Why teenage boys need kindness, not harsher discipline

As a secondary school teacher of nearly 20 years experience, I’ve seen many ways in which toxic masculinity can manifest itself in the classroom.

I should be angry with the boys whose behaviour brings to life the cultural menace that is toxic masculinity. But I’m not. Working with these boys generates a sensation deeper than anger.

Boys can bring toxic masculinity into the classroom.Credit: Arsineh Houspian

It’s a heavy and stomach-turning combination of feeling disgusted, threatened and disempowered by boys living out adopted values that are simply not their own. These young people have been damaged by our contemporary culture and they need our help.

At its best, toxic masculinity in schools looks like behaviours we’ve explained away for decades by saying, “it’s just boys being boys”. Offensive things, like penises drawn on desks, using loud and aggressive voices, derailing class discussions with sexualised and suggestive comments directed at both teachers and other students, and contributing to a classroom culture that makes it difficult for anyone to learn.

From my experience, school-based toxic masculinity can also look like boys dominating the classroom with physical intimidation that causes girls to withdraw from learning. It’s behaviours that make others, particularly girls, not want to climb the tree, put up their hand to answer a question, play sport, select STEM-based subjects or sit at the back of the bus. It’s behaviour that tells the girls, and everyone else, that we matter more than you.

I started my career in the early 2000s as a 25-year-old in an all-boys school. I was one of 10 female teachers in a staff of more than 140. I learnt a lot. Since then, I’ve taught in girls’ schools and co-educational environments. Over the years, I have been truly disgusted by the actions, behaviours and attitudes of some of the teenage boys I have worked with across all of these settings. The values these boys lived out were grounded in a version of toxic masculinity deeply ingrained in our society.

Boys’ aggressive behaviour tells girls “we’re better than you”.Credit: Gabrielle Charotte

Seeking change, I looked for examples of best practice. Some educators put all the boys in boys’ schools so they could fight it out, play sport all the time and study hard. Others separated the girls to keep them safe until they finished school and headed out into the world. More recently, it was suggested that teachers should enforce tougher boundaries and dish out more significant consequences to keep boys in line.

None of these experiments have worked. In fact, they have preserved and allowed toxic masculinity to grow by damaging relationships and causing resentment between students, their teachers and parents.

During my early career, I often felt isolated and unsafe in the classroom. So I worked hard to keep those boys on side, no matter what. I learnt that maintaining positive and supportive relationships was the key to me having any influence. And having influence was critical, especially when I spent so much time in the classroom with them alone.

When I called out poor behaviour, I always put my relationship and rapport with the boys first. In fact, by ensuring I had more positive interactions than negative, I built relationships that enabled me to effect change. This took time, patience and energy. All the things that are in short supply in my profession.

Yet, in those moments of vulnerability, I saw what was most important; relationships and connection.

These days, I am fortunate to work in a co-educational school that values relationships above all else. We take a “restorative” approach to behaviour management that others have recently criticised as ineffective. Our core value is respect. This means that knee-jerk reactions and punitive discipline don’t have a place. It means that everyone gets a say when things go wrong.

In my classroom, the connections I have with students help me establish the tone of the learning environment. I can give students choice and agency over what, when and how they learn. I can use humour and brain breaks to redirect, embrace and channel the joyful physicality and sense of fun that teenage boys naturally exude. The time I invest in building relationships makes all of this possible.

Over my career, I have learnt that to combat school-based toxic masculinity, young people need to see an abundance of respectful and kind-hearted male, female and LGBTQIA+ role models who can show them what respectful interactions look like.

I have learnt that by keeping young people together, co-educational learning environments help girls and boys learn about respect.

Schools like mine support teenagers to become the principled young people we need them to be.

It is clear that schools need to stop using a “boys will be boys” approach to discipline that erodes relationships by creating resentments, destroying trust and perpetuating an endless power struggle between boys and their teachers. Schools must put relationships first if we are ever to see any change.

Kate Hadley is a secondary school teacher who has worked in student wellbeing roles for nearly 20 years. She is also a passionate teacher of English and Humanities.

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