the outlier
hello,
Apologies for my lateness.
It’s one of those here there and everywhere weeks that crop up occasionally and it’s been both invigorating a little tiring at the same time. Nevertheless, paid subscribers have a couple of extra treats from me this week:
You can watch back my first ever Substack LIVE from last Thursday night! It was good fun to do and while I’m not sure if everyone received a notification or not at the time, you can see it back right here.
Then on Monday, there were musings, a reading roundup and a giveaway of Paul Millerd’s new book Good Work. Copies will be coming to Thaminah, Will and Ben (not me) – thanks for your support and I hope you enjoy the book!
the books📖
The highlight of the week has been kicking off another year of the boys’ literacy project I’m working on at Ferndown Upper School.
Last year ended up with the boys achieving academically on par with the girls for the first time ever and while I knew the work was rewarding, the fact it had some tangible results to point to made it more so.
After the 4 sessions I did with different groups of boys, I went to something called The Boys’ Impact Hub. This one was the original Dorset branch but they’re popping up around the country, aiming to address lagging educational outcomes for boys and based around principles that we bake into the sessions and their delivery style. Once I have more of the results data, I will put together a more comprehensive piece about this work which, to me, could be Good Work.
for your interest
truth to power and playing tennis
truth to power
It can be hard to see in yourself what others see in you.
Another writer recently told me I ‘speak truth to power’ and I laughed. It seemed highflown and a little silly.
But listening yesterday to people working in education as to why they felt boys education was important, perhaps I am. In brief, it seems like most people have given up on educating boys, particularly those from a lower socio-economic background. The Boys’ Impact Hub had a range of people who know there’s a problem and have actually come up with some solutions.
The tyranny of low expectations suffuses the current system. Some of the curriculum-mandated reading involves 14 year olds being read to by their teacher, who may or not be good or enthused about reading out loud, with the text I heard being used was Marcus Rashford’s You Are A Champion. I don’t much like Marcus Rashford (I’m an Arsenal fan and he’s performed some pubic twattery in recent times) but that aside, I’ve read this book of his. It’s for children.
When I was a teenage boy, if someone thought little of me, if they thought I wasn’t capable, then guess what? I’d think little of them too. I wouldn’t play their game. I’d think ‘fuck you very much’.
Another phrase I find useful when it comes to understanding the world is ‘leadership is incentive design’. Whatever you measure for or reward, official or not, is what people will do. School inspections currently don’t analyse results by gender. Boys’ underperformance does not specifically make a part of a school’s ranking, instead being mashed into the general mass of results. The schools are incentivised to improve results generally but boys are seen as a complex problem and one better left to one side. It’s better to cut loose the really shit students and get them out of there so the average doesn’t drop.
But what happens to these excluded students?
Anecdotally, those students often cost the taxpayer money by moving through the judiciary system.
I’m wary of scaremongering and of wooly work. There’s more to communicate here and perhaps another perspective. Despite that, I’d say I’m reporting what I heard this week from teachers who know the problem, know there’s something to be done, but can’t act as whistleblowers because they’ll never work in the sector again.
Fortunately for me, I’m not a teacher.
playing tennis
It’s not the greatest film I’ve ever seen but Challengers had me thinking. It’s a fun, low stakes but thought-provoking piece of work.
Zendaya plays a tennis prodigy and manages to capture the otherworldly maturity of the female supertalent. She explains to one of the boys vying for her attention that,
You don't know what tennis is […] It's a relationship.
The boys are going to play each other in a junior final with the winner getting to take her out but it feels like her character Tashi doesn’t much care who it is but what they can do on the court. She explains about her own final earlier that day:
For about fifteen seconds there, we were actually playing tennis. And we understood each other completely. So did everyone watching. It's like we were in love. Or like we didn't exist. We went somewhere really beautiful together.
The contest as a relationship is a fascinating idea. Challengers makes that metaphor quite literal but Tashi’s sentiment feels true to me.
a book
I’m very much enjoying Any Human Heart by William Boyd but I’ve still a short way to go. I’ll reserve judgement until next week.
a listen
I’ve not read anything by him but I will - this interview with Bret Easton Ellis’ drinking buddy Jay McInerney from their 90s heyday is good, if not clean, fun.
a quote
I think most writers, even the best, overwrite. I prefer to underwrite. Simple, clear as a country creek.
– Truman Capote
lastly
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I’ll see you next time.