The Power of Positive Community for Boys
By Charis Denison
No matter what gender you identify with, our culture creates a minefield for teenagers seeking the basic human needs of connection, recognition, and power. Adults are mistakenly treating our boys like they’re the men we’re afraid of rather than the men we hope they’ll become. It’s a dangerous combination of shaming and entitlement that miseducates our boys and keeps them lonely. In my work across the country consulting with schools, I’ve seen how boys are starving to be seen and rewarded for displaying real emotion. They want to show up the way we want them to, but no one is showing them how. For some reason, we’ve abnegated responsibility, distancing ourselves from the real conversations all boys deserve.
Without addressing these needs directly, we set boys up to learn behaviors that don’t serve them or their communities in the long run. Without examples of what healthy connection, recognition, and power look like, boys try to find them on their own. And that’s enormously neglectful and harmful because what they have to choose from in mainstream society will not serve them well. I name this as “the Setup.”
Recognizing the Setup
The Setup rewards boys for going silent when they’re uncomfortable. They just don’t communicate at all, and our cultural language is to say, “He’s that strong, silent type. Yeah, you never know what he’s thinking. He’s really stoic.” We tell them that if they want male power, when they’re uncomfortable, they should be dismissive of others and never ask for help.
We see the Setup play out most strongly in high school where we communicate to boys that if they just keep their GPA high and use their intellectual assertiveness, they’re going to find real success. We limit their emotional vocabulary to two “strong” emotions — happiness or anger — and teach boys to disassociate from how they really feel. They’re encouraged to think in binary ways, one extreme or another. By the time they’re in middle school, they’re expected to pivot from one to the other — happy to angry, angry to happy — and to oppress all the other emotions — loneliness, sadness, fear, shame, kindness.
Because boys are not allowed to explore the fact that they are lonely and they are lost, that these are normal feelings for people finding their way in the world, they’re stuck in so much posturing. Any uncertainty, any vulnerability is stigmatized through quiet messaging and social coding as weakness. To talk about what they’re actually feeling is seen as a huge social risk. Boys tell me that they’ll often laugh at something they don’t find funny, because the stakes are just too high to admit out loud that they find the behavior mean or offensive. All of that bottled-down discomfort, the actions not taken, leaves them with anger. And across the country at all socioeconomic levels, I think that’s what we’re seeing in our boys.
Instead of Shaming/Ignoring, Be a Compassionate Mirror
We have to understand that one of the ways boys will manifest loneliness in the classroom is through displays of aggression. Usually, a boy knows he’s being aggressive, surly, or disrespectful, but that’s as far as his self-awareness can go if he’s not given space. I don’t mean permission to behave that way; he needs what I call a compassionate mirror. So, rather than react and say what he’s already expecting you to say, you need to choose a response that will serve him and the community.
When a boy jokes about getting “a little rapey” in class and a teacher is too intimidated to call the behavior out, the teacher is doing harm. These behaviors are often intentional requests for help navigating something confusing. Unfortunately, very few adults step up to do that for boys. The boys get the positive recognition they’re craving from their peers instead, and so, why would they stop when they’re so hungry for recognition? They want to feel safe, seen, and significant. And, if they can do that through displays of dominance and aggression, then of course that’s what they’re going to do.
Too many adults sit in their shock at what these kids say and either ignore it or respond in reactionary, shaming ways. I’ve found that this shaming is especially common in so-called liberal classrooms. The behavior threatens our sense of self and of how we feel the world should work, so we respond by making an example out of the student. And we shame the child rather than address the topic. That used to be what we said in the 50s, 60s, 70s, but for some reason we’re still doing that.
Now many teachers can handle the aggression when it’s directed toward them, like a student coming into class and telling the teacher to “go f#ck” herself. We know that’s about something going on with the kid and we know not to personalize it but to instead ask, “Are you okay? What’s going on with you right now?” But this can sometimes be harder when we see that aggression toward students, particularly students who are regularly targeted / have less social power. It’s easy to shame the aggressor. But we need to understand that all we’ve accomplished is a switch of who’s objectifying who. The teacher is now objectifying the student. It’s a power play that fails to role model the behaviors we want students to adopt.
When we observe harmful language and behavior, the teacher can stop and say, “Well, hold it. I’m feeling really torn right now ’cause we all know how damaging language like that can be and it’s a real setup and it’s really easy to make jokes.” I don’t talk about the kid; I don’t say “you.” And then, I pause for a good three seconds, which then brings all the students back together. Many students stop listening in stressful situations because they don’t want to deal with conflict. One of them just wants to go home. The other one thinks I’m an idiot.
And so, I stop for three seconds. And, it’s intriguing to teenagers when an adult chooses not to talk because they’re so used to adults talking over them all the time. Once I have their attention I say with compassion, “There is nothing funny about rape.” And I move on. I haven’t singled anyone out. I’ve identified the moment, and I’ve taken it on. I haven’t turned this into a twenty-minute lesson, but I’ve reflected what it’s like to be faced with something that we all know is wrong and hurtful. That’s just one small example.
And when you see these kinds of negative behaviors repeating themselves, you check in with a boy. You talk with him individually outside class, briefly describing the behaviors you’ve seen. “Can you do me a favor? I’ve had you in my class a week or two. I’m going to tell you the boy that I’m seeing and I want you to tell me how close am I, do you think, to accuracy. I’m seeing someone who doesn’t listen to other people. He looks like a bully although I don’t believe that’s the case. A little bit scary and rolls his eyes whenever another boy raises his hand. So, that’s what I’m seeing. Help me out. Now, you tell me how representative is that of you?”
And I’m not going to correct anything he says. If he says, “That’s all bullsh@t. You have your head up your as$. That’s not me. You weren’t understanding me.” Then I say, “Okay, great. I needed to check in.” Done. And again, unless he’s done something really harmful, I let it be. I’ve held up a compassionate mirror; he knows I’m paying attention to him and that I respect what he thinks.
What this all comes down to is radical love. We name the Setup and then role model positive alternative behaviors, helping students understand that real power is acting not reacting. One way we hold onto positive alternative behaviors is by naming them as classroom community norms.
Classroom Norms for Positive Community
Example of Community Norms
- Feel. Think. Act.
- Challenge yourself
- Be brave
- Step up, step back
- Ask for what you need
- Be aware of judgments
- Forgive yourself and others
- Listen, listen, listen
- Don’t yuck someone’s yum
- What is said stays where it’s said (confidentiality)
- Platinum rule (Treat others how you think/feel they want to be treated)
- Ask yourself, “What if everyone said or did what I am about to do or say?”
One of the essential classroom norms I teach is for students to count to three and “Feel. Think. Act.” Before you say/do something in/out of the classroom, stop for three seconds and quickly check in with yourself. Not what you are thinking, but what are you feeling? Even if they get it wrong, we’re at least encouraging their brains to slow down and get used to trying to connect to their emotions. Students are surprised to learn that every cognitive thought is preceded by an instinct or a feeling. School has taught them to dismiss feelings and focus on thinking. Knowing that they’ve been taught things that don’t necessarily work for them can be incredibly liberating because it validates their past discomfort.
When I see them using “Feel. Think. Act.” I can reward them for any positive part that might even have led up to a negative result like, “I watched you stop there.” Anything that can communicate to the boy that I see you. I see you. And once we’ve established that trust, I can say things like, “I’m just going to ask you about a couple of behaviors. Can you explain that one?”
Using these norms helps us notice if we’re extroverts or introverts and learn to remember that when you’re in a community you need to be present: stepping back to provide space for others if you’re normally an extrovert and stepping up to participate in ways that feel right to you if you’re an introvert. We joke about “straight white man’s disease” — that boys are often rewarded for being loud and taking up space — and remind ourselves, without shaming anyone, that so many of us don’t have that experience. I reward boys for noticing when they shouldn’t talk and when they show curiosity about other people’s thinking.
Sometimes I point to a specific norm or sometimes I just ask, “What do we observe?” That could be positive or negative, but I want to give the group time to be accountable as a community. And they might say, “I notice that Aaron just said this really great point.” Or a boy then says, “I just talked for like . . . I just talked over somebody. Totally interrupted them.” You can then say, “That is amazing you were able to say that. That is so great.” These community norms give students the opportunity and language to see one another and to be seen. You are not a good kid or a bad kid. We see you.
Giving them community norms allows them to breathe because they can actually show up and be vulnerable because it’s an expectation in the classroom. So, it’s basically, “Here are ways of being human that can be easy.” I always say they’re not complicated but they’re hard. Those norms sit staring them right in the face on the wall.
I have so many boys that leave my classroom in tears saying, “I don’t know where else there are norms or expectations like this where I would be rewarded. It’s certainly not going to be in the locker room. It’s not going to be on the lacrosse field. It’s not going to be at the party Saturday night.” And what’s great is when boys realize the power of these behaviors can completely change their lives. They become converts to radical kindness. They share how they’ve brought these behaviors into their lives outside the classroom. Like a boy who recently talked about being at a party Saturday night and deciding to check in with a girl who had been drinking a lot and disappeared into a room with a boy. Because we always say, “Have a wing person as a boy because then the social risk isn’t as big,” he grabbed a friend and checked in with the couple to make sure the girl was safe. These are small things that save lives in both directions. The girl is safe and the boy knows he can stand up for others.
All this comes from a shift of naming what’s wrong with the culture and not shaming boys for trying to survive amid these problematic values. Instead we let them practice new ways of being and validate their efforts toward those positive values and behaviors. We can show boys how to be powerful in ways that serve all of us.
Charis Denison is a teacher, Youth Advocate and expert in, Human Development, Ethics, and Social Justice & Community Involvement. She has built her experience primarily partnering with schools and non-profits for the past 23 years. She has received national recognition for her work in several of these fields. Charis has been on the faculty of the Urban School of San Francisco, Branson School, and Marin Academy in San Rafael CA.
Charis currently runs Prajna Consulting. Through Prajna, she partners with schools, teens, families, organizations, and communities around the issues of Human Development, Social Justice, and Ethics. Her work as a youth advocate emphasizes empowering young people to make choices that end in honor and joy rather than guilt, shame or regret.
