Male teachers – Can they be role models for teenage boys?
Gordon Cairns explores what it is to be a male teacher – and whether simply being one can provide teenage boys with a positive role model…
- by Gordon Cairns
- English and forest school teacher
Outside of trying to differentiate themselves from female candidates in an interview situation, do any male teachers actually consider themselves to be role models for the adolescent boys in their classroom?
The term ‘role model’ connotes being exceptional at something, or somehow worth emulating. But is any male teacher worthy of being put on such a high pedestal?
Perhaps it would be more pertinent to ask whether we should pin and mount male teachers in a ‘museum of education’ as examples of a dying breed.
From an already low starting base, the numbers of male teachers in school classrooms are dwindling yet further. As recently noted by the Education Secretary, 28,000 teachers have been added to the UK workforce since 2010. Just 533 have been men.
Such is our rarity, the men’s toilets in a number of primary schools have become storage areas, or overspills for the ladies. The numbers of male teachers in high schools is falling sharply too.
Masculine qualities
Bridget Phillipson has talked of wanting to redress this gender imbalance by encouraging more male teachers into the profession, while at the same time having us blokes fulfil the function of helping to solve the ongoing crisis in masculinity.
As she puts it, “With toxic online influences on the rise, our boys need strong, positive male role models to look up to. At home, of course, and at school too.”
Yet it’s clearly not enough to just have a bunch of random extra men turn up at a school and expect the boys to put away their toxicity.
Perhaps Phillipson is suggesting that male teachers should be hired on their ‘role modelability’. However, how would you demonstrate that in an interview?
Beyond that, the ‘masculine qualities’ young men typically value most – sporting ability, attractiveness, popularity, wealth – aren’t necessarily always evident across the male teaching community.
Younger recruits might possess those first three qualities. However, earning a teacher’s salary will immediately discount all of us from the latter.
And in any case, are adolescents really going to look for their role models in the classroom? A survey from a couple of decades ago suggests not.
Trending
It found that a third of boys aged 10 to 16 looked for such figures at home. Just over 2% identified a teacher as their role model.
Let’s instead focus on that word ‘model’ – or better still, ‘role-modelling’ – in relation to behaviour. Over many years of working with adolescent boys who often see the significant male adults in their lives acting confrontationally, I’ve come to see that by modelling non-aggressive actions, and taking the heat out of conflicts, I’m showing them a different way of being male.
A worthwhile conversation
Take the recent Monday morning when a number of boys burst into my classroom, bragging about how brilliantly their football team had played at the weekend, while berating how garbage my team were, and always will be.
In other situations, I’d defend my club to the hilt. But here I praised how well their team had played and how good the goals were. I then said that my own club performed well too.
By modelling conversations around shared interests, while refusing to escalate their desire to make these confrontational, they will have hopefully enjoyed a more worthwhile and less emotional exchange.
It might be a small step – and plainly won’t be enough to threaten the seemingly pervasive influence of Tate et al – but repeatedly modelling positive behaviour will, I believe, be ultimately more influential than simply hoping boys will admire their teachers because they are male.
Of course, much of the above is about good classroom management. By not shouting or showing anger, and through attempting to resolve conflicts calmly, male and female teachers alike are modelling a calmer way of being.
Plus, another advantage of ‘role modelling’ over ‘being a role model’ means you don’t need to be perfect – the old and shabby can do it, too.
Gordon Cairns is an English and forest school teacher. He works in a unit for secondary pupils with ASD. He also writes about education, society, cycling and football for a number of publications.
