Masculinity Education

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0:34Elliott:Hello and welcome to To Be A Boy with me Jolie Braley and me Elliot Ray. Today's guest is Lewis Wedlock. He is a masculinity educator from Bristol. He has spent the last five years working with thousands of young men and teachers across the UK designing and delivering several projects looking to explore ideas of masculinity. His debut book, Masculinities in Schools, was published by Sage in 2025. Lewis, welcome to the podcast. Hey Jodie Hayley, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited for this chat. Really, really excited to be here. Bro, we can't wait. So tell us first, like what got you into this work?

1:17The shorter version, because we could be here till four weeks into the future. But the early part of my career where I was kind of still trying to figure out where I was going what I was doing I've always had an interest in mental health and well-being conversations and an opportunity came up within a charity when based in Bristol that was working with young people specifically young people racialized as black and brown which is sort of my cultural background around sort of mental health well-being identity etc and for me there wasn't something that I was necessarily like attuned to or wanted to do at that point in my life I was interested by it but I ended up working in this space with a lot of young people from a range of different backgrounds and a range of different experiences and what ultimately materialized from those sort of learning experiences and work with young people was the need for specifically young men racialized as black and brown to have space to talk and discuss what it means to be a young man for them in that space and what inputs were impacting influencing them from you know a lived experience perspective but also that space being held and contained by someone that also had a similar lived experience and background and so on paper for me that sounded really scary and daunting because I had background in sort of holding space a little bit working with young people you know in some spaces teaching and delivering information but working with young men around masculinity as a young man myself I was around 23 at the time that felt really scary and daunting because I was like I need to be able to do this justice and I need to be able to do this in a way that feels authentic so before I even think about what this is going to look like I've got to go on this deep journey myself to be able to be authentically myself in those spaces and hold that space and so I ended up doing some of that work on myself and exploring and experiencing a lot which ultimately led to the design and delivering of those early stages of those of those workshops and for me what I got from there was something that I haven't got from anything in my work in my career up until this point which was a palpable in real time sense I'm I'm actually impacting and influencing the people in the space in real time and I'm giving them things that I feel like a lot of our community at the time have really benefited from and I could see the impact of those questions of those have you considered what does this feel like to you and working with them in that proximity was healing for me but also for them it gave them a foundation to kind of explore what it meant for them to be a young man so it was something that had such a profound impact on me personally and professionally I've dedicated my career to doing that in a range of different spaces now so I don't just work specifically with young men racialized as black and brown I work with young men and masculinities all over the UK with that same approach, that same ethos.

4:05Elliott:We have had on this podcast some people previously who have held space for young people, young boys in particular, young men. And they always say, if you give them the opportunity to talk, then it all comes out. And for parents listening like me who have two boys, I try and get my kids to open up to me and find it completely impossible that you know one of the eldest will not you know it's very difficult to get anything out of him at all the younger is more open but tell us a bit about that like what do you hear then in those spaces when you started having those conversations with those young men firstly like how do you think you got them to open up was it because they could associate with you and your experience or with the with the other techniques you used and what sort of things were you hearing in those spaces it's a great question i think first and foremost maybe the more real answer that i've often don't see maybe discussed as much in the space is that this actually takes time like I think a lot of the time what we do is we look at it in hindsight and go we got that we got the outcome or we got them to sort of you know share an experience who they are but there has been hundreds of times in my career where session one session two feels like a brick wall and it feels like I'm not getting anywhere and you kind of have that sense of maybe in the early days for me of like am I good enough to do this job like because is it working I'm not reaching them what's happening and over the years the experience i've gathered in that space is that sometimes that consistency of showing up and consistently being present and consistently keeping the same energy over time does open doors up you know in those spaces and so to be real for people listening to this that might be in that same heart posture and head posture of like i don't think this is working i've tried this there's times for me as a professional in this space where i'm a session in two sessions in and there is still there was those barriers up and that's absolutely fine that's absolutely okay what we can do in that space is create the safety for you to exist as you are and the safety for you to just take your time de-layering some of those what those barriers might be and instead of asking why you're not opening up for example it's like what about this feels uncomfortable or what about this feels strange or does this feel strange is that my assumption you know let's have that conversation about what that feels like for you so what i found over the years was that the most direct route which at times is still super challenging is modeling this process of what you're seeking if i'm in a space i'm asking people to be vulnerable or to open up aspects of themselves or to share and consider who they are as a facilitator i've got prepared to do some of that myself because young people can't model what they can't see there's this process of having to model a little bit of what you're seeking and also being authentically yourself because you'll know you know and the listeners will know as well young people they have some of the most finely tuned bs detectors on on planet earth so you come into a space and there's something off slightly or there's something that they sense it's like that's not you that's not you and it's that process of kind of marrying for lack of a better term authenticity with patience and actually saying you know i'm genuinely here for you when you're ready to bring aspects of yourself in sometimes i might take a session sometimes it might take three i'm going to be the same version of myself in here for you so you know this isn't an act and this isn't a performance i'm genuinely here for you in the space and i'm genuinely here to sit in that uncomfortability i'm genuinely here for you to sort of grapple with aspects that you might find challenging i never thought about this before from this perspective or you know i've never had someone sit down and just not have like an expectation of what they want like it's the sense of like i'm here where do you want to go that's feels strange to a lot of young people like i've never had someone just listen but what they're describing is i've never had space held for me where it's just us to kind of figure this out collectively and they do bring in aspects and elements of masculinity that we might want to challenge and explore and unpack but the way in which we do that is so important and the way in which we center nervous systems in the conversation is really important to me because you can't reach a young person who is approaching the conversation from a place of activation and sometimes the activation is how we might approach it sometimes the activation is cultural sometimes the activation is i'm uncomfortable in this space because i've never had this before but if you try and like force opening up or vulnerability or talk to me about this the barriers don't just shut down there's an extra layer that goes in so those are the kind of things that i am very conscious of in the work that i do and that has taken time for me to be able to refine and i'm still refining them i'm still thinking of ways to reach young people from a more holistic and truthful perspective there's always something that i'm refining but that's for me what has worked best over the years that i've been doing this work yeah and I think what you're saying there speaks to just the power of like proper investment.

8:49Because, you know, when we had youth clubs, it was a place where you can go every week or every day. And so you saw the same people, the same youth worker, the same other young people that were there. So you actually built a genuine, authentic relationship because you were just in the same space for a period of time consistently. Whereas I think now where there's lack of investment in the sector. So it's more like one off pieces of work. And, you know, I might get asked to go into an assembly and speak to some young people for an hour. And it's like, yeah, cool. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure you can inspire some people in an hour or whatnot, but having a longer term, properly funded investment program where you can meet the same people in a space.

9:22And as you said, Lewis, get to know them genuinely every period of time. And so we need that investment to make sure people like yourself can do that properly without rushing it in an hour and solving the world in these 60 minutes, which we're asked to do so often. 100%, 100 % agree. Yeah, absolutely.

9:38Elliott:Kids just don't get that opportunity, do they? most boys don't get that opportunity to sit down with somebody and open up and know that there isn't any anything they're trying to get out of you during that conversation they're just this just is an opportunity to talk and say what's on your mind with somebody that you trust it's very rare do you know when I first did therapy a few years ago the first session was so awkward because he was basically like talk to me and so I would talk to him and then I would kind of stop like you do in a conversation right i would stop to wait for him to respond and he would just wait for me to carry on talking i thought this is super this is super weird because like i'm clearly paying you to listen to me but it doesn't feel normal if you don't really do that in your day-to-day life so of course yeah i think young boys don't get much time but i think as this human beings we don't actually get many spaces boys girls men women to actually just talk and someone be there for us even in our friendships or our relationships there's often something to plan something to do there's an agenda there's there's things to do in this busy life right so yeah just holding space for yourself where you can just talk and be listened to like it's it's unique and amazing and same time we're cutting pastoral care and uh you're seeing it in schools across the board pastoral care is being cut there's no programs like this and so parents are desperately he's trying to fill that gap and I think it's really important what you said about being vulnerable you know being prepared to open up a model something that you want to see from your children because I think it's kind of parents sometimes don't think about it like that they think they have to take this parent role which is very stoical and actually sometimes if you let your kids see that you are you can be vulnerable and you I mean I now ask my kids for advice on things because I think I want them to ask me advice so in order for them to ask me I say things like so I've got this friend and you know this thing's happened and I don't know what to do about it and I'm I mean mostly their advice is terrible I'll be honest but that still I think well at least they're seeing that we can have these conversations yeah 100 % Lewis you describe yourself as a masculinities educator what does that mean great question what that means is that I hold space, I design and deliver, whether it's programs, assemblies or workshops for young people, but mostly young men and masculine, it is to explore masculinity from a range of different perspectives, to consider their ideas of what it might mean to be a man, where they come from, really think about what they're putting into this presentation.

12:21That's kind of what I've done for the last six years. And that's why I use the term masculinity, educate them as that sort of umbrella term. What do you do then if you're sitting with these young people and one of them, a boy says something that you think that that's not great.

12:38Elliott:Where have you got that from? My kids do it every so often. They'll say something. I'll be like, whoa, where's that come from? What's your response in those scenarios? So I call it a self-contextualizing invitation. So often the instinct is to go, what? Like I call it tut-tutology. Yeah. So it's that type of theology of using judgment to create the response of, I can't do that. Often that there's a shutdown, any sort of conversation or any sort of reflection space, because it happens at least once, twice a week in any space that I'm in. It's a question of, well, help me to understand where you're coming from with that.

13:12Or help me to understand why that feels correct to you. Or help me to see where you're coming from, from that perspective. because what that then does for me is that allows the young person's space to contextualize a point that they may have but as a facilitator it gives me a space to go how deeply rooted is that idea is it a regurgitation or is it something that you really believe if you can trace the source of this is why i think what i think and this is what it means to me i've now got a lot more information to work with in terms of how i might go about challenging that so how i might go about holding space for that how i might go about contextualizing that point of view but sometimes i'll instinct response to go into topology posture which is like how dare you that's disgrace but but it shuts down lots of nutrients to be able to sort of digest and think okay wait where is that coming from for you and so i've then got follow-up questions for that after that help me to understand what it looked like if that was challenged from this perspective or what would it take for you to think about something in this conversation differently like there's almost coaching style questions that are getting the main skill that's being sort of refined is reflection because my argument to the young people that I've always made is this is your space to share what you think but if you can't trace that and root that in something that's not your idea that's a borrowed perspective that's something you're borrowing it's not a belief you have so I don't open with a shame posture or a blame posture there's a curious engagement and I often say and I borrowed this from Tim Ross and Preston Morrison, the curious versus furious frame.

14:42Really difficult to be curious and furious at the same time. But what curiosity does for young people is it acts as a doorstop for them in a conversation. If you approach it furiously, that door often gets shut. If you approach it curiously, you've got a doorstop in front of them to be able to go, okay, can I come in and explore that some more? It creates greater depth in those conversations. So that's kind of the methods that are kind of combined together in the work. Lewis, this might sound like a job interview question, but can you give us an example of um some some of the things that young people are saying to you that does make you think wow yeah i mean the most common one is when it comes to ideas of masculinity once i've defined it and i kind of contextualize it for them that's another conversation point we might touch on but like once we kind of have a shared language of what we're speaking about often what comes in to the conversation i'm asking well my job as a man is to protect and and provide for example but then after that it's you know i've got you know have a partner that that serves me hold on time out gang what does serve mean for you help me to understand what serve means well you know i've got to be cooked for clean for you know etc like so help me to understand why that's important to you as a man well you know obviously i might hurt earning money protecting providing okay time out what is it about you being a man that means you've got to protecting provides in that sense well you know it's just the way it's always been has it well yeah that always has been a process how can you be sure about that well actually okay time out for that i'll let you think about that that's the reflection break for them to process wait i'm just there's lots of questions i don't have the answer to that well then go back to this idea of service and serving why is that important to you in the sense of like i have to be like basically what you're describing to me from my opinion from my perspective and i'm happy to be challenged if you think that I'm coming at this totally wrong, but you're almost describing someone that just like waits on hand and foot for you.

16:34Well, not quite like that, but you know, it's like, I've got to be able to do what I need to do and they've got to fulfill their role. What's their role though? Because they go often ambiguously and like, you know, that's the role of, when we get into the soil of it, it's like, well, the role of the woman is to stay at home and clean and cook for me and to raise a family for me. Okay, help me to understand why that is your perspective on this where is this coming from and then often that opens up doors for see it online or it's the way in which i've seen it growing up or i've seen it you know in spaces but what that does then is it creates those conditions for reflection but as you might have seen or heard it's not from a why would you think that it's follow-up questions that are just simply adding how why where what does that look like and if they get to a point where they're starting to go i'm not sure then is that conversation of okay but you seem so sure of it at the start though and if you're not sure about a perspective that you hold but you're arguing something just for the purpose now of like that this is what i believe there's nothing wrong with taking a step back and going i actually don't know the answer to that question because then that's an honest answer that's an honest perspective and what that then does is opens up a conversation around so how do we perform these ideas of masculinity then because often that performance of well as a man i need to do this and this is what it looks like those are regurgitated ideas that we've associated with what being a man means in that context my job as a man in this space is to give that answer to give that perspective to give that point of view and what i'm trying to get boys to think about in those spaces is does that have to be the way because in those ideas that you're describing you're not just describing your ideal version of what's happening you're also describing dynamics that if we don't check that if we don't look at that critically we might be causing harm to ourselves and others in those spaces so that's one example there's a lot of what i call borrowed phrases from the internet let's pause on that one because i think that example is really really good and i love the way like you help them to unpack their views and then to question and reflect and get to the point where it's like actually why do i believe that but on that point of like serving it's so interesting to me and i'm interested to get your views on how much you think they get these narratives from online because when i was younger and dating and whatnot me and my friends we never really thought about that at all when we were looking for a partner we know we never thought about oh someone i'm going to provide and protect and and they're going to serve that just wasn't in our minds it was like who are you attracted to who do you get on with who do you want to vibe who like it was that kind of stuff like we never really thought that deeply about it but obviously we didn't have the internet like we do now so there was no one telling us this is what we should look for and these are the roles that we should play so it was it was way more natural I'm not saying it was perfect just many 30 years ago but I think it was a much more in some ways pure approach to finding a partner whereas now many young people are told this is who you are this is who they should be and this is who you should be together like how much do you think the online world is just kind of influencing those young people's views particularly around that they should serve me in a relationship I mean it plays a role across a range of ideas of masculinity.

19:48There's two parts to my opinion on this. I think you've got the online sphere now, which in many ways capitalizes off the complexity of the conversation that we're having. When we're talking about what does it mean to be a man or to perform a gendered identity, that is a super complex conversation because we're not just talking about what it means to us. We're also talking about the cultural context that we're in, the communal context, upbringing, life experience. There's so much in that that's really complex and really difficult to really get into the soil of, well, this is what it means to me.

20:18The online world in many spaces is capitalizing off of the complexity by offering seductive, simple answers to a very complex question. I've often argued for young people specifically, not just young men, but young people, they are a generation now that are having to answer questions that their generational predecessors didn't have to consider. Even for me as someone that's a generation removed, I wasn't having conversations in school about what's masculinity what does it mean to be a man but where do these behaviors come up in this where do they come from they're very deep culturally reflective questions and it's complex because you've got someone like me giving a perspective you've got teachers giving a perspective you've got parents giving a perspective sports coaches community leaders giving different ideas it's very hard to know what's truthful and what's not so then you've got this simplistic seductive answer online well being a man is this and it's always been this and anyone tells you anything else and not telling you the truth it's simple it's clear and offers a sense of rootedness that is often trying to be found in the match this conversation add into that the complexity around identity in general for young people who am i in this space i'm trying to grow into myself i don't know who i need to be i'm trying to figure out this whole who i am as a person outside of the online space you've also got those internal conversations and and you know considerations that are happening.

21:39So you add those together, you've got a mixture of a lot of different impacts and influences around who am I? What does it mean to be a man in this context, in this conversation? What does it mean to be a human being in this space that is shaping some of those ideas? What doesn't help is that those ideas around being a man that are rooted in the protect, provide the alpha mindsets, et cetera, are hyperviral. So they get seen a lot. They get shared a lot. There's a social metric of this is the right way because look how many likes it's got, look how many views it's got, look how many comments it's got, if it's got all of these things and it must be right, it must be true.

22:12Because if it wasn't, they wouldn't be in this position right now. So it's all of those impacting and influencing factors that when a young person goes into the offline communities and brings some of those ideas in, they can be either supported or they can either be challenged. Or sometimes because it's so complex, there's a sense of indifference. And as a result of that, you see some of these ideas taking hold because there is a desire to challenge some of the ideas but also a lack of awareness of what exactly exists on those spaces and how do they impact and influence and infiltrate are those actual belief systems are they actually regurgitations there's a complexity that takes hold where simplicity and clarity are often seen as this sort of metrical confidence and actually the conversation we're having is a lot more complex a lot more you know deeply rooted that you need time to unpack and de-layer some of those conversations and those perspectives in a way that a 45 second clip is never going to do and I think that's something that I see a lot in those conversations that I'm having yeah I mean it seems

23:12Elliott:to me you are you are teaching these children critical thinking skills as well as coaching them and being essentially therapists and listening to them and that is something that is so important in the current landscape because kids have all this information being thrown at them constantly and they need the skills to be able to sift through that information to figure out what they actually believe and what is true and what is false and you know it's one of the reasons why we're seeing the rise of the hard right at the moment because it's simple messaging that people feel oh right okay that's the reason why this is happening they latch onto it it's the same with misogyny and it's the same with online influencers and your book talking about masculinities in schools and and I don't see this happening in schools I don't see these critical thinking skills being taught in schools from my experience with my children you know it seems like rote learning is still happening in most classes you know who cares about your poops Ollie does that's why Ollie's science-backed gut health lineup helps support your family's regularity from daily probiotics to fiber gummies your kiddos will love find it all on Ollie.com that's O-L-L-Y.com these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration this product is not intended to diagnose treat, cure, or prevent any disease

24:46Elliott:This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. what would you say then from all of your research and your work in schools what are schools not doing that is so important so i think it's a really interesting question because i always thought the answer to this question with a lot of what schools are doing comes from a deeply well-intentioned space and they often are in some ways presenting opportunities for young people to explore and expand on ideas of masculinity and other aspects of gender performance.

25:44I think a posture that I spend a lot of time working with educators around in this work is the current educational context for me. There was a lot of talk in that, do this, don't do that, because. Do this, don't say that, because. In some ways, it's a cosplaying of competence because we're telling you what to do, what to say and what to think, and why this is bad, why this is harmful or bad in this sense. For the audio listeners, I'm using inverted commas because often there's not a contextual nature to why, it's just this is bad because, or this is bad and it's locked off after because I'm not giving cultural context.

26:16There's a lot of depth that's sometimes missing with the talking at approach. For me, there's a talking withness that needs to be implemented in these spaces because the question I often ask educators in this space is, so what is it like to be a teenage boy in this context right now? And there's a lot of answers and ideas. What is this in social media? How can you be so sure about that? Well, you know, we see it in the data. We see it on the online content. okay, cool. When was the last time you spoke to your young people about it? When did you actually sit with your young person or young people and go, what is it like for you to be a young person?

26:48What am I missing as an educator? What am I missing as someone that has responsibility over you in this space? Where are my assumptions taking me which isn't truthful to you? And those are really complex questions in a cultural and educational context that's often positioned power. We will do it this way because as the sort of metric of leadership and orderly spaces, when we're talking about something like masculinities we're talking about something that is culturally fluid and plural there is a range of different ideas and perspectives there is no talking at approach for something that changes almost daily in some way shape or form so if you're not talking with the young people that you're working with and you're not asking them as experts of what it is to be them then you are not identifying in your individual cultural context school where the most potent work needs to be anchored in in the direction of if you're making the assumption that the data says this therefore we need to do that without sense checking that and exploring that with the young people that you're working with then from my opinion you're missing a really important opportunity to be able to ascertain exactly what the young people need in a way that might differ to what the data suggests or what might differ from what the suggestion might be from this particular space and place what are your young people saying about what it is to be them and where are your assumptions leading you potentially away from something that isn't going to be as fruitful for them in the context of the work you're producing that which leads me on to my second point showing young people how to think not what to think and this is something that i often say a lot in the work that i do there is a critical thinking posture that's needed in our work with young people and masculine it is where we're not just saying think this do this this is good because this is bad because we're showing young people how to inspect and reflect on their own ideas and perspectives not with the intention getting them to a specific point of and then we think this and then we do that but actually how do you critically examine and reflect on your ideas and perspectives people often look at the work that i do online and they think wait lewis is going in and just you know talking to them in this way absolutely not my perspectives and my beliefs from what i think masculinity work should be and what it looks like are my perspectives and ideas it would be in my opinion quite ignorant and arrogant of me to walk into a space with young people and go this is what i think and i've been doing this for a few years so we're going to do it this way all right cool actually how can i create space for young people to arrive at their own conclusions whilst also keeping the integrity of this is how we keep each other safe this is how we challenge harmful ideas and behaviors this is how we approach difficult conversations whilst keeping that individual autonomy and agency in that space that for me is what i often think is missing there's a blanketization of what masculinity work should look like which in some spaces works really well but in others doesn't work as well doesn't work as fruitfully or as potently because we might not have checked in with the young people that we're working we haven't talked with them we haven't seen them as co-collaborators instead of just recipients of a prescriptive approach that for me is what i think is missing and again to be super clear this isn't a tutelogy of the education system i understand the instinct i understand the ways in which you know the current flows of work are approached but that's the benefit of someone like myself and other professionals like myself coming in to be able to work alongside to create that space.

30:01It's not therapy when I speak to the young people that I work with. It's just a conversation and a reflection space for them to consider when this happens, this is what I feel and this all comes up. That ability to be able to put those things into words only comes from a talking with posture and from that approach of showing young people how to think and formulate as opposed to what to think.

30:21Elliott:I wonder if that happens in private schools but It doesn't happen in academies. I know a teacher, secondary school teacher, who I think does do stuff like this in class with kids. You won't tell them what to think ever. He like opens up conversations and debates and lets them, you know, talk more openly about stuff in their own lives. And he's a great, great teacher, but I think he's an anomaly actually. And again, this is no disrespect to teachers. Good grief, their job is difficult. And the pressure on them is enormous and the pay is nowhere near what it should be for what they're doing. And I don't think this is taught to teachers.

30:57Elliott:I don't think teachers are in their training told, you know, how to do this and hold those spaces. And, of course, it can be quite dangerous because you do have teachers that have misogynistic views. You do have teachers that are racist. You do have teachers that are homophobic. 100%. So, you know, you've got to have the right person opening up those doors and opening up those conversations with our kids. Is there, like, a particular subject where you think this is more likely to happen than others i'm just thinking like for parents that are listening that are thinking yes i agree so much with you and i'm so sad that my child is not getting this in the education system and other children are not getting this in the education system when they're going to parents evenings are there certain subjects where you think this is more likely to happen so they can like push it with the teachers and be like how are these conversations You know, are you encouraging debate?

31:48Elliott:Are you encouraging a critical thinking? I mean, the short form answer is the PSHE curriculum, which we see. And to be honest, from my perspective, there's a greater investment. When I speak to some young people now across the year groups, they'll often say, we've heard about masculinity in this space, in this particular lesson, in this part of the curriculum, which is really useful to hear and encouraging to hear. But I think that's the most logical fit. But I think there's something also about those, sometimes those dedicated spaces outside of formalized curriculums as well as a way of creating those conditions for reflection.

32:24Because then you can have those conversations in the corridor. I often say to staff, like, this must be embedded across parts of the curriculum. But also, sometimes the most potent opportunity for those conversations is a brief corridor exchange where you see something unfolding. And you're like, wait, no, no, don't have a conversation about that. or in lunchtime or on the football courts or wherever it is, there's ability to see and observe and have those conversations in real time in the sort of fluidity and unpredictability of school cultures that just appears out of nowhere. There's something that I think is really important to be able to hold those postures in those spaces too.

32:56Because you're right, from my experience, it isn't something that's necessarily invested a lot into from a training perspective. It's either you've got it as a sort of personal skill set from maybe previous work or from a certain life experience that you're able to bring in. But I think there's something about those competencies that are really important across the board, not just for masculinity work, but for any conversation where protected characteristics are centred in that discourse. And do you get a sense of how many schools are investing in people like yourselves to come in to do sessions?

33:26And since Adolescence came out, for example, do you think that's increased? Are schools looking for people like you more? When I started doing this in 2020, end of sort of 2020 into 2021, it was almost a question of, so what is this work you're doing? And why is this work happening? And you kind of get towards the end of 2022, where there was some high profile arrests that were being made that, you know, shook a lot of educators. I mean, wait, hold on, who are these people? that was a wave of interest in terms of the work but since then there's been a consistency post adolescence as well and the Louis III documentary too but also just in relation to some of the guidance that we're seeing across education as well there is a greater investment in conversations that relate to masculinity but also conversations around gender-based violence misogyny sexism where schools are looking at it from this sense of okay let's make sure we're able to approach this in a way that's most fruitful so i'd say generally speaking there is a greater interest and investment desire to invest but also there's a greater awareness now because it's been something that's been occurring at the wider cultural level there's a greater what i call conceptual context about okay this is what we're talking about oh this absolutely applies to us in this space oh it's absolutely something we need to work on something that we need to approach not from a deficit position but like no actually this is deeply important and this is something we need to make sure that we're approaching you know in a way that transforms cultures and behaviors as opposed to just like one and done which i think is beautiful to see and encouraging to see in the in the work that's happening and the sessions that you do do they take place during the school day is do they replace they would normally do in history and they're seeing you like how do they work in the structure of the school day so they typically will come out from a lesson but they will not miss the same like it's not the same lesson that they'll consistently miss if we're working over a four week sort of period or something like this and a lot of this sort of deep work for lack of a better term tends to sort of occur maybe this part of the year as well where lesson plans are important but there's sort of a tapering down for the year how do we set this up for the new sort of academic year and are the boys selected or is it just the whole year group how does it normally work in regards to who sees you it depends so in some spaces i'm sort of in because of logged behaviors or beliefs perhaps for lack of a better term that needs to be critically explored and examined in some spaces it's just a posture of i think our boys will really benefit from this across the board and i think both can be really productive and fruitful but you know typically for the workshop spaces i don't have lots of boys in the room because 30 boys there's a lot of what i call social desirability where we will gravitate to the energy of the collective whereas with a smaller group there's less likely to be influenced and if there is we can name it as a smaller group and actually sort of root down into what we're

36:16Elliott:actually thinking what we're actually feeling it's a big risk for schools to do stuff like this i imagine because they're already tight on funding and they're not assessed on it you know it's not part of ofsted is it it's not part of anything so they're doing it out of knowing that it's necessary but without any of the sort of praise or any of the ployed of doing it at all and spending money on it feels to me like this should be something that the government is looking at how do we open up these conversations better in school I mean they've obviously added misogyny to the curriculum and as far as I understand it they've sort of just gone there we go we've added misogyny to the curriculum sorted carry on I don't know because I'm not sitting in misogyny classes but I don't know how much good that's doing or whether they're assessing whether that's making any improvements you know to the way that boys think about their relationship with girls it feels like it's something that the government should be more aware of the benefits of that if you have a parent if we have a parent listening who wants to encourage their school to do more stuff like this and they want to sort of write write a letter into the school have you got anything that you could share with us that we could put in the notes that you would add into that letter to say why this is so important?

37:28The first step, honestly, and this might sound quite, you know, basic, and I think it's really important, is bringing this work to school's attention. Just, do you know this is happening? Do you know this work takes place? Do you know that these people are doing this particular type of work, this organisation here, this, you know, professional here, they might see us as like just online content creators, but actually the work that we do is actually rooted in school spaces. So I'm happy to provide some links, but also, you know, provide some resources as well for schools to actually get their heads around this is the current context so you've had uh the chambers on as well voice the boys report fantastic piece of data and rooting amazing for for schools and professionals to kind of see what the layer of the land is the state of uk men by beyond the quality in eccomando another fantastic piece of data that provides context for why some of this work is important but also where future work might be

38:18Elliott:you know anchored towards and ultimately surely the work that you do improves behavior in schools which improves educational attainment i mean if you have more harmony between boys and girls which is some of the work that you're doing that's inevitably going to create better behavior everybody at higher rates of well-being in schools and therefore better educational outcomes it makes for sure sense to me yeah but people don't see that link naturally so i've got a saying i borrowed from a dear friend, Matt Phelan, who does work in the organizational happiness space. That's just summed up my whole approach in a way.

38:54He's like, data is the plural of anecdote. He's like, we often look at data as the facts and figures say this, but what we're not looking to do is really understand the stories that underpin that data. So we look at a data source and go 79 % of da-da-da-da. But what's really important for us is to actually look at the stories and how those stories shape the data that we're looking at. So for me, the data that I try and produce is the anecdotal case study depictions of young people that might have come into a space. And for me, at the end, they've evidenced so many behaviors that have changed in a short amount of time because there was space for them to kind of look at all the pieces that they've got in front of them and construct what that means for them and how that shows up in their behaviors and their beliefs.

39:41So, you know, like I've got so many examples of boys that have evidenced that richness of going through a journey and then applying those learnings in the spaces that they're a part of. Challenging peers, challenging the sort of friends that they have. That's not a funny joke because it's not even a joke, actually. What you're doing now is a stereotype. I can't run in this space. Six weeks before they were in that space saying those same things. It's not that deep. it's not that big of a deal but when you actually take the time to explore and explain that to young people it might not be a big deal to you because it's just a joke right but the impact of what you've said has really harmed somebody just because you didn't mean to do it doesn't mean that it didn't cause harm so I use a an analogy of like younger like year sevens to year nines when I'm often explaining in terms of the rest of the experience what I'm saying to young people is like do you know what happens when you mix coke and mentos together they go what's this guy talking about?

40:39Yeah, obviously the Mentos makes the joke explode. Sure, sure. But you probably looked at Mentos for the first time and thought, how can something so small and seemingly insignificant create such a big reaction? That's the same thing with your behavior. To you, that seems small and insignificant, but it lands in the right context, in the right situation. It creates a big response, creates a big reaction. And you've got to take responsibility for that in terms of what you thought you were doing and what you've actually done. And recognizing that next time you want to say something that you think is just a joke or not that deep remember the mentors of cooking energy are you putting something into a context that might cause a reaction and if so is it better not to say it and touch deep park that and leave it to the side or challenge someone that does it but what we're often trying to do is go in with the concepts first but that changes their behaviors going back to the point of once they've got that in their conceptual awareness they see it playing out in their classroom environments and they're able to identify it because they've identified it within themselves i've been there before but because i've reflected on it i can see that my appeal is going through that same process i'm going to stop him and i'll have a conversation with him i'm going to talk to him about this i need to challenge him on this not because i want to argue with him because i actually care too much about him for him to think that that's okay

41:48Elliott:is that moderating in a way that yeah you are teaching them how to like moderate each other as well as how to think themselves about what they're saying for sure but it only comes from modeling what you seek going back to the first questions that you asked me you know young people have to see that being modeled so if i'm in a session and i say something that isn't quite right now this streamer didn't say this well that's not what they really can't but okay let me go ahead and go and check that next week oh you know what you're right that's on me you know thanks for that i appreciate that because i was about to go into another space and say the same thing thank you for checking me thank you for challenging me i appreciate that learning experience that modeling of being challenged about turning it into a disrespect or you know a battle for power whatever that is creates the conditions for them to approach that in their own friendship group i'm not attacking you bro i care too much about you for you to think that's okay like we approach this in a different way and it comes across as care as opposed to condemnation and what condemnation often does going back to that doorstop is it shuts the door for accountability because the nervous system so activated no i'm not in the wrong when actually you can get into that heart posture by just approaching it with that care and that consideration that often we don't do not because we're not trying to because we've been conditioned to approach behavioral management in specific ways that for me is kind of how that manifests in how young people are presenting once that work is done and how they show up in the space for themselves and for others once this is done there was a this is the last point but there's a conversation someone had with me a couple of weeks ago a young person he came up to me and he said so what does challenging the normal look like and I said well challenging the normal looks like not trying to be perfect all the time but being committed to constantly progressing so you might not get things right all the time you're not an avenger but what challenging the norm looks like is speaking up sometimes getting it wrong sometimes maybe needing to refine it a little bit but making the effort to take a stand making the effort to show up in those spaces committing yourself to progression instead of perfection and it goes well what happens if you lose people along the way and I was like that might happen but what happens in from the flip side what might you gain who might you gain what might come out of the situation from you taking the stand you might influence and challenge behaviors instead of you know just pretending everything's okay that's a broad position that you can take that's something that you can think about moving forwards and in that moment that fear of what happens if I'm pushed away what happens if it was contained but also that encouragement was still there keep going this is something that is going to happen but someone needs to go first that then changes culture because you've empowered someone to recognize it isn't about perfection it's about progression and i'm modeling that process of becoming instead of trying to be the perfect vendor in this context if you get people okay with making mistakes and owning them taking accountability for them you change cultures a lot quicker than trying to get things perfectly first time brilliant thank you Lewis final question what gives you hope about the future with this generation of boys because I work mostly with masculinities and within that misogyny sexism violence against women and girls a lot of people go it's probably some heavy work though Lewis right and at times it can be what I see week in week out evidence in young boys that I haven't seen in my generation that I haven't seen maybe two three years ago is a genuine desire to ask questions and a genuine desire to reflect and think about some of the ideas that they hold there is a curiosity that's present and palpable in these young boys that recognize there's probably some things I don't know I'm hearing this phrase from young people more than I've ever heard it before in my career correct me if I'm wrong though because I don't know that's beautiful to hear because there's a posture of I might not have this fully right and what I have as a reference point might not be the full picture help me to get a grasp on this there is that appetite from young people that is present from really young down to you know boys that are finishing year 11 moving into sixth form spaces there is a recognition that a lot of this online content that's being consumed as an example is given a specific angle not the full picture and actually I need to speak to people that helped me position this full picture in front of me how did you approach it what am i missing there is an appetite that goes i'm interested and curious to know and explore more and that for me is what gives me hope and that's what shows me that the work with boys and men when approached with this love caring compassion compatible and accountability are compatible not compete in pursuits they exist simultaneously they exist in the tension of we can focus on the experiences of men and boys and also challenge harmful ideas of masculinity that hurt women and girls simultaneously the love is across their approach not and or it's both and they can exist simultaneously but our responsibility as adults is to be able to help them steward that not place all the emphasis on their shoulders at ages that they might not understand the full complexity of the world but to coach them and mentor them through that process so that's what gives me hope and that's why i'm excited about in this work i love that i love that you're seeing kids more able to sit with their discomfort as well because I think that's such a skill such an important thing to learn to do to get comfortable with being uncomfortable Lewis thank you thank you very much for joining us thank you very much for all your wisdom and insight we will drop into the show notes some information about you but tell us tell us where people can find you if they're interested sure you can find me across social media platforms um it's just my name at liver sweat lot my website and the book and things like this and my podcast if you want to check out more uh the podcast is more stream of consciousness so it's literally off the top of my head here's what i'm thinking is what i'm seeing in the work um you can kind of listen to some of my reflections in that space thank you thank you thanks luis thank you so much

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