He’s A High School Teacher Who Thinks We’re Failing Boys By Not Dishing Out Consequences For Their Disrespectful Behavior
Austin is a high school teacher living in the South who goes by @awillmake it on TikTok, and he teaches world history.
He recently shared a video discussing how he thinks we’re “failing our boys pretty hard” after witnessing some behavior in his own classroom that alarms him.
Austin makes a great point that high school is the last stop on the bus before you’re launched right into adulting.
As a teacher, Austin feels that it’s his responsibility to make sure his kids know not only how to interact with other people but also how to maintain a level of respect when out there in the world.
“But we’re seeing 18 to 25-year-old men who are completely unsocialized, who are lonely, who are honestly incredibly crass,” Austin explains in his video.
Austin says these young men are making jokes that are simply deplorable and centered on hurting others, death, or divisiveness.
Austin wonders where it is that young men get the memo that it is perfectly acceptable to behave in this way before answering his own question and turning the camera to face his own classroom.
He’s beginning to realize that nobody is pushing back when young men make such horrific jokes.
“It’s not a joke, it’s at the expense of somebody who, as a teenage boy, you don’t experience it, you’re not afraid of it,” Austin adds.
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“You’re not a girl walking home alone at 10 p.m. in the dark, wondering if…you’re going to even make it home.”
“They’re making these jokes here, in the classroom, in the hallway, to their friends, between classes, openly in the middle of class.”
Austin wonders if this happens in middle school, which he suspects has to be the case. When Austin catches kids in his class testing the limits with their jokes, Austin calls them out.
He details one incident with a male student who was rude and inappropriate with him when he outlined to them that their harmful joke was not hilarious in the least.
So, sadly, Austin isn’t always getting through to them even though he’s trying his best. But why should it be only on Austin to do something about it? I mean, where are their parents?
Presumably, if they feel comfortable conducting themselves in such a way at school, they’re mimicking that behavior at home.
“These kids need to be shamed, and I know that’s not something that we really talk about,” Austin continues.
“But the idea of public shaming has always been a thing that humans have done to make sure that social stuff works, and right now, we’re not shaming these boys.”
“We’re not shaming them. They don’t experience shame. They feel like they can do and say whatever they want.”
Austin brings up consequences, which is something these kids aren’t experiencing either. There is no consequence for their bad behavior, and Austin maintains that this absolutely has to start changing out there.
Austin feels it’s part of his job, and the job of all male teachers, to serve as good role models for their male students and make it obvious to them what it looks like to be a good man.
I have to applaud him for this and for making sure that young men understand that cruel jokes, causing girls to feel terrible, and laughing at people who are struggling are not signs of a good man at all.
Austin tries to instill values like helping others, being supportive, and cheering your peers on. But he’s one person taking this all on, and he sees we have a long way to go.
Austin notices that young men are disrespectful to female teachers, too, and not only just to their female classmates.
“We have to be the ones to be in their face and go, ‘You’re being a bad person right now. You are choosing to be a bad person right now, and I don’t know why you’re choosing that. I don’t know what about your life right now is putting you in a position where you feel like you could just be a jerk,'” Austin says.
Austin insists that we have to do something to correct this, especially since these young men are making young women feel like they are not safe.
Austin thinks these young men don’t want to be like this, but since they largely don’t get called out, they don’t really know any better.
“Let’s actually take the effort to remind them of who they want to be in life, and then hold a mirror up to them and say, ‘Is that who you’re being? I don’t think so, bud,'” Austin concludes.
Do you agree with Austin’s message, and do you think this should extend beyond just the classroom, enforcing consequences with young men so they grow up to do and be better?
“Not a teacher, but I am Gen Z. I think the mentality of “boys will be boys” is still lingering around. Boys don’t get shamed for things to the extent that girls do, and they get reinforced by peers,” one person commented on Austin’s video.
“As a lunch lady in a small pre-K-6 school, it’s terrifying. I spend so much time of my day talking to these kids about life. They don’t have people correcting them,” another added.
“I feel a part of this is because this is the first age group of kids that has grown up with unrestricted internet access most of their lives. They are so desensitized to things,” a third person said.
“It frightens me that empathy isn’t more prevalent with each generation,” someone else weighed in.
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