“Can we put a fight in it?!” Every drama teacher will be familiar with that group of year 8 boys who can’t wait to put their ties around their heads and launch into a play-fight no matter what the topic.
After Netflix’s Adolescence, a national conversation is happening around boys and the expectations that masculinity lays on them.
Drama as a subject is potentially highly engaging and appealing to boys, but too often it becomes a subject that is seen as one for girls, with the official exam entry figures showing that only 1% of boys choose drama at GCSE.
What I found in my many years of teaching drama at secondary was that to engage boys in my lessons, I could use masculinity as a motivator. Here’s seven effective ways I found to do just that.
1, Dial down the emotion
Drama is a fantastic way to learn empathy and explore emotions; however, a public display of emotion is the complete opposite of what social constructs of masculinity tell boys they should be doing.
Curriculum topics that rely too quickly on emoting and deep exploration of vulnerability are likely to prove a barrier for boys. It is not that you can’t go there, but it is better if subjects are approached gently and gradually, offering non-exposing exercises and explorations until they feel comfortable enough to dig deeper. Going straight to personal revelations and vulnerability is only likely to appeal to a narrow band of boys while alienating the rest.
2, Use the physical
Boys are encouraged to be physical, so any exercises that engage them physically are more likely to key them into the lesson. The physicality needs to be controlled, and you need to avoid it becoming boisterous, but physical approaches to warm-ups or exercises are more likely to engage boys early on in the lesson. Physical theatre topics can work really well, but it has to steer clearly away from the balletic and the beautiful – works such as DV8’s Enter Achilles or some of Frantic Assembly’s work provide excellent examples of lyrical, physical work that also maintains their status.
3, Tension over violence
Younger boys tend to veer towards displays of physical aggression as their sense of the “dramatic”. You can tap into this by teaching proper stage combat techniques or maybe by embracing their bloodlust into a “casualty make-up” class.
By taking a positive view that they have a clear intention for play and physicality, the challenge is to use that impetus to create drama not violence.
At worst, insist they present fights in a stylised manner, but ideally get them to create a greater sense of drama by building tension with a simmering menace that never quite breaks into violence. This will avoid them getting carried away with recreating the latest Marvel action sequence and develop some useful skills in creating conflict without resorting to fisticuffs.
For example, the first scene of Romeo and Juliet is perfect with all its thumb-biting provocation. Boys will both recognise and enjoy the taunting and brinkmanship. Any text or situation is perfect where they get their dose of powerplay, but you are not fretting they are about to knock a tooth out.
4, Bring on the funny
Making others laugh is a high-status activity among boys, so make sure there are opportunities within your curriculum for them to produce work which has dramatic merit but includes aspects of comedy. Topics such as Commedia Dell’Arte with its slapstick and routines are great, parodying melodrama, or even some ancient Greek comedies can allow them the kudos of making others laugh while demonstrating meaningful drama skills.
If your curriculum reads like a misery-memoir of trauma and dispossession it is likely boys will disconnect, more so as they reach year 9 when you will likely struggle to get them to engage on anything more than a superficial level. While there is a place for the worthy and the dystopian, remember that drama comes from light and the joy too.
5, Pick your plays
Your choice of texts is critical for engaging boys. This is not to say it is got to be pieces about football but finding texts where they can relate to the male characters is really important; characters they would like to play; characters they would like to be.
This does not limit them to contemporary or issue-based plays, and I have seen boys flourish with a range of classic texts from the supressed menace of Pinter to the gay abandon of restoration comedy.
Sometimes the opportunity to play against their real-life “type” under the guise of drama is liberating. Character rather than issue is often the route into texts for boys who are very wary of looking “soft” or vulnerable in front of their peers.
6, Approach with cynicism
Boys may be reluctant to work on overly empathetic or emotional pieces; that is not to say we avoid them just that we approach them from a different angle. Boys may prefer to work from a satirical or documentary-type approach to a given theme or issue. In time they need to see that emotional engagement will help to strengthen their piece, but if they start with a brief which is less exposing – to undermine, to satirise or to challenge – then they are more likely to access the material more quickly: think Brecht over Stanislavski.
7, Validate their perspective
The well-worn duo of Shakers and Bouncers are a GCSE cliché, but creating work around the same issue from different perspectives both validates the experiences of boys and helps them to understand that their world view is not necessarily shared by their classmates of a different gender.
Ryan Calais Cameron’s recent work For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy provides a wonderful example of how the male perspective can be presented with both unity and diversity of experience. Validating their perspective and worldview is a really important way to counter labelling everything male as “toxic”, which only serves to drive teenagers to more extreme views.
Final thoughts
Boys are a diverse bunch, but what they all share is having to contend with the concept of masculinity both within society and among their peers.
As playwright James Graham recently commented: “Drama can’t fix everything, but it can help.” When boys buy in to drama, you can explore those concepts and up-end them, however that has to be built up over time through your curriculum choices.
By thinking carefully about how to make it a “high-status” activity which is not seen in conflict with their perceptions of masculine attributes, then you can teach boys to love drama, consider it for GCSE, and hopefully develop into better, more emotionally attuned men.
- Paul Jenkins is a former head of drama and a former headteacher who now works as a secondary effectiveness advisor specialising in curriculum at HFL Education. Formerly Herts for Learning, HFL Education is a not-for-profit organisation providing services, training and resources for schools. This year SecEd is working with HFL Education to publish a series of subject-specific best practice articles. Find all the articles in this series via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/hfl-education
Further information & resources
- Frantic Assembly: www.franticassembly.co.uk