The most memorable thing I learnt from my all-boys’ school PSHE lessons was that young men kill themselves. More than any role model or pioneer, the “figure” we returned to was the statistic that suicide is the leading cause of death among men under 40.
When I later learnt that an older student at my school had taken his own life, I remember feeling distraught, but perhaps not entirely surprised. We were called into the assembly hall and told in careful terms. I hadn’t known him by name, but my maths teacher was holding back tears.
As young men, we are often taught about the problems we may face. Far less often are we taught how to deal with them. That’s why Sir Gareth Southgate’s intervention this week matters. Through the former England manager’s advocacy – his new documentary, Gareth Southgate: Changing the Game for Young Men, airs tonight (Monday) at 9pm on BBC One – he has succeeded in shifting the conversation towards solutions.
One of Southgate’s proposals is that we need a “different approach” to educating boys because of our “fundamental differences” to girls. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think anybody that’s worked with either sex at a younger age knows there are some fundamental differences,” and went on to say that to get the most out of young people it “might require a slightly different approach when we’re educating and developing young men, compared to educating and developing young women”.
