On Boys and Tyranny

Upon finishing my first read of Morphing Literacy: Boys Reshaping Their School-Based Literacy Practices by Blair and Sanford, I was struck by the monolithic swath with which boys seemed to be painted. It almost seemed as if stereotypes of boyness were simply confirmed and a sound pedagogical approach that applies to any child was enacted: making literate activities personally relevant; bridging school and home literacies. My more positive "take-away" message from this article at a more general (humanist??) level is that teachers need to know their kids. We need to know what they know, and use that as a springboard for growth for the purposes of motivation and independent control of learning beyond the classroom.

Upon further reflection, the post-structuralist part of making learning purposeful and relevant in this article involves a recognition of our gendered "regimes of truth." In this case, the fact that living a particular masculine identity influences the very possibilities of connecting personal literacies to school literacies. And if we do not tend to this pervasive, almost invisible structure, kids lose out. But even more remarkable in this article, is that kids will actively engage in attempting those connections without you! The agency required to reshape school tasks into something more befitting one's identity as a boy is impressive. What is of concern is that these displays of agency and literacy are misread by teachers as things like defiance or avoidance.

And so the value of deconstructing gender identities as they inform a child's motivations and readings of a task we set up for them becomes key. The first act of deconstruction is simply recognizing that boys might behave a certain way, transforming school tasks to suit their identities. If we do not see this, boys will act on their own, and those actions often go misinterpretted by teachers. A little awareness of something so usually pervasive and nearly invisible goes a long way.

Some concerns, however, continue to nag me after reading this piece. While I appreciate the value of making school sensitive to masculine identities, I wonder if it doesn't stop short there. I mean, OK, it's great to recognize that boys might need more time to settle down, or that the types of stories they get into involve a lot of action, or that literate activity is used as a tool to build and maintain social relationships (the whole social-cultural capital thing). This article is a good stepping stone for the unveiling of structures that can get in the way of our teaching, and even unfairly mark boys as less than they really are when it comes to literacy. But, the article does not move further into deconstruction. These gender identities are merely recognized and, I daresay, pandered to. All children should be provided structured choices that allow them to experience education that is personally relevant. But with learning also comes growth beyond seeing ourselves in one limited way. Recognizing a certain kind of boyness (most, but not all boys fit the mold revealed in this piece) and using it as a way into learning is one thing. But showing boys that they do not have to be bound to one way of living, thinking, feeling is quite another that goes unexamined here. It's almost too reverent of stereotypes here.

Which is why I was happy to have also read the Davies article: Constructing and Deconstructing Masculinities through Critical Literacy. The examples of teacher interactions with boys in this piece show how the -- what I have referred to as stereotypical -- masculine identities cannot only be recognized and even celebrated, but also employed in the service of deconstructing those indentities so that masculinity can become something more and new. The goal is not only to make boys feel good about being boys in school by valuing how their cultures expect them to behave as boys. It actually opens up new, even liberating, ways to express boyness. Boys can feel heroic, tough, etc. and still express emotion and all those other girlie things!!!

In seeing through the deconstruction process, we are no longer simply pandering to binaries and regimes of truth. We are transforming the binary into multiple ways of being, in this case, male. As with most good teaching, there simply is a good bit of trickery involved! Getting boys to feel masculine about things previously relegated to the feminine may be necessary. But feeling safe with one's identity (gender and otherwise) intact is necessary for taking risks beyond the constraints that those same identities previously imposed. How insidious it is to think social construction, through the simple act of labeling a person in a binary, hierarchical sense like male/female, can actually be so invisible and presumed "natural," yet so pervasive and influential/constraining! While it is rather apparently unjust to impose constraints on the possible ways of being for the subordinate members of this binary (female), the dominant end of the binary is no more free to explore beyond their boundaries set by social expectations.

Alexis De Tocqueville didn't realize it, but his fears of the "tyranny of the majority" in a representative democracy such as ours was one of the first islands of post-structuralism in a sea of humanist/enlightenment thinking. While we have freed ourselves of kings and other more salient tyrants, we still have much work to do on breaking loose from those less obvious, yet perhaps more debilitating, shackles we have imposed upon ourselves as a society. The fact that the names we give things can so shape something as deep in our cores as our very own desires and our possible selves is quite amazing at best.

Response to prompt 1- I hope I've never been called a Poofter!!

In response to your propmt for the Martino article, It is amazing how boys (and girls for that matter) have to acta certain way that is gender acceptable. I have been around, and probably even spreading rumors about a boy during my school years, that made them fac`e a hard decision. " Change peoples perceptions of you or be a squid or an outsider. Imagine trying to be like someone you hate, (football-surfie guys) just so they leave you alone knowing that others like you now hate yu as well. Peer preasure is a messed up thing for sure!!!