THE TEACHERS ISSUE
and be exceptionally good at educating boys for a new era, the school needed to double down on that which defines it— our boys and our teachers.
We also knew that in an increasingly competitive market for students and, even more so, for faculty, we had to invest more of our resources and strategic attention in faculty compensation and professional development opportunities to continue to attract and retain exceptional teachers. To do this, we decided to create professional development opportunities that allow teachers to engage in research— to make more room for science to inform the practice and pedagogy of teaching boys. Over the course of seven years, we created what has become our signature strategic program— the Teaching Boys Initiative at Saint David’ s School( TBI)— and a robust and rewarding mission-aligned professional development opportunity for teachers.
CREATING A FRAMEWORK By creating TBI, we sought to institutionally embed under one umbrella three core pillars of professional development: mentormentee and ongoing summer grant programs, supervision and evaluation of teachers, and the incorporation of research. TBI’ s primary goal is to reinforce a professional culture at Saint David’ s that cultivates and promotes research-informed, evidence-based best practices in teaching and learning for boys by supporting teachers in developing the knowledge, skills, habits, and dispositions necessary to be exceptional teachers of boys. In 2018, we began investing more time and resources in our professional development program, gradually aligning existing branches and creating new pathways for faculty to pursue and secure research grants.
First, we started to build a framework for best practices in teaching and learning for boys. To help us with this work, we engaged Phil Cummins and Brad Adams of the Center for Innovation, Research, Creativity and Leadership in Education. The framework would be our guide to ground all future thinking. Our director of teaching and learning, Jamie MacNeille, was the lead administrator for TBI and worked with our newly formed TBI Think Tank, which was made up of senior administrators, faculty, junior administrators, and parents. Together they examined current research and thinking in academic fields associated with teaching— philosophy, psychology, sociology, cognitive science, neuroscience, pedagogy, and curriculum design and development— and informed the framework’ s construction.
To support teacher inquiry into the theoretical underpinnings and practical applications of the pedagogical approaches in our framework, we also began developing a professional wiki— a database of synthesized research by our own teachers and by researchers worldwide on how best to teach boys and how boys learn best in all disciplines, subject areas, and across the developmental spectrum.
In spring 2022, we published our Framework for Best Practices in Teaching and Learning for Boys, featuring three domains:
• Professional: In pursuit of professional excellence, we model intellectual curiosity, moral introspection, scholarship, creativity, and an appreciation for the aesthetic and the athletic.
• Relational: Great teaching starts with intentional learning relationships between teachers and students that balance scholarship and creativity with high expectations and clear standards. Through these relationships, we show boys how to become“ good men” who recognize their capacity for spiritual experience, embrace difference in all its manifestations, and adopt a broad perspective and strong moral values.
• Instructional: Instructional design is how we create intentional learning experiences that result in the acquisition and application of competencies— the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and learning habits that will help our boys become young men of ideas and ideals, action, and reflection, who are ready to excel in school and beyond.
LAUNCHING ACTION RESEARCH With the framework as a guide, we rolled out an action research pilot program in collaboration with the International Boys’ Schools Coalition. Action research, unlike academic research, is conducted by teachers within their own classroom settings to achieve deeper understanding of their practice and to produce answers to a pedagogical issue or question that can be brought back and implemented immediately with students. This work tests theory in classroom contexts while contributing new insights to the field.
53 %
of schools with more than 500 students offer employees access to wellness programs.
Source: NAIS Snapshot on Staff and Faculty Benefits, February 2025
82 | Summer 2025 Independent School | nais. org