This week's article summary is Boys Want a Strong Relationship with Their Teachers.
From my teachers point of view, I was a decent student: worked hard enough (more to keep up rather to excel), typically paid attention in class, wasn’t overly disruptive, and displayed appropriate respect for my teachers.
While I got along well with most of my teachers, there were some I didn’t like -- those that didn’t seem to notice or understand me. Consequently I didn’t demonstrate the above behaviors in their classes. I was more surly, distractible, and unmotivated. Not surprisingly, I didn’t do well in their classes.
I blamed those teachers for my poor performance, and they most likely thought I was a lost cause as a student.
The article below confirms what I’ve mentioned in many faculty meetings: to excel, students need strong relationships with their teachers and classrooms of care, trust, routines, and high expectations.
The challenge for many teachers is that it is easier to have a better relationship with organized, well-behaved, obedient children.
And, as most girl students fall into this category, a lot of teachers prefer them to boys, who can be more of a burden in the classroom.
As the article further explores, teachers often believe the stereotype that the typical male student is a ‘feral beast that needs to be controlled.’
A blindspot for many teachers is that boys are less educable and less motivated to learn than girls.
The advice from the article is that teachers need to understand that all their students are relationship-based. Teachers often need to work extra hard to connect and relate to their male students.
As some boys also may fall into the trap of acting like the negative stereotype of them as students, teachers have to keep trying to reach them and inspire them to focus on learning, not on being the class clown.
In my case as a student, it’s the chicken or egg conundrum: did some of my teachers assume I was a hopeless case as a male student or did I come onto their class with an attitude?
The article lists a number of ways for teachers to strengthen their relationships with students.
Yes, boys and girls typically act differently in class and it’s often easier to prefer girls and their meticulousness and politeness in the classroom, But boys, even those who act out and appear indifferent to learning, need to be seen, understood, and believed in by their teacher(s) if they are to thrive academically.
Joe
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For 17-year-old Warren Coates, a teacher who’s taken the time to build a relationship with him is highly motivating. “When there’s a teacher that I have a relationship with, I—100 percent—try harder in class,” said Warren, a senior at Smyrna High School in central Delaware.
More than a dozen other boys interviewed by Education Week also strongly agreed that their performance in class depended on their relationship with the teacher. So, too, did over 1,000 male middle and high school students from six countries, including the United States, and various backgrounds who participated in a study on the subject.
Despite the well-established body of research on the importance of student-teacher relationships, there has been less focus on how boys, specifically, relate to their teachers, who are predominately female. The overwhelming affirmation from boys that positive relationships with teachers matter to their academic motivation and success has come as a surprise to some—even those who study boys for a living.
“Why didn’t we know that boys were so clear that they need that relationship with their teachers?” asked Michael C. Reichert, co-author of the aforementioned study and executive director of the Center for the Study of Boys’ and Girls’ Lives at the University of Pennsylvania.
The answer is somewhat complicated. But it’s worth examining as it’s the first step toward breaking down barriers to establishing these connections—which, ultimately, prove beneficial to both students and teachers.
After all, boys on a whole are not reaching their full potential in school, data show. Stronger relationships with their teachers could be key to their success.
In order to build strong relationships, though, teachers first must recognize boys’ need to connect.
“The reason we’re surprised to find that boys are relational learners is the fog of stereotypes: We expect boys to be the independent, non-relational creatures that stereotypes would paint them as,” said Reichert, “And of course they’re not.”
Boys are expected to act emotionally stoic and physically tough, said Yvonne Skipper, a lecturer at University of Glasgow’s school of education whose research findings suggest that adolescent boys feel extreme pressure to conform to gender stereotypes.
An EdWeek Research Center survey of a nationally representative sample of K-12 teachers found that teachers generally consider boys to be less motivated than girls by a wide range of factors, including a desire to please the teacher.
“Many of my male students seem to dislike school,” one survey respondent wrote. Another said that girls “have time and again proved to me to be superior leaders, more motivated, and dedicated than many of their male counterparts.”
When teachers harbor stereotypes or negative perceptions of the boys in their classes, they may be less likely to develop positive relationships with those students, said Reichert.
“We get pushback from teachers because many have always regarded boys as feral beasts that need to be dominated and controlled,” Reichert said.
He suggests this perception is in part to blame for the disproportionately high discipline rates among boys, which begin in preschool and continue through high school.
Establishing and maintaining positive relationships with students takes work, especially when boys appear to resist teachers’ efforts to connect. But certain teacher behaviors can inspire even seemingly disengaged male students to engage in learning.
Reichert named eight best practices for teachers to build strong relationships with students, especially boys:
- Reach out often
- Demonstrate mastery of their subjects
- Maintain high standards
- Engage with a student’s personal interest or talent
- Find a common interest
- Point out a common characteristic with a student
- Respond to defiance with restraint
- Be vulnerable about their own learning challenges
Despite teachers’ best efforts, boys may not always respond to these gestures, Reichert said. But he urges teachers to maintain the role of relationship manager with students—regulating their own emotional reactions and maintaining their commitment to reaching boys by continuing to invite them to be partners in learning.
Brandon Mollett, academic dean at Boys’ Latin School of Maryland, an all-boys K-12 private school in Baltimore, agrees. “You can’t bring frustration, you can’t bring disappointment and emotional aspects to your work when you’re a teacher,” he said. “You have these emotions, because it’s an emotional profession. But as a professional you have to do your best to manage that, and to see the best in each one of these students.”
Male teachers, especially those who teach elementary students, tend to see strong student relationships as an important part of their profession. In a 2021 study that surveyed male elementary school teachers, respondents overwhelmingly reported that relationships with their students were central to their work
But teachers needn’t be the same gender or race as their students to form strong bonds, insists Reichert. Any teacher can connect with boys. “When teachers are encouraged to see the good in kids, and when you provide a complementary system where there’s more parts that are positive than negative, you build trust. And relationships are founded on trust,” he said. “I think that’s often a missing piece at schools.”
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