WEBB Magazine Excerpt - From Boys to Men: Principes non Homines

from boys to men: Principes non Homines Webb’s community model for boys, in and out of class

boys will be boys. It’s a cliché, but like so many clichés

there’s some truth to it. People may differ on exactly how boys are different from girls—in how they develop, learn and interact—but no one denies that they are different.

The Webb Schools embrace those differences, letting boys be boys—and letting boys explore what it is to be a leader and a man.

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“What boys and girls need is very different,” notes Director of Academic Affairs Theresa Smith. Entering high school, boys tend to be self-oriented and individualistic. “Girls come from a place of being rule-followers ... boys need to be taught about working together. What a boy needs to unearth is how to take his idea and think it through and effectively communicate it to other people.”

In single-sex classes, “there is the opportunity to tailor some of the content to the shared interests” of either boys or girls, Smith continues, adding that single-sex classrooms are more comfortable environments for boys and girls when discussing personal or gendered topics.

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“The noise, the movement, keeps the boys’ attention and engages them.

They feed off my energy, and I feed off theirs.”

Webb’s educational model is unique, transitioning from single-sex classes in ninth and tenth grades to co-educational classes in eleventh and twelfth grades, in a community that encourages boys and girls to interact appropriately while still maintaining distinct traditions and activities for each. The model is anchored in Webb’s founding as a boys’ school in 1922. The Vivian Webb School, founded in 1981, brought girls to campus and to the classroom, but without diluting Webb’s character or the school’s commitment to single-sex education.

It’s a model that benefits Webb’s male students in and out of the classroom, as they learn everything from English and math to their own roles and responsibilities.

In Rick Duque’s English class, those topics include leadership, teamwork and relationships between men and women; topics highlighted when his class reads The Natural, Bernard Malamud’s insightful portrayal of a baseball team. It’s a loud class, loud as only a room full of freshmen boys can be, and that suits Duque, who admits to being loud himself. Rambunctiousness comes naturally to boys, and in a single-sex classroom environment that can be an advantage. The noise, the movement, keeps the boys’ attention and engages them, Duque explains. “They feed off my energy, and I feed off theirs.”

Compared to the girls’ classes he has taught, “the energy level is just so different,” Duque says. “It seems to be with the boys, just constant energy. ... My tone, in my boys classes, I’m a lot louder. They’re loud too—it’s okay for them to be loud in the class setting.”

Duque also mentions that in a single-sex classroom environment, boys feel more free to discuss and question gender roles and relationships. In high school, and especially as freshmen and sophomores, “you’re still developing who you are and who you’ll want to become,” Duque says, and that’s a big part of the Webb experience, in and out of the classroom.

It was certainly a big part of the Webb experience for Jason Brooks ’99. Currently studying at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Brooks recalls that Webb’s single-sex communities, in the classroom and in the dorm, allowed him to have frank conversations about masculinity that “would not feel emotionally safe in a co-ed environment.

“There’s something really powerful about taking a look at masculinity and your maleness,” he says. Webb helped Brooks define his own sense of masculinity and his own interests.

Outside the classroom, the African-American freshman who came to Webb discovered he could broaden his musical

interests beyond rap and his extracurricular interests beyond sports. “It was a place where those stereotypes could be confronted,” he recalls. In class, the single-sex environment was “a safe place to make mistakes, a safe place to explore ... and I think I would have been distracted” in a co-ed classroom.

At Webb, “you have those two precious years” of single-sex classes. In a single-sex environment, Brooks says, boys aren’t pushed into boxes. At the end of his first two years at Webb, Brooks says, “I had a stronger sense of who I was.”

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he all-boys classroom environment fosters an open, engaging dynamic that Smith has seen again and again at Webb. “There are a lot of conversations about social norms, what it means to be a man,” she says, noting that pressures to conform to stereotypes don’t affect girls exclusively. Single-sex classes allow boys to openly examine those stereotypes and social roles in a way and a depth that

“There’s something about single-sex education that encourages you to be who you are.

You get the impression that it’s aimed at you”

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wouldn’t happen in a co-ed environment. Co-educational schools may take actions to empower girls, but boys’ needs can go unaddressed, Smith says. In a single-sex educational setting, those issues gain visibility and attention.

There’s also a universal benefit to single-sex education, says Webb parent Gregory Hess: a higher degree of self-confidence.

Hess, former vice president for academic affairs, and a professor of economics at Claremont McKenna College, became the 16th president of Wabash College, a liberal arts college for men in Indiana, in July. That self-confidence allows boys (and girls) more latitude to develop their own academic interests, Hess says. “When they find their passion they have a much stronger attachment to it. ... There’s no back row. There seems to be a higher degree of student engagement.” Coming from a single-sex educational environment, students are “more able to handle the transition to a college environment,” he says, not just academically but also socially.

“There’s something about single-sex education that encourages you to be who you are,” agrees Christina McGinley ’84. “By its very nature, you get the impression that it’s aimed at you.”

McGinley brings a unique perspective: a member of the Vivian Webb School’s first graduating class, her son Tim graduated from Webb School of California in 2012, and her daughter is currently a Vivian Webb sophmore.

Brooks, who taught at the all-boys McCallie School in Chattanooga, Tenn., for eight years, says there’s power in a community of boys becoming men together. “It’s helpful to be in a classroom full of people going through the same things,”

he notes. In their freshmen and sophomore years the students are more boys than men, but by the junior year they have begun to define themselves as men and are ready for leadership roles.

“I was really blessed to have leadership roles at Webb,” recalls Brooks, who was Webb’s student body vice president and football team captain.

In the process of becoming leaders and men, Webb’s boys are guided by the male faculty. Webb’s faculty “literally walk with you on that journey,” Brooks says, recalling coach and math teacher Brian Caldwell, and Spanish teacher Javier Valera as two of the faculty role models whose guidance and mentorship still have a strong influence on him.

“There’s a sense of the values they want the boys to have as they head out into the world”—especially leadership, says Smith of Webb’s faculty. The male faculty “are really great examples of the various lives men can lead.” With a strong sense of community and mutual respect, the male faculty are also “kind of an example of what you want the boys to be ... the faculty lead the way for them.”

Webb’s faculty taught Brooks the simple, profound lesson that “a man shows up and does what he’s supposed to do,” without expectation of reward. That, he says, is the difference between a boy and man. From the faculty and his own experiences at Webb, Brooks also learned the value of the servant-leader model of leadership, “10 years before it became cool pop-culture.”

Male role models—peers, faculty, coaches—are important in any boy’s life. “Boys need a strong male figure in their life,” notes Raymond M. Alf Museum Director and Honor Committee Advisor Don Lofgren. At Webb, “boys will find that role model, whoever it is ... and it’ll be somebody who has a big influence on them.”

Wabash College President Hess believes that single-sex education enhances character development. Webb’s honor code,

in addition to its single-sex educational model, was one of the reasons he chose to enroll his children—both daughters—in the Vivian Webb School. The Webb Schools place an “emphasis on the honor code and broader development of students, not just the hard skills but also the soft skills—everything that’s involved in character development.” As parents, Hess, says, “we want our children to be responsible, self-sustaining, humane individuals. ... Honor codes are part of that.”

Webb’s honor code helps boys understand the importance of “being a good person in the world, having your actions grounded in ethical decision-making,” says Smith.

As boys mature into leadership positions, the Honor Committee exemplifies the school’s emphasis on character development.

Serving on the Honor Committee is “basically about leading the school daily,” says Lofgren. A student elected to the Honor Committee is “somebody that everybody respects, and who respects others ... a person that people trust.”

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nd Webb’s juniors and seniors are boys—becoming men—the freshmen and sophomores can look up to as role models. From the day boys enroll at Webb, they begin bonding within their grade level and becoming members of the student community.

“I think the boys become really cohesive,” says Smith.

“They are a cohesive group that clearly appreciates everyone.

They learn to value the special gifts that each person brings to that community, and they all find a way of contributing.”

As they mature together in the classroom, says Duque, “the boys figure it out. ... Those people who are a little more at the back learn how to come to the front.”

Boys are “more comfortable being boys with a bunch of boys,” notes Lofgren. “They don’t want to look stupid in front of the girls.” That’s a simple truth, but one that too often can be forgotten or overlooked in a co-ed environment. “There’s no doubt in my mind that single-sex education for ninth graders helps both boys and girls.”

In the end, Webb’s single-sex classes and the shared studentfaculty male community on campus create a bond, a shared experience, between the boys. “They go through the process together of becoming men,” says Smith. And for that unique opportunity, adds Brooks, “I can’t express how thankful I am to Webb.”

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