Debunking the Myths about Boys and Emotions (Part 1)

Source: Practice Wise

By Guest Blogger, Vicki Zakrzewski, Ph.D., Education Director of the Greater Good Science Center. 

(This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.)

It is a tragedy that in our society we label men as unable to feel or connect to the same degree that women can. And that maturity in men means emotional stoicism, autonomy, and self-sufficiency—a lonely existence, for sure, particularly as research time and again shows we all need human connection to thrive.

Yet scientists are discovering that what society says about men’s (and boys’) social and emotional abilities is simply not true, and that cultivating their natural capacity for emotional attunement and relationships is critical to their overall well-being. But we can’t wait till they’re men to do so—we need to start when they’re young.

How boys develop emotionally and socially

Studies of infants have shown that neurologically, there isn’t much difference between boys’ and girls’ capacity for empathy. Yet, according to neuroscientists, because girls are allowed to express their emotions, their ability to identify and understand both their own and others’ emotions cultivates their empathetic skills beyond those of boys.

Continuing into young boyhood, Stanford professor Judy Chu argues in her recent book When Boys Become Boys that it is culture rather than nature that incapacitates boys’ social and emotional skills. Chu observed during her two-year study of six 4 and 5-year old boys—the age at which boys generally disconnect emotionally and relationally—that the boys were very astute at reading their and others’ emotions. They also knew how to cultivate meaningful relationships, which they strongly desired. 

It wasn’t until midway through Kindergarten that Chu noticed the boys becoming inattentive and inarticulate in their relationships. But rather than blaming some innate inability to relate to others, Chu saw that the boys were beginning to align their behavior with more traditional masculine norms, such as posturing, in order to impress others and maintain peer relationships.

Chu also observed that as the boys got older, they began to demonstrate emotional stoicism and self-sufficiency as a way to oppose the association between femininity and the need or desire for emotional closeness. However, this behavior seemed to happen only in public as parents reported that the boys were very affectionate at home.

While Chu’s findings can’t be generalized to all boys given the small sample size of six, her two years of observations and interviews did reveal an important aspect of social-emotional development: boys, like all of us, develop their social and emotional capacities both in relationship and individually and that each boy’s experience is predicated on many factors, such as family, peer and teacher interactions, media exposure, and individual makeup. Thus, even though we all have these capacities, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to social-emotional development.

Source: www.pexels.com

The importance of boys’ friendships

As boys move into teenage years, their emotional and relational capabilities appear once again in their same-sex friendships. In her book Deep Secrets on adolescent boys’ friendships, New York University professor Niobe Way describes how early and middle teen boys experience emotionally intimate friendships with each other in which they share secrets and feelings.

During her 20 years of interviews with hundreds of ethnically, racially, and economically diverse American teen boys, Way heard over and over from them that without these friendships, they would go “wacko.” In other words, the boys understood the connection between their close friendships and their own mental health.

Yet, as boys entered late adolescence, Way found that they began to experience less trust and a fear of betrayal in their male peers. They also began to internalize society’s masculine norms by equating close friendships with being gay, a girl, or immature. As a result, the boys were less willing to have a close male friend even though they all told her they wanted one. Way also noted the boys’ levels of loneliness and depression began to increase during this time.

In her analysis, Way points out that social disconnectedness is prevalent throughout American society. She cites research that found the percentage of adults who have no close friends increased from 36 percent in 1985 to 53 percent in 2004 and argues that it is our culture that distorts both boys’ and girls’ natural capacity for empathy and emotionally intimate friendships. “This is not a boy crisis,” writes Way, “but a human crisis of connection”—and one that negatively impacts our families, our schools, our communities, and our political and economic institutions.

MORE ABOUT...

Vicki Zakrzewski, Ph.D., is the education director of the Greater Good Science Center. In her role as education director, Vicki writes a blog that provides science-based ideas for promoting the social and emotional well-being of students, teachers, and administrators, as well as methods for creating positive school cultures. Her work has also appeared in ASCD’s Educational Leadership, Edutopia, and Huffington Post. She is a former teacher and school administrator. 

The Greater Good Science Center, at U.C. Berkeley, studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society.

Judy Y. Chu, Ed.D. is a Lecturer in Human Biology and Affiliate of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, where she teaches a course on Boys’ Psychosocial Development. Chu received her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology at Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she studied boys’ relationships and development in early childhood and adolescence with Carol Gilligan. Her research highlights boys’ relational strengths and how their gender socialization can impact their connections to themselves and to others. She is the author of When Boys Become Boys: Development, Relationships, and Masculinity (NYU Press, 2014) and co-editor of Adolescent Boys: Exploring Diverse Cultures of Boyhood (NYU Press, 2004). She developed curricula for The Representation Project’s film, The Mask You Live In.

Niobe Way is Professor of Applied Psychology in the Department of Applied Psychology at New York University. She is also the co-Director of the Center for Research on Culture, Development, and Education at NYU and the past President for the Society for Research on Adolescence. Way's research focuses on the intersections of culture, context, and human development, with a particular focus on the social and emotional development of adolescents. Below are covers of some of Niobe’s many books. 

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Why Are Boys Facing More Mental Health Issues?

Source: The Daniel Calazans Foundation 

There is growing concern regarding boys and mental health issues. Below is a guest blog by the Daniel Calazans Foundation entitled “Why Are Boys Facing More Mental Health Issues?”

“Men and women are traditionally socialized to act, think, and emote differently based on gender...Dominant conceptions of masculinity depict and encourage boys and men to be assertive, competitive, and independent, which fits with work in the public sphere.” - Reviewing the Assumptions About Men’s Mental Health: An Exploration of the Gender Binary

“From an early age, boys are encouraged to bury their feelings and present a tough exterior. Experts say these social dynamics have long-term implications for their mental health. While there is no one cause, psychologists and educators point to increasing pressures to succeed in school and a growing reliance on technology that can leave kids feeling isolated and vulnerable.

According to experts, boys can struggle more than girls because they have fewer tools to cope with emotions and stressors and are less likely to get the help they need. Without the means to effectively process emotions, boys are more prone to lash out in unhealthy ways or alienate themselves. 

Many boys—though certainly not all—have trouble talking about emotions and feelings because social norms have encouraged them to conform to masculine ideals that emphasize values like stoicism, toughness, and competitiveness. Generosity and compassion, in contrast, are seen as feminine characteristics and therefore present a threat to their socially constructed identities.

“Social norms and societal pressures deprive boys of the self-awareness and emotional vocabulary to recognize and process their feelings. In turn, they’re less likely to seek help when they struggle.” - The Daniel Calazans Foundation  

These pressures, which begin when they are very young, deprive boys of the self-awareness and emotional vocabulary to recognize and process their feelings; they are, in turn, unlikely to seek help from an adult or peers when they struggle.

Despite the uptick in depression among teens generally, a recent study found that only one-third of boys ages 12–17 sought help for depression in 2021, compared with 45 percent of girls. Sometimes, even when boys have the emotional language and recognize the flaws in societal norms, they still conceal their emotions to fit in.

Source: Harvard Gazette

Experts say that when boys can’t express emotions in a healthy way, they may become depressed or act out with anger and violence. Data shows that boys are nearly twice as likely to get into physical fights as girls, for example. Often, rather than an exploration of the cause of the behavior, these outbursts result in punishment by schools and parents being biased and unfair, particularly for students of color and students with disabilities. Because boys tend to lack emotional vocabulary—or they don’t feel free to express their feelings—their behavior becomes their communication. So, when a boy acts out or is disrespectful, we have to target their behaviors and not assault their character.

While boys can be reluctant to talk to therapists without nudging, one way to grow their emotional muscles is through affinity support groups at school, which research shows can be an effective tool for mitigating the impacts of distress and trauma. There, boys can start discussing common interests and superficial issues, then progress to talking about the pressures of growing up as a boy.”

An afterschool program that focuses on the needs of boys and masculinity, is the Ever Forward Club in Oakland, California. Their website offers numerous resources on this topic.

To view our paper “Thinking About Masculinity and the Needs and Wants of Boys,” click here. To view our webinar “Serving the Needs of Boys in Afterschool,” click here.

MORE ABOUT...

The Daniel Calazans Foundation (DCF) is committed to raising awareness of the scientific evidence that substance abuse and mental health conditions are often tied together and that certain underlying medical conditions can mimic the symptoms of psychiatric illnesses. They are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit on a mission to build awareness of the interconnection between mental health, substance use disorders, and possible physical conditions associated with emotional dysregulation and substance abuse issues, primarily as it affects our young people.

Ever Forward Club is a support program where at-risk young men could gather over lunch in a mentor-led safe environment, process emotions, and sustain each other through their struggles. Their mission is to address the underlying causes of dropout rates, youth violence, and the growing achievement gap through mentoring and social emotional development.

  

Debunking the Myths about Boys and Emotions (Part 2)

Source: www.pexels.com

By Guest Blogger Vicki Zakrzewski, Ph.D., Education Director of the Greater Good Science Center. (This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.)

Changing Our Beliefs About Boys

Changing our society’s beliefs about boys’ social and emotional capacities won’t happen over night, but both educators and parents can do a lot to help them cultivate the capacities they already possess. Here are a couple of ideas:

1. Help boys both respect their need for connection and develop their emotional and relational abilities. One boy described his same-sex friendship to Way as “this thing that is deep, so deep, it’s within you, you can’t explain it…. it just happens, it’s human nature.” Both Way and Chu found that the boys were well aware of their capacity to relate to others, but that they had learned to separate their outer behavior from their deepest feelings, thoughts, and desires in order to conform to masculine norms.

As adult role models, we need to start by examining our own beliefs about emotions and relationships and whether these beliefs align with our actions. For example, do we suppress strong emotions such as compassion or sadness because we’re afraid we’ll appear weak? Or do we understand that emotions are just part of the human experience and that learning to work with them in a healthy way actually makes us stronger? Do we allow ourselves to be vulnerable by sharing our innermost ideas and emotions with our friends and encourage them to do so with us? Or do we engage with people only at the surface out of fear of being hurt or betrayed?

By reflecting on our own emotional and relational beliefs and challenges, we will be better equipped to guide boys as they navigate the social and emotional nuances of growing up in a society that expects them to behave in ways that go against their natural capacities.

In addition, teachers who cultivate students’ social-emotional skills in the classroom and parents who reinforce these skills at home send a message to boys that emotions are not unnatural or something to suppress. Rather, our emotions serve as information—helping us to navigate and nurture positive relationships.

Finally, we need to communicate to boys that having emotionally intimate same-sex friendships is part of male maturity, thus encouraging them to maintain their strong friendships with other boys as they get older. We should also share with them how much our friendships mean to us and how important friends are to our health and well-being—possibly more than our spouses and extended family. 

Source: Ever Forward Club

2. As educators, cultivate strong relationships with the boys in your classroom. Experiencing positive relationships with their teachers throughout adolescence will help boys stay connected to their emotional and relational sides. In their recently published book I Can Learn From You, Michael Reichert and Richard Hawley found from their research with 1,100 teachers and 1,400 adolescent boys that boys’ relationships with their teachers matter. The authors discovered that boys want good relationships with their teachers and that they will work hard for the ones they feel care for them.

However, it is the responsibility of the teacher to both approach the boys by expressing interest in their lives outside the classroom and to maintain the relationship. The teachers in the study who were the most successful in creating positive relationships with boys were constantly reassessing their methods for connecting with the boys and making adjustments accordingly. They also understood that these relationships take time—sometimes years—to cultivate and that giving up on the boys is not an option.

Most importantly, teachers have to be genuine in their relationships with boys. If a boy thinks that the teacher is only reaching out to improve the boy’s academic success, then the boy will pull away. “Relationships flower into engagement and productivity,” write the authors, “only when teachers authentically experience their students as valuable, likable, interesting beings: as ends, not means.”

MORE ABOUT...

Vicki Zakrzewski, Ph.D., is the education director of the Greater Good Science Center. In her role as education director, Vicki writes a blog that provides science-based ideas for promoting the social and emotional well-being of students, teachers, and administrators, as well as methods for creating positive school cultures. Her work has also appeared in ASCD’s Educational Leadership, Edutopia, and Huffington Post. She is a former teacher and school administrator.

The Greater Good Science Center, at U.C. Berkeley, studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society.

Michael Reichert is an applied and research psychologist who has long been an advocate for children and families. From counseling youth involved in the juvenile justice system and leading treatment teams in a psychiatric hospital to managing an independent clinical practice, Dr. Reichert has tested his understanding of children with real, even life-threatening, challenges. 

He has also immersed himself in research and consultation experiences that have afforded a deeper understanding of the conditions that allow a child to flourish in natural contexts: families, schools and communities. He has created and run programs in both inner-city communities and in some of the most affluent suburban communities in the world. Working across such varied conditions, he has come to a profound appreciation for the hard science of human development.

Richard Hawley is a lifelong teacher and writer. The retired headmaster of Cleveland's University School and founding president of the International Boys' School Coalition (IBSC), he has published more than twenty books, including several novels, collections of poetry, and non-fiction works, principally about children, schools, and learning. His first novel, THE HEADMASTER'S PAPERS, won a number of literary prizes. John Irving dedicated a chapter to the novel in Michael Ondaatje's anthology LOST CLASSICS. Hawley's most recent collection of poems is TWENTY-ONE VISITS WITH A DARKLY SUN TANNED ANGEL. Recent non-fiction books include BOYS WILL BE MEN, BEYOND THE ICARUS FACTOR, and (with Michael Reichert) REACHING BOYS/TEACHING BOYS. Hawley's essays, articles and poems have appeared in dozens of magazines and journals including The Atlantic, American Film, America, Orion, Commonweal, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and The New England Journal of Medicine. 

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The Importance of Gender-Based Programming for Boys, Part 1

By Sam Piha

Ashanti Branch

There's an emerging trend in afterschool to focus on the needs of boys, especially boys of color and those from low income communities. We published an earlier blog post which contains an interview with Lynn Johnson (Spotlight: Girls) on serving the needs of girls and young women. Now we turn to the needs of boys.

Ashanti Branch, Founder and Executive Director of Ever Forward Club, taught high school, middle school, public, private and Charter schools and is a strong advocate for boys. He appears in the feature film documentary entitled, The Mask You Live In.  Ashanti is also featured in the History of Afterschool in America documentary where he makes the case for gender-based programming in afterschool. Below are some of Ashanti’s responses to our interview questions. 

Q: Can you say a little bit about how you got into this work? 

A: I grew up as a poor boy, raised by a single mother in Oakland. As a first-year high school teacher, I wanted to help some kids in my classroom pass algebra. I realized that those young men were looking for a space to be real, to talk about what was really going on in their life, and not be ashamed about it, not be ridiculed for feeling something or by caring about their education. Many of our boys live in a community where education is not valued, where the smartest kid at the school is called names like nerd, geek, and teacher's pet. 

In some communities, students who get the highest score on the test are celebrated, people cheer for them. But in our community, those students don't get elevated. Our young men believe that to be cool, to fit in the cool crowd, you've got to act certain ways. Usually they aren't ways that are going to help them with their education and help them further their life in a positive way. That's a sad part that we've got to work on. 

That's why I'm really glad that there's some resurgence in this work, and we're trying to be a part of that work. What we've been trying to do in Ever Forward is when we started 13 years ago I was a teacher just trying to help some kids pass algebra. I wasn't trying to start a non-profit. I didn't even know what a non-profit was. 

Q: Can you comment on the needs of boys, especially boys of color and those from low income communities?

A: We are becoming aware that there is a need to support young men in really specific ways.  For so long there's been just a place of ignoring boys and allowing certain behaviors to be left as "boys will be boys" or "that's just the way boys are." I think that what has happened is that this has been let go for so long that young men have found themselves in a crisis. 

If you look at the prison population in the United States, 93% are men. That would tell you something is happening with men. It usually starts when they are little boys. The hyper-masculine narrative of what it means to be a man tells our boys that “this is how men act “ and if you step out of that box, then society has a good way of either pushing you back into the box or pushing you so far out of it that you don't even know who you are.

I think that the awakening of people in communities, the awakening of people around the nation and the world, is recognizing that we must start when they are younger. 

Society doesn't give our young men good tools with dealing with sadness and fear and shame and other kind of emotions. They're clear in what you do when you're angry. They're clear about what you do when you're happy. So if you don't fit in happy or angry, what do you do with the other emotions? Usually it comes out as anger. If somebody embarrasses me, I may feel sad. But I don't know how to deal with sadness. I know what anger looks like. Thus, everything is converted to anger. Or I just pretend like it doesn't matter, then I get checked out to the world.

Source: www.ambergristoday.com

Then how do young men deal with this? They isolate and experience quiet desperation – “no one cares about me”. They begin to self-medicate, self-fulfill those feelings of not being a part of the group - drugs, alcohol, rampant unprotected sex, gangs. They exhibit so many different behaviors to cover up their feelings that they're really trying to figure out. How do I deal with this real feeling? The documentary, "The Mask You Live In," which was done by The Representation Project, is about American masculinity and how society is shaping our boys. 

Q: Can you describe what kind of activities you do in Ever Forward Club? 

A: There are many activities and curriculums being created to support young men to promote their healthy well-being and social-emotional development. In Ever Forward, we believe that our young men need a safe space to talk about what's going on in their life and to know that any part of themselves that comes out of their words, their heart, is part of them and that's okay. If we give them tools with dealing with the real and the true part of themselves, then we are giving them more space to be fully themselves and they're not pretending to be somebody else. 

Source: Ever Forward Club

Our meetings start off with a simple check-in - your name and how are you doing right now on a scale from one to ten. If we're going to start a meeting, we should know where they are right now. If any one comes in below a seven, we're going to check in further with them. There's a way for them to self-select whether they want people to ask them questions. They can come in and fake it every day -“I'm a nine”- and know nobody's going to bother them.  But if they say “six”, we're like, "Hey, what's up? Why are you a six? What's happening?”  They are then able to indicate "I need somebody to talk to me about something." 

Our young men have a hard time asking for help. I have a hard time asking for help as an adult male. I still struggle with this. If I can't do it by myself, then maybe something's wrong with me. Once our young men feel the safety of that circle, it's really powerful for them because they know that every week I get to check-in with them. It doesn't just stop in the week. During the week, they're building a brotherhood that lasts longer than just the week, but the weekly meeting is like the big piece that helps them through that. 

Once we get check-in done, we often play a game. Usually there is some competition. For young men, competition is really huge. Sometimes it's not really about the game- it's really what happens during the game. Somebody might break a rule, cheat, or make up their own rule. Then stuff comes out. Somebody might get mad, start yelling, or call some names. When this energy comes out that is when we can help teach them. 

"Taking Off the Mask": Working with School-Age Boys

By Sam Piha

What does it mean to be male? There are many messages that are absorbed by boys and young men - some of which are useful and others that are destructive. 

When Ashanti Branch was a teacher in Oakland, he recognized that boys and young men needed a place to explore this. He left teaching and founded the Ever Forward Club. “At the Ever Forward Club, we believe that all young men have the desire to be fully alive – to be loved, respected, held in high regard, held to high expectations, held accountable for their actions and supported to help achieve their goals.” - Ever Forward Club Website 

In 2014, the Ever Forward Club partnered with The Representation Project to develop the documentary, “The Mask You Live In”. (The Mask You Live In follows boys and young men as they struggle to stay true to themselves while negotiating America’s narrow definition of masculinity. Experts in neuroscience, psychology, sociology, sports, education, and media also weigh in, offering empirical evidence of the “boy crisis” and tactics to combat it.) See the trailer below. 

We invited Mr. Branch to serve as a speaker and workshop leader On October 17, 2017 as part of our Speaker’s Forum series. 

We also recently conducted a video interview with Mr. Branch asking him about his views on the needs of boys and young men and how we can serve these needs in afterschool. Below are some of his responses.

"Taking Off the Mask": Working with School-Age Boys with Ashanti BranchOctober 17, 2017 in Oakland, CA

“I think that after school programs are becoming aware that there is a need to support young men in really specific ways. This is coming out of this idea that for so long there's been just a place of ignoring boys and allowing certain behaviors to be left as 'boys will be boys' or 'that's just the way boys are.' I think that what has happened is that has been let go for so long that young men have found themselves in a crisis. 

Society doesn't give our young men really good tools with dealing with sadness and fear and shame and other kind of emotions like that. They're clear in what you do when you're angry. They're clear about what you do when you're happy. So if you don't fit in happy or angry, what do you do with the other (not so positive) emotions? Usually it comes out as anger. 

Everything is converted to anger or I just pretend like it doesn't matter, then I get checked out to the world. 

They isolate, many feeling that ‘no one cares about me’. They begin to self-medicate, self-fulfill those feelings of not being a part of the group - engaging in drugs, alcohol, rampant unprotected sex, gangs, etc. Many of these behaviors are about  the need to cover up the feelings that they're really trying to figure out. How do I deal with this real feeling?

The afterschool space gives us a space to help our young men know that, ‘You're valuable. You may not do so good in your bookwork, but you've got a lot of skills.’

The afterschool system works because it allows for some students to get a taste for something else, to get to see how good they can be at something that's not going to be marked as a grade. Their creativity is not going to be taken away and crushed when somebody tells you, ‘your drawing is not according to the rubric’. Afterschool just provides a safer space. 

That's what we're trying to do in Ever Forward. We're trying to do more work around the social-emotional development of our young men, teaching them to be social-emotional leaders, so that it doesn't just happen afterschool. It happens all day long.”
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Ashanti Branch is Founder and Executive Director of The Ever Forward Club. Ashanti works to change how young men of color interact with their education and how their schools interact with them. Raised in Oakland by a single mother on welfare, Ashanti left the inner city to study civil engineering at Cal Poly – San Luis Obispo. A construction project manager in his first career, his life changed after he tutored struggling students and realized his passion for teaching. In 2004, during Ashanti’s first year teaching high school math, he started The Ever Forward Club to provide support for African American and Latino males who were not achieving to their potential. Since then, Ever Forward has helped all of its more than 150 members graduate from high school, and 93% of them have gone on to attend two- or four-year colleges, military or trade school.


The Ever Forward Club was featured last year in the documentary, “The Mask You Live In,” which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. After completing a fellowship at the Stanford d.school in 2016, Ashanti, stepped away from working for a school district and began working as the Founding Executive Director for Ever Forward-Siempre Adelante, in an effort to grow the organization to serve thousands of Bay Area students. In April 2017, Ashanti was awarded a fellowship from the national organization CBMA - Campaign for Black Male Achievement.

The Importance of Gender-Based Programming for Boys, Part 2

By Sam Piha

There's an emerging trend in afterschool to focus on the needs of boys,

Ashanti Branch

especially boys of color and those from low income communities. Ashanti Branch, Founder and Executive Director of Ever Forward Club, is a former classroom teacher and a strong advocate for boys. He appears in the feature film documentary entitled, The Mask You Live In. Ashanti is also featured in the History of Afterschool in America documentary where he makes the case for gender-based programming in afterschool. Below we continue our conversation with Ashanti about the needs of boys. You can view part 1 here. 

Q: Do you think it's helpful to develop programs that are gender based? 

A: There is a huge need to have separate gender groups for the work that the young men need to do by themselves; for the work that young women need to do by themselves. There needs to be safe space for them to come together and learn about healthy relationships, healthy conversations, and building community together.

What I realized was that our young men need a space where they can be not only held to high expectations, they can be given high support; that this is an environment where, as a mentor, I can push them the way that I need to push them and they do not worry about how it looks to other people in the room.

If young men are not learning how to be young men in a healthy way, then how will they learn how to be young men in a group with young women? They need to figure out, "How do I be? How do I work in this world?" The world is expecting you to act a certain way. We don't put them in a box. We say, however you show up and however you are, you're perfect. But how do we help you learn tools? To navigate and communicate in ways that are different - not just based on who we are and how we are raised. I think it's really important. 

As a teacher, I've seen students who are smart, who do their homework on the sly, then they goof off and talk back. Then you recognize it - they're trying to code switch. Many boys think they can't let their friends know that they are a freaking 4.0 student. I had one youth who dressed in clothes four times bigger than his body.  For four years of high school, he was valedictorian. But he knew that what he had to do and luckily he had it in him - "I'm going to take care of my business while I still fit and feel cool with my homies". Most don't have tools like that. 

Source: Ever Forward Club

Q: Can you say something about afterschool and school-day environments?

A: Afterschool programs allow young people to say, "Look, the day is over. I'm tired of pretending that I like whatever they were talking about. Now I get a space to just be free." In afterschool, we have the space to help our young men know that they are valuable. "You may not do so good in your bookwork, but you've got a lot of skills.” I think that afterschool programs allow youth to get a taste for something else, to see how good they can be at something that's not going to be marked as a grade, or not going to take their creativity and crush it because somebody told you that your drawing “is not according to the rubric”.

Many of our schools today are not engaging, exciting or fun. Unfortunately, school still looks like it did 100 years ago. I think schools are maybe one of the only industries that are operating as it did 100 years ago and still expect to be successful. We have a system where you show up, you sit down, you listen, you do what the teacher says, and you go home and hopefully you can regurgitate it when they give you a test.

How do we make sure that not only the afterschool people know how to support young people, but we also take those skills and help teachers integrate those into their classroom? I think it's important that both happen. I believe that it should happen all day long. Teachers should be educated in how boys learn differently than girls in a safe way so that teachers can make sure that they're providing the type of education that's going to reach all of their students. That's what we're trying to do in Ever Forward. We're trying to do more work around the social-emotional development of our young men, teaching them to be social-emotional leaders, so that it doesn't just happen afterschool. It happens all day long. That's what we're really excited about.

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Mr. Branch, born and raised by a single mother on welfare in Oakland, California, took the road less traveled to get out of the ghetto and attended one of California’s premier engineering colleges, California Polytechnic - San Luis Obispo. After tutoring struggling students, he realized his true passion was teaching. In 2004 as a first year teacher, Ashanti started The Ever Forward Club to provide a support group for African American and Latino males, who were not achieving to the level of their potential. Since then, The Ever Forward Club has grown to serve both young men and women and become a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. 


Ashanti was awarded with a Fulbright Exchange Fellowship to India, a Rotary Club Cultural Ambassadorial Fellowship to Mexico and a 2010 Teacher of the Year Award from the Alameda-Contra Costa County Math Educators. Mr. Branch is on a mission to change the way that students interact with their education and the way schools interact with students.

Emerging Issues Impacting Afterschool

By Sam Piha

There are many emerging issues that impact afterschool programs as well as a wealth of articles that focus on them. How do we keep up on reading about issues that you are interested in? Below are some articles and resources arranged by topic. We invite you to click on those that are most relevant to your program. 

YOUTH WHO EXPERIENCE HOUSING INSTABILITY: Housing instability is linked to chronic absenteeism, lower graduation rates, and higher suspension rates among students. Affected students were also disproportionately Latinx, Black, and English language learners.

• At Least 2,600 Students in San Mateo County Schools Have Experienced ‘Housing Instability,’ Stanford Study Finds
• Housing Instability and Educational Outcomes of San Mateo County Youth
• Serving The Needs Of Housing Insecure And Foster Care Youth: An Interview With An Afterschool Innovator (LIAS Blog)

DECLINING SCHOOL ENROLLMENT: “Kids miss school every day and always have—often for good reasons. But school leaders around the country say they’re struggling with a wave of chronic absenteeism that’s worsened over the course of the pandemic.” 

There are lots of factors, ranging from COVID-specific illness and family disruption to students who have just fallen out of the habit of regular attendance. And while current statistics are scarce, educators say the empty seats don’t make it any easier to get schools back to normal.” – Mark Bomster, Ed Week

• Where Are All the Kids? 4 Things to Know About the Current Absenteeism Crisis
• We Must Focus on Equity as California Tackles Declining Enrollment

YOUTH AND GRIEF: There is a growing awareness of the importance of emotional regulation, social emotional learning, trauma informed practice and healing centered engagement. However, it is important that we understand more about the needs of youth who are grieving or experiencing loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic (deaths and illness, as well as the loss of “normal”), the opioid crisis, the rising gun violence and the racial violence that is plaguing the country.

Source: Ed Week

• Pandemic Prompts Grief Support in Schools | Quick Guide
• Hidden Pain: Children Who Lost a Parent or Caregiver to COVID-19 and What the Nation Can Do to Help Them
• LIAS Blogs on Grief
• Responding to Grief and Loss in Afterschool Programs (Speaker’s Forum Recording, 96-min)

THE NEEDS OF BOYS: There's an emerging trend in afterschool to focus on the needs of boys, especially boys of color and those from low-income communities.

• Are We Facing a Mental Health Crisis for Boys?
• America’s Boys are in Serious Trouble. Schools Can Help
• LIAS Blogs on The Needs of Boys

COVID AND THE MENTAL HEALTH OF CHILDREN AND TEENS: In our work with young people, it is important that we think about the many ways they may have been impacted by COVID-19. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), "Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) can affect adolescents directly and indirectly. Beyond getting sick, many adolescents’ social, emotional and mental well-being has been impacted by the pandemic. Trauma faced at this developmental stage may have long-term consequences across their lifespan."

From the very first waves of school closures and lockdowns in 2020, the pandemic significantly damaged children’s mental health in ways teachers are still coping with and researchers are still struggling to understand.” – Sarah D. Sparks, Ed Week

Source: Ed Week

• Teen Mental Health During COVID: What New Federal Data Reveal
• New Research Shows How Bad the Pandemic Has Been for Student Mental Health
• LIAS Blogs on Young People’s Mental Health
• COVID-19 and Young People's Mental Health: How Afterschool Can Help (Speaker’s Forum Recording, 101-min)

AFTERSCHOOL WORKER SHORTAGE: Recruiting, hiring, and retaining afterschool workers have been longstanding issues. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit—and these issues were greatly exacerbated. They had resulted in programs closing, drastically reducing capacity, and adding stress to afterschool workers. Many of these challenges are not unique to the afterschool field- they are being experienced by those in education and a wide range of fields. We know that the issue of staff shortages is not new to veteran afterschool program leaders. However, we felt it is important to summarize what we know in the time of COVID-19.

The most pressing problem facing afterschool is the nationwide shortage of workers.” – Michael Funk, Director of CDE Expanded Learning Division

• After-School Programs Are Low on Staff, Leaving Students Unsupervised and Underserved
• California Childcare Workers Struggle to Survive
• LIAS Blogs on The Afterschool Worker Shortage
• Responding to the Afterschool Worker Shortage (Speaker’s Forum Recording, 113-min)

YOUTH INVOLVEMENT IN CIVIC ENGAGEMENT: According to the Afterschool Alliance, “The afterschool field is an essential partner in ensuring that all children have the ability to participate in immersive, relevant, and hands-on civic engagement opportunities.” Not only are civic engagement strategies participatory strategies, they contribute to the positive development of youth and the health of our democracy. 

• Learning to Lead: The Impact of Youth Organizing on the Educational and Civic Trajectories of Low-Income Youth
• Youth Civic Engagement and Activism in Expanded Learning Programs
• LIAS Blogs on Youth Civic Engagement
• Youth Civic Engagement and Activism in Afterschool (Speaker’s Forum Recording, 115-min) 

The Importance of Gender-Based Programming for Girls

By Sam Piha 

Lynn Johnson, Co-Founder/CEO of Spotlight: Girls, is a long-time champion of youth development and a strong advocate for girls. She is also featured in the History of Afterschool documentary talking about the need for gender-based programming in afterschool. Below are some of Lynn’s responses to our interview questions. 

Q: Why do you think it is helpful to develop gender-based programs in afterschool?  

Lynn Johnson

A: I know that there's a lot of controversy around gender-specific programming. But this is so important because we are not often looking at where inequity comes in in terms of gender in our schools and our communities. Girls are doing pretty well in school academically and graduating at higher rates than boys. So we're getting girls through school, but we're not really preparing girls for life.

Gender-based programming is important because girls are asking for it. They say they need that space to feel safe. Boys need it as well, and there's a lot of talk about that. There's a lot of great programs out there for boys, especially boys of color.

Q: Can you describe what you consider is important in serving the needs of girls? 

A: One thing that we know for sure, because there's been a lot of people doing research and talking to girls, is that girls really feel the need for a safe place. Many girls that say there aren't safe places for them to really “be”, to connect with others, and learn new skills. Girls have a very deep and complex emotional experience, so how do we give girls the skills to understand all of their emotions, understand that their emotions are okay, and then know that they can make behavioral choices separate from their emotions?

All of us who've been in the youth development field recognize the importance of social-emotional learning and non-cognitive skills. And that's exactly the type of skills that I'm talking about. Girls, no matter who they are, what they do, what they look like, or who they love, they need to be seen for themselves and be told, "You are just right as you are." They deserve a quality youth development space where they're learning those skills to say, "Here's who I am. I'm okay no matter who I am, and I get to figure out how I'm going to take this personality in all different situations." 

Girls are often so pigeonholed into, "You have to be a good girl, otherwise you are a bad girl. You have to be a certain way.” It's really hard for girls to burst out of that bubble. Perfectionism sets in and it really holds girls back. It's about having the courage to overcome all challenges, and our girls don't necessarily have those skills. Our girls are suffering rates of depression at a lot higher rate than boys. Our girls are at greater risk of being a victim of all kinds of assault, of being a victim even of bullying. There's so many things that girls are dealing with internally. Girls are kind of imploding, and we don't quite see it because they're still doing well in school. We need to take care of girls on the inside.

Q: Why is the afterschool setting a good place to accomplish this?

A: The most important thing in serving girls in afterschool is to focus on giving girls their own safe space. It's not realistic in a public school for girls to have that separate safe space. That's why afterschool is a really important setting. We can give girls a space and time in a club or in some sort of program for them to have that place where they feel safe. Also, we can offer girls opportunities for programs that they're not necessarily traditionally involved in like STEM, coding, sports and other areas where girls have traditionally been left out of the conversation. 

Source: Spotlight: Girls

At the same time, I don't think that STEM is the only thing that we should be focusing on exclusively. We need to give girls the social-emotional skills to understand their own emotional experience. They have to understand that they can be angry and upset by something, but then understand that they can make, still, a calm and confident choice behaviorally. All of those things are skills that can be taught and can be applied to any kind of content area, whether it's STEM or arts or sports or anything. I get worried when we focus too much on girls in STEM and not on their emotional experience and the skills they need to succeed in any field.

Afterschool is about old-school youth development, which includes promoting social-emotional learning and non-cognitive skills. [See Youth Development Guide 2.0]. We want to create a safe space for young people to really learn socially, learn collaboratively, learn who they are in the larger world, learn new skills while understand their own sense of growth and progress so they can really take up space as leaders.

Afterschool is the perfect place for young girls to be learning about robotics and for young girls to be learning how their bodies are so powerful as athletes and all of that. At the core it's not just about academics. It's about, "How do I, as a girl, in a safe space, understand who I am, understand why I might be feeling resistant to new experiences, why I might be resistant to certain fields of learning, and understand how to move through those areas of resistance, how to say yes to new things." Afterschool gives you that space, that time. 

Source: Spotlight: Girls

Q: We have been introduced to a number of new concepts, like growth mindsets, grit, social emotional learning, etc. Can you comment?

A: Another important way that afterschool is such an important environment for girls' learning is informed by the research on “growth mindsets”. Girls really suffer from perfectionism. We see this across the board- across race, across socioeconomic groups. Girls are really often stuck in this need to do it right, do it the right way, not look stupid, to not make a mistake. It holds girls back from really, as we say in our program, take center stage and try something new. This research around growth mindset, around this idea that we don't come to a situation with a particular talent, per se, that we get to learn and grow, and we get to go, "Oh, I'm getting there. I'm getting better at something. I get to try something, make a mistake, and try it again." This is really important for girls.

In our Go Girls program, one thing that's at the heart of our culture is this idea that, as girls, we celebrate making mistakes. We have a whole thing about that. There is a whole culture where we, as adults, we're modeling like, "Oops, I made a mistake. Let me figure out how I can learn from that mistake and get better and grow." To me, that is really at the heart of a learning experience, especially for a girl, "How do I get out of what I'm told I'm supposed to be and just try to look imperfect for a second and do something new?" That's a really crucial area for afterschool and girls' learning.

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Lynn Johnson is a visionary entrepreneur, speaker, girl advocate, and Co-Founder/CEO of Spotlight: Girls – a certified B Corp that inspires, educates, and activates girls & women to take center stage. Lynn serves on the National Advisory Board of Teaching Artists Guild, the Board of Directors of the How Kids Learn Foundation, and the Alameda County Commission on the Status of Women.