What Works for Boys
Yesterday, the George Jackson Academy, the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education and the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, sponsored by the Clark Foundation, the Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color (COSEBOC) and the New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS) convened a promising practices symposium at NYU entitled “What Works for Boys.” At the symposium, sociologist Pedro Noguera of the Metropolitan Center for Education at NYU presented the findings of a recent study funded by the Gates Foundation on several single-sex and co-educational public, private, charter and independent schools.
The George Jackson Academy, an all boys 4th – 8th grade school founded in 2003 by Brother Brian Carty, was modeled after the De La Salle method – a pedagogy that created all boys middle schools founded by the Archdiocese of New York to combat de facto segregation and to prepare boys for successful high school experiences.
The day began with a panel moderated by David Arnold, George Jackson Academy head of school, and featuring Brother Brian Carty, founder of the school and Antwan Allen, assistant head of school for curriculum and faculty development. The panel also featured David Banks, President of the Eagle Academy Foundation which created the first all boys public high school in New York City, Kate Sciorba, lead researcher in the Gates Foundation study, as well as Lynne Algrant, Assistant Principal at De La Salle Academy who served as Director of Diversity and Director of Admissions at the independent Ethical Culture Fieldston School and has conducted longitudinal research into students of color at majority white independent schools.
The members of the panel all stressed the importance of teachers actively building a supportive community for students and being available to students in mentoring relationships. Lynne Algrant related an anecdote where a teacher expressed frustration and just wished that her male students of color would “meet her halfway.” Algrant’s response was simple, “From where are you measuring the halfway point?” For some students, she said, their halfway point might be walking out of their apartment in the morning to come to school. “Find their halfway point,” Algrant encouraged teachers, “not yours.”
Antwan Allen of the George Jackson Academy emphasized the importance of a curriculum that prizes critical thinking and challenges students to ask why – the skills they will use in life outside the classroom. He also mentioned the George Jackson Academy’s integration of English and History lessons in order to inform the literature the boys study with context, as well as encouraging the boys to think of themselves as scientists – defined simply as people asking questions and experimenting to find out answers. He also mentioned the importance of avoiding labeling students, but rather finding out the background of why they might be exhibiting certain behavior.
David Banks, of the Eagle Academy Foundation, observed that African American and Latino males were probably the most studied people on the planet for the past few years, but that they need what all students need: leadership at their school, supportive parents and committed teachers. But for African American and Latino boys, Banks said, the difference is that because they’re under attack from a variety of directions, they need more of it. The Eagle Academy places an emphasis on mentoring and parent involvement, and Banks explained, has shown a great deal of success in engaging parents.
Many of the same ideas were reiterated by the findings of Dr. Noguera’s study, which set out to explore the practices and impact of single-sex schools serving Black and Latino males to find out if these practices are more effective than co-educational environments.
Dr. Noguera began by summarizing what research has shown to be characteristics of schools effectively serving boys of color. These include:
- Transforming the culture of the schools by focusing on student needs including clear expectations and structure (as many boys come from unstructured homes)
- Demystifying school success – teaching study skills, organization and giving examples of what “excellent” work looks like – creating a culture of high expectations.
- Constructive use of discipline to build responsibility and character
- Creation of a school culture that challenges stereotypes and teaches kids the code of success, as well as the code of the streets, and when to use each – effectively teaching “code-switching”
- Working with parents and community – especially to make parents feel welcome at school through engaging workshops that serve their existing needs
- Commitment to hiring Black and Latino males in professional roles.
- Cultivating leadership through opportunities for community service and activism
- Channeling of boys’ natural energy – not trying to suppress it. This can be through sports, music and the arts.
- Teaching of emotional intelligence.
He then set out to find out whether single-sex and co-ed schools were doing this. His findings:
1) It is inconclusive whether single-sex schools serving African American and Latino boys do this better than co-ed schools.
2) While single-sex education for girls was clearly focused on expanding the perception of gender roles among girls – making professional careers open to them, e.g. – there is “no shared understanding of what boys need to be ‘saved’”
3) Positive identity, engagement and safety are very important – students with higher levels of engagement reported higher grades. There was also a strong relationship between racial/ethnic pride and academic achievement. And positive “relational engagement [with teachers and school staff] was the strongest predictor of success.”
4) Not all boys are the same. Middle school students performed better than high school students across the board, but were also more likely to report not feeling safe in school – and lack of safety correlated with lack of achievement. Immigrant students and students of immigrants were less likely to feel safe.
5) Not all schools had a coherent educational vision.
Dr. Noguera reiterated that this issue should be approached with “a lot of skepticism” and that these are ideas that need to be interrogated, tested. “These issues are too important to treat with a simple, single solution,” he said.