Have you heard the Cyndi Lauper song “Girls just wanna have fun” (1985)? Well, the song title says it all, but what do we think boys want?
When it comes to boys and school there are some really simple rules we should always keep in mind. I first heard this from my favourite principal many, many years ago, (he got it from Steve Biddulph, guru on Boys Education). “Jo”, he started, “you know boys are different from girls, [no… really?!], they simply want to know who’s the boss, what are the rules and are you going to be fair? You just think about that and everything will be fine.”
Having come out of a girls’ school at the time, I took this on board and have never looked back. Keeping boys engaged in and out of the classroom is hard work and takes a lot of planning. Boys can turn on us in a second and be fine the next minute. The best part about boys and their attitude is that they do not tend to keep grudges.
Those of us who “teach boys have to have a genuine liking, in fact a love, of boys - with their scruffiness, noisiness, in-your-face honesty and surprising capacity for tenderness and vulnerability.” (Biddulph 1995).