For the past few years I've been doing workshops about media awareness and self awareness with a focus on masculinity. The rush of planning and starting a workshop is coupled with the reward of finishing yet another. Last friday, I was kindly thanked by a guy going into grade 12 who wished there were more discussions about gender in high school. A few others take down my information for possible follow-up connections and are grateful for the past 90 minutes and the Fight of the Conchords example.

Friday's workshop feels a bit different from all the rest.  In a few weeks I'm heading back to the classroom for teacher's college and I feel another cycle turning in my life. My schedule will change. I'll stop saying "I do workshops" and start saying "I'm going to be a High School Teacher".  Rather than working mostly alone from home I'll be with peers in classes and kids with crazy hair in classrooms. Oh, and I'll be eligible for student discounts.

My biggest delight was sharing this mascmag blog I helped start and showing off the range of issues that masculinity connects to. Over and over in our workshop discussions I would say "oh, someone on the blog wrote a post about that" as we weaved in and out of topics and questions.

When I first started doing worshops about media and masculinity I started with the videos Tough Guise and Wrestling with Manhood in order to name what mainstream masculinity is.  But after a while these seemed a bit too harsh and negative. Over time I've let people use magazine collages and image theatre to answer the question "what does masculility look and feel like to you?" Here, folks could both illustrate the cartoonish and scary masculinity with more of their own experiences to round out the topic's complexity.

Now I show videos from The Men's Story Project that let men speak, rather than being spoken about. This performance tied together most of our discussion topics on Friday.

I'll continue to develop my voice in my new cycle and I'm strengthened by all the voices I've heard along the way: the high school students, our wonderful mascmag writers, and my new favorite (up top) Shane Koyczan.

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Paul teaches media education in various ways, mostly through learning.