'Sit down, shut up': how schools are failing boys and what we can do

English comes up time and again as a problem for boys in terms of how much they read, how much they write and the quality and neatness of their work (or lack of it). Working-class boys are usually noticed as having problems in English. Rural boys and dark-skinned boys are mentioned by others as especially challenged .

The world of feelings and emotions presents a real challenge to boys who are not yet confident about their masculinity. And this is one of the results. This is a real conversation in a real school, all too typical of adolescent males' attitudes:

Teacher : Look at this poem.

Student: I don't want to. It's gay.

T: How is it gay? Does it walk down Oxford Street holding hands with other poems?

S: I don't know. It's just gay.

T: It's about a man wanting a woman to love him.

S: See? Gay.

What do boys say about school?

I've spoken with and surveyed boys at a wide range of schools. Let's listen to what they say:

Feelings about school in general

Boys feel that on the whole school is something to be endured, rather than enjoyed. There were echoes of the principal in another school who said "A boy sits in school all day thinking of the game of footy he will play at 3.30". They thought school was a bit fairer to girls. Boys have a keen sense that sometimes, school isn't fair to them.

Better classroom learning

Boys don't want to sit at desks and be talked at. They resent it and they drift off, lost in a "sea of blahs", as Rowe said. Some teachers seem to be putting up slabs of text on PowerPoint and talking over it. Probably the boys end up copying what they see. One witty boy called this Death by PowerPoint. It is unpleasantly common in talks and conferences. Ironically, this is done even when some educators are telling teachers how to improve boys' learning! Teachers talk and talk (we all do!) and aren't effective sometimes in sussing out who understands the work.

Boys don't feel school is something for them. It's something awful which they can't escape from. Nor do they want to be seen as swots, nor as teacher's pets. They want to be treated as mature, creative and thoughtful, but classrooms trap them into passive and resentful objects of what teachers will do to them.

Q What are your first thoughts waking up on a school day?

This question got blunt answers. Some examples in one school were:

Oh my God

Teachers will be disappointed with me

I'm not wanting to go

One Kangaroo Bay boy said he hoped that maybe there'd been an explosion or some disaster and there wouldn't be any school today.