Rugby World Cup. It showed two young boys lining up eagerly at the start of a rugby match in their freshly laundered and matching team-kit.

Momentarily, one of them looks down to notice that he is wearing a completely odd sock. With a shrug of the shoulders, he readies himself for kick-off. The camera cuts post-match to the interior of the car being advertised. The boy reaches down the side of his seat and pulls out the missing regulation sock. Again, he shrugs his shoulders and adds a sheepish smile.

It is an advert that made me smile too because it rang true about boys. Would the advert have worked as well with girls as its protagonists? Possibly, but the actions and attitudes portrayed may not have resonated quite as strongly – at least to this viewer.

Father to two teenage daughters, I’ve worked in all boys’ schools for the past 18 years. Thirteen of those have been at Newcastle School for Boys; seven as Head. I attended a boys’ school myself and loved it. I didn’t set out to champion boys’ education. It just happened that the appropriate career-move at a point in time took me to a boys’ school. Over the years, I’ve come to relish the particular joys and challenges of teaching boys. The advertiser’s odd sock-miscreant echoed some of them.

Many boys are deeply pragmatic creatures. Will my wearing an odd sock make any difference to the outcome of the game and my enjoyment of it? (He has a point.) No? So, what’s the problem? (Shrugs shoulders.) Should our boy sampled in the advert have been better organised and turned out wearing the correct kit fully? Yes, he probably should have.

Organisation and self-reliance are important academic and life skills but for many boys they don’t come easily. Experience – some of it bitter – has taught me that to be successful teaching boys, we have to acknowledge this and be ready to help them learn and develop those skills. Unfavourable comparison with girls who may come to this skillset sooner and more readily is not always helpful.

Ah, but that boy shouldn’t have been allowed to play the match in the incorrect kit. That would have taught him, you might say. It would have punished him, but it might not have helped to improve his organisation.

Punishment and learning the lesson are not always as directly linked as we might like to think – particularly in the adolescent male brain. More important than the punishment is dialogue, understanding why it’s being given – what needs to change. It’s sometimes easy to miss this point and to get locked into cycles of ineffective sanctions and repeat offending. If we are to avoid that cycle, we also need to be ready to administer the help and support boys need in order to make that change.

Boys are often portrayed as being challenging to teach and to bring up. There is undoubtedly some truth in this. But we also need to understand where this challenge comes from. Boys frequently challenge orthodoxy. Why are we doing this? What’s the point? Show boys why they are doing something, what’s in it for them, that you believe in them and more often than not, they will achieve it – and sometimes even wearing matching socks!