In your workshops with our faculty, what has impressed you; what observations have you made?
Two things: one is that your headmaster, both intellectually and spiritually, already recognizes the powerful role that relationship plays in helping boys grow and become their best selves. Having already established that relationship is at the center of what differentiates Saint David’s School; the school felt it could bring me in for a year to reinforce that dimension. Saint David’s has a strong intellectual and moral framework already in place and the relational dimension makes sense in that context.
I’ve also noticed how earnest and willing your faculty are to do the hard work of self reflection and self growth. They are willing to stretch themselves and grow, to be vulnerable and make it safe for each other.
What drew you to the field of research in boys’ education?
It was gradual: a response to a role I was playing first at a single school, then at a consortium of schools. I was working as a consulting psychologist at the Haverford School, an all boys Pre-K-12 school outside of Philadelphia, to create and lead a center that was state-of-the-art in the theory and research on boys’ development. We conducted some original research on the school’s alumni and then were approached by a number of other schools including coed schools and boarding schools, to talk to them about education for boys in those different educational contexts. We moved the center out of the Haverford School and created a partnership with the University of Pennsylvania Center for the Study of Boys’ Lives. The center then expanded to include research about girls, and was renamed the Center for the Study of Boys’ and Girls’ Lives.
The International Boys Schools Coalition (IBSC) invited me to partner with them in conducting a global study about boys’ education among their member schools. That led to the first of four studies for them. The first focused on what teaching practices were working well. The second took a deeper look at the relationship that boys had with teachers and coaches, which the first study had identified to be so important. I partnered for these studies with Richard Hawley. We wrote two books together: Reaching Boys, Teaching Boys and I Can Learn From You - Boys as Relational Learners.
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Your research demonstrated the importance of the relational domain in teaching and learning. Did anything about the results surprise you?
Yes! We tried to go into this research without already having the answers in mind. In the first study, we asked 1,400 boys ages 12-18 and 1,000 of their teachers in grades 6-12, “What was working?” The answers included lots of overlap between the boys’ and teachers’ responses. However, there was one area in which the teachers’ answers were very different than the boys.
In retrospect, this was rather shocking.
When asked what made for a successful lesson, teachers pointed to educational theory and technical details/lesson content. The boys pointed to their teacher, the person. We realized two things: that boys were relational learners, and that relationship was a mediating variable — the way to engage boys in learning. The second thing we learned was, in not identifying relationships as key, teachers were revealing that they were somewhat confused about what boys really were and what they needed. They were confused by stereotypes about boys as “lone ranger,” “non relational.”
But the boys were crystal clear: We need to be connected, we need to have a sense that the teacher knows and cares about us as a precondition for engaging with us.
How are you working with our faculty to maximize our efficacy in relational teaching and learning?
As the school has embraced the student/teacher relationship as central to its identity, there are many different levels to operationalize that aspiration: It lies in hiring practices, professional assessment practices, peer collaboration, parent involvement. One of the keys to being a successful relational school is helping teachers handle the relational breakdowns, those moments in a teacher’s year where the relationship or connection has gotten weakened or stuck. This involves helping teachers conduct a reflective relational practice where they review those relationships in a context with colleagues and brainstorm strategies to improve the quality of the connection.
I adapted an exercise originally created by Graham Gibbs for health care workers. It involves a facilitated conversation among a small group of five or six educators where someone presents a situation where they are having a hard time establishing a quality connection with a particular boy. They determine what does and does not work, get feedback, and come up with a set of action steps to reset the relationship.
Saint David’s wants to pioneer developing that reflective relational practice exercise in a more systematic way into its professional support for teachers. This is win-win; Saint David’s can think carefully about how to cultivate this relational practice with teachers and coaches, and I get to work with a school that in an intentional, thoughtful way is seeking to incorporate this professional dimension into the normal course of the school year.
I am training master teachers at Saint David’s to serve as facilitators in running these professional groups.
What stands out about a relational approach for teaching boys?
Teaching boys can be challenging. Some boys have a difficult time trusting someone. They tend to respond to a teacher’s efforts to reach them with rejection, resistance, or opposition. We know from educational research that when the student resistance is aimed at the teacher or coach in sometimes personal ways (attitude, acting out, belligerent) a teacher may respond to this in a negative way. They view it as disrespectful or as a power struggle. Typically, I run into many teachers all around the world who have reached a point with a boy where they say to themselves, “I’ve done everything I can do to reach the boy, the next step is up to him.” But my research shows very clearly that if a relationship with a teacher or a coach got stuck or broke down, the boys weren’t going to do anything to reestablish a connection.
What stood out for me is this: How do we help teachers understand that when they get in that stalemate with a boy, probably underlying their stance are some difficult feelings and emotions that need to be worked through; the boy may feel challenged, angry. However, this resistance presents a signal to the teacher to try another approach—the resistance is not, at the heart of it, personal. Helping faculty work through the negative emotions is key to unlocking their creative ability to solve the relational problem and to establishing relationships. Faculty approach this with caution but also with open hearts.
One piece of advice or recommendation you would suggest to parents as they raise their boys to be good men?
If we want our sons to hold on to themselves, to hold on to their core values, their hearts, we — the adults in their lives — particularly their parents, need to hold on to them, ourselves. We need to stay close to them, to stay in communication with them. To convey in every way we can that they are known and loved by us.